What annoys you about estate agents?

[AJSanderson 10]

I am looking into starting a local estate agency, covering most of Barnsley/Sheffield/Rotherham.

 

I am looking for what annoys people about estate agents and what can be improved.

 

The two things that I think really need to be improved are price and opening hours.

 

I just find it ridiculous that most estate agents still don't open evening and weekends. That is when people are most wanting to get in touch.

 

Price wise, I will look to seriously undercut other agents. Instead of charging 1% plus vat with most minimum fees well over £1000. I would be looking to charge a fixed fee of around £400 or so everything in.

 

Please let me know what else annoys you about estate agents.

Edited September 22, 2014 by AJSanderson

[owls101 10]

They tell lies

[d71146 10]

There does need to be some new blood in South Yorkshire regarding Estate Agents,some of these range in my view tell fibs,are smarmy,to downright condescending and expensive for what they actually do.

Only yesterday I was thinking of posting on SF asking if anyone has any recent positive experience of local agents who could be recommended.

So anyone new starting up with fresh ideas on Estate Agency would be on to a winner in this area.

Just my personal view though.

[MartinT81 10]

Fees are the main reason why I've found customers coming to me, but customer service and recommendation has helped to sustain and increase my business too.

 

Opening hours... I receive emails at all hours of the day, I know I've even seen attempted calls in the small hours of the morning but they're usually enquiries about viewing a house or a question that'll be sent via an email, if it's a property owner that lives there, they're usually more than happy to fit in with whatever the viewer wants to do. I'd agree I found it hard work when I wanted to rent a house a couple of years ago, I found most estate agents wouldn't be available at any other time other than in the middle of the day in the mid-week which at the time was pretty useless to me, so for that reason I usually make myself available for such accompanied viewings towards the end or beginning of the day. (Ie 8am-6pm). If you wanted more coverage, the answer would probably end up being a bigger bill, I'm sure the estate agents that have 8 or 9 offices open on such a basis fully staffed probably need that kind of fee to cover their costs, one that I worked at on the high street some years ago needed 25k pcm just to cover their costs, (so we were told anyway).

 

TBH - I don't think I'm worth thousands per house sale. As an example we sold a house in Broomhill recently for £600k in a weekend. Had she have used one of the usual names, she'd have paid a whopping 5-6k for the privilege. We took some decent photos, got it on Rightmove/Zoopla, buyers rang up after seeing it, we arranged some viewings within a couple of days and had it under offer straight away. Standard fee for that is £540 inc VAT from us, plus a few bits she wanted as extras (Virtual tour, Premium listing on Rightmove). Is that REALLY worth 1% and VAT?

[AJSanderson 10]

There does need to be some new blood in South Yorkshire regarding Estate Agents,some of these range in my view tell fibs,are smarmy,to downright condescending and expensive for what they actually do.

Only yesterday I was thinking of posting on SF asking if anyone has any recent positive experience of local agents who could be recommended.

So anyone new starting up with fresh ideas on Estate Agency would be on to a winner in this area.

Just my personal view though.

 

My fresh ideas would be quite simple:

 

1) Cost approx £400, everything in no hidden extras, not quoting everything plus vat. Just an honest £400.

2) Opening until 9pm 7 days a week.

 

That will be my aim, if I can pull it off we will have to see.

Edited August 30, 2014 by AJSanderson

[TimmyR 10]

I use the online ones, they can be a little distant but the extra cost to use the high street ones in no way justifies the benefit of having a shop you can walk into. And I'm sure the high street ones can ignore you just as much.

Edited August 18, 2014 by TimmyR

[geared 318]

There's little point in high-street estate agents now, you might have a look in the window as you pass but it's too much hassle going inside.

 

Rightmove/Zoopla are the places you go when you're looking for a place, and I'd imagine the smaller/cheaper agents will get a much larger share of the market from sellers and people letting.

 

No-one's going to want to pay several thousand pounds on their house sale when you can get the same service for well under a grand by an independent fella.

[Localboy 10]

I've bought and sold using both online, and traditional estate agents.

 

The main difference in using online ones rather than traditional ones is that the traditional ones will really help you push the sale over the line. The online estate agents, while generally the cheaper option, have an upfront payment meaning that they already have your money and the traditional ones only get their fee when the sale completes.

[MartinT81 10]

The upfront fee seems fair enough to me, at the end of the day the legwork getting things listed, visiting time, IT/Tech equipment required to get things online properly, subscription costs for the major property portals and all the associated legalities, logistics, staffing etc. do cost money. That said, asking for ALL of it upfront is as the earlier response says, why bother if they've got all your money already.

 

We don't make anything until it's sold, so the other part of the fee is plenty of incentive as far as I'm concerned to get it sold, not to mention the pride in knowing that you've done a good job for a fraction of the price it might have been elsewhere. Splitting the cost upfront and at completion seems like a fair and sensible compromise as far as my customers are concerned.

 

Good luck with the business model, we've been operating since 2006 with myself looking after this area for over 2 years now - there's way more competition now in low cost estate agency with a new name popping up every week as well as the usual names and corporate estate agencies looking for ways to get rid of agents charging lower fees. I think the key is still being realistic with your fees/costs and offering what the customer asks for, which is why I think we've been able to maintain and build a successful alternative for sellers. I've worked at other agencies where a culture of customer service would be way down the priority list behind the money coming in and whilst I accept it's impossible to get it right every time, it should be a goal to try and achieve it. Repeat business is crucial as far as I'm concerned, so better to be be open about what's happening and try to make sure any areas where people have had problems have been addressed.

 

Our business model also relies on a lot of behind the scenes tech that saves our business time and money, which is also crucial to being able to offer low fees whilst still delivering the service customers expect, something that not all agencies have invested enough in either.

 

---------- Post added 18-08-2014 at 18:34 ----------

 

Geared - I'm always thinking the same about fees - surely why would anyone pay thousands yet the likes of Haybrook, Browns, Blundells have the market share in this area. I had a rental customer in for signing up who'd sold with a corporate agent charging nearly 2k - she'd had a fairly rough ride, nothing too sparkling in terms of service and I helped push the sale a bit because I wanted her in our rental property and needed a date for them moving. They were amazed (and gutted) that they could've had us do the same job for a fraction of the fee. Thankfully more people do seem to be doing a bit of online research now looking at reviews and costs before choosing now, I just wish more people would rather than accepting it'll cost however much they've been quoted.

[PPNSheffield 10]

Opening evenings and weekends would be great... Having people attending viewings that dont have any information about the property is annoying... I told one person that I was looking for buy to let properties and her response was "oh we dont do them" - If the owner of the agency knew she would make a comment like that I doubt he would be too impress

 

Best of luck with the new venture Check out my propertyn networking event, its the place to build contacts in the Sheffield property world...

[aliceBB 10]

Lack of professional competence and common sense. One of them 'helped' my elderly mother fill in a Property Information Form and the number of ridiculous basic errors in it was shocking. I know she should have checked it carefully before signing it, but she trusted them to do it properly as it was their job.

 

For example, they ticked 'No' to the question 'Is the property connected to mains water and sewerage systems', even though it patently is, they said it had a woodburning stove (which it didn't) and that the conservatory was new (which it wasn't). All these things caused queries to be raised by the purchaser (demanding certificates which were not in fact needed, etc), which held matters up quite unnecessarily.

[AJSanderson 10]

Thanks for comments everyone.

 

From my feedback I am finding people are more bothered about opening times and honesty than competing on price. Please comment either way which would be your preference.

 

I find both buyers/sellers are wanting to contact estate agents after work on an evening or at the weekend. Would you say that is very important for you?

 

A regular complaint I find is agents are not displaying their prices. Or the ones that do there are a lot of hidden extras eg everything is plus vat, or they charge extra for basics such as a for sale sign. Is this the case for you?

 

Please keep the comments coming it is very helpful.

Edited August 21, 2014 by AJSanderson