Estate Agents in Sheffield

[Lemony 10]

Bidding on a house with infamously horrendous Blundells and after putting in an asking price offer they told me it would go to closed bids soon and they would 'keep me informed should anything else happen', but today during second viewing of the house I was told that the house was already sold that same morning. So much for being 'kept informed'.

 

Don't trust them.... What a pity they're the biggest estate agents in Sheffield. I guess if we all stayed clear of them, things might change? I'm going to try and get a house with somebody else. Anyone care to join me in boycotting them?

[meumeu77 10]

I understand how you feel as a similar thing happened to me with them last November. I was heartbroken then and it took me a week to get over it. But I got over it and quickly found another house just as good and not with them.

You will get over it, plenty more fish in the sea and all that. Just make sure you don't even consider any other house viewing with them again. And happy househunting!

[Bobbyo 10]

Sadly when you're buying you have to live with the agent that the vendor picks....A cursory glance at this forum would suggest that Blundells and Saxton Mee are both best avoided. If you're selling your house take note.

 

Why don't more people advertise their houses for sale via this forum? Seems to me like there might be less hassle and heartache all round if they did....

[Lemony 10]

I'd be happy to buy from Forum members who seem the sanest people in this good city! We could divide the agents' fee between us... Good to hear that there's more houses (fish) in the sea.... will certainly try to avoid the Sharks in future.

[Amanda1 10]

Hi, sorry to hear about your bad experience with Blundells. I sold my house through them in September and they actually worked very hard for us, arranging 4 plus viewings per night,and achieving a good final selling price for us in little over a week. This was important to us as we were dependent upon this sale to buy our new house.

 

I have heard it said before that Blundells are great for the Vendor (probably due to the fat fee that you pay them), but bas**rds to the purchasers.

 

One of the reasons we went with them was that they promised a quick sale and also dominated a huge percentage of sales in the area in which we were selling (Walkley). It was the Hillsborough office who sold our house.

 

Hang on in there and view as many houses as you can. The right one will come up, and you'll know it when you see it.

 

Good luck.

[WTAW 10]

I'm afraid we have experience of Blundells on both sides of the coin.

We put our house for sale with Blundells and then proceeded to offer on another house for sale with Blundells. They badgered us into accepting an offer from a buyer and then when it came to the crunch with the house we were offering on they went to best and final. At the time we had the best offer in and as we had accepted an offer on ours we couldn't afford to go much higher. We lost out to a higher offer , my husband was furious with how they handled things because of the inconsistency. Needless to say we didn't sell in the end because we were so mad.

[Amanda1 10]

They do have a bit of a reputation! I know that they deliberately undervalued our house in Walkley to get viewers through the door, (which worked) and also meant that the price did get pushed up through people bidding against each other! It was good for us, as we got a great price but I did feel a bit sorry for the viewers.

[Lemony 10]

But don't you think it best to have less viewings and be able to talk people through the house, etc. 15 min is not enough for viewings, for example. All the houses blur into one at the end and if you can't remember, you don't go back to buy. Also, less viewings but people who can actually afford the house. It's pointless having all those people around your house if 98% of them won't make it to best + final because the price has gone through the roof and people who can afford to pay more won't look at your house because they expect it to be shabbier than it really is.

 

I still think that Blundells are in it for themselves. My feeling is that we got pushed out even if we were ahead of the other buyer (with mortgage promise, etc) because the other buyer was going to get a deal through Blundell's financial advisor (they told me the guy had filled in his mortgage application in the branch!)... Estate agents like that make more from the 'financial advisor' cut than from the sale. That's why the fee is flat and why they don't want our money, even if we had more to spend.

[Amanda1 10]

Yeah, you're prob right. Although we did have 13 offers on our property and I think people are generally wise to Blundells tactics of undervaluing so all of our offers were for significantly more than the asking price.

 

We used our own independent financial advisor, Rob Burns of Capital Tower, Lound side, Chapeltown. He was a pleasure to deal with and I would recommend him.

 

We bought our current house through Saxton Mee on Ecclesall Rd, wasn't too impressed with them either.

 

Maybe the smaller agents like Jump, Winkworths, Spencers are better to deal with?

 

I've heard Haybrooks are ok, but we felt that they over valued our last house and we thought that might put people off.

 

I hope you find a nice house soon.

[Bobbyo 10]

I agree Lemony. Nothing personal Amanda, but it's Karma and if you use those tactics as a vendor (or allow your agent to use them) you will get shafted 1 day when you're looking to purchase.

 

I don't know of any major city where this kind of sharp practice is commonplace...

[Amanda1 10]

P.s I think its generally up to the vendor how long the viewings are. We allowed half an hour per appointment and we were always happy to do second viewings.

[Amanda1 10]

As someone who's not experienced in buying/selling we had 3 valuations on our house. These were Blundells, Saxton Mee and Haybrooks. Blundells gave the best sales pitch, and offered us the best package. They were the only ones who were able to commit to selling our house in less than a fortnight which we needed to secure our new house. I'm sorry, but if you really want something, then you do what it takes to get it.

 

Our decision was not about tactics, or ripping people off. We got a good, but fair price for our house and could have got higher if we'd have been greedy and left it on the market for longer.

 

We went against Blundells advice and didn't go to closed bids as we knew that this would p*** people off.