Friend or Foe?

I promised that I would write about estate agents, and I always want this to be a place of honest information but I also don’t want this to be a negative post. I’ll begin by saying some estate agents live up to the stereotype of being out for themselves and difficult to deal with; others are super helpful and want to do a good job. The bottom line is that anyone you deal with when buying a property (or really in life) has their own agenda and something they need to achieve. With estate agents that is to find buyers for properties on their books and sell to them for the highest price they can. I am sure there are those who also want to help people find their perfect new home too!

As we started our search, we found properties to view and booked in with the corresponding agent. Some offered private viewings, but most offered to book us onto an ‘open house'. This meant we could go along at a set time and view the property, often with other buyers looking at the same time. This wasn’t something I enjoyed and believe this method is used to secure a sale in a weekend at an inflated price. Walking round a property that others are viewing at the same time gave me a sense of anxiety and competition if you like the property. I felt I could easily end up offering more than I normally would, just to bat away the competition. The agents use this to their advantage too, by building up any bids by suggesting that others have made an higher offer. Luckily I had Steve and my Mum around to keep me grounded and I didn’t make any outrageous bids. I really had to remember not to get swept up in the ‘hype’ created and be realistic about what we wanted and could get for our money.

We dealt with a plethora of agents, from the standard high street brands to start up companies and online only agents. As with most businesses, there are levels of quality and care between them but what I felt most interesting about our search was how online agents work. There are plenty of new agents springing up online, and they deal with viewings, offers and sales from a distance as they are not often based near the properties they sell. This means the cost for the vendor is reduced, which as a buyer you can play on when bidding for a property as you know the vendor doesn’t have a big agent fee to pay so might drop the price a little more than they would otherwise.

When I booked into view Number 1 I had to chose 3 options on time and days I could view, this was then sent through the agent website to the vendor who could pick their preferred time slot. We also put in our offer and re-offer via the site and it stored everything to the username and password that I had set up. This really suited me as I work online a lot and felt that it was far more efficient than the endless to’ing and fro’ing that high street agents do to secure a booking. I was also intrigued to meet the vendor.

I would recommend getting to know the vendor if you have the opportunity to. Some friends of ours became very friendly with their vendor, who left their new home in perfect condition with labels on everything to give an understanding of what their were and did! Vendors have owned your new home, and they know where everything is as well as what is missing so having them onside is so valuable. We were able to email the vendor about the property simply by asking for his email address at the second viewing. This meant we could discuss the sale via email as well as through the agent, ensuring that conversation was appropriate for each purpose. I wouldn’t recommend emailing the vendor relentlessly if they were to reject your offer.

After our viewing we were contacted by the agent who pushed for an offer, but at the early stages contact was limited to this. In later stages, I was speaking to the agent more as there was discussion about searches, entry to the property for our surveyor and the speed of the process. My experience of the service was reasonably good. With every property purchase I think there will be some hiccups, but I felt ours ran more smoothly than most, for which I am grateful!

Image | Matt Jones via Unsplash.com