Tuesday, April 12, 2005

Escaping The Estate Agents From Hell

The estate agent called me yesterday to see what the problem was, the conversation was short and to the point and went something like this.

EA: What's the problem?

Me: We want to discuss this face to face, you need to either be available on Saturday Morning or come out and see us.

EA: Not possible, what's the problem?

Me: You gave us a quote stating 12 weeks minimum contract and no cancellation fee, then got me to sign a contract for 16 weeks and £300 cancellation fee which I couldn't read before signing because I was meeting you during my lunch hour and you were 40 minutes late. I want the contract changing to 12 weeks with no cancellation fee.

Silence....

EA: Do you want to take the house of the market with us?

Me: Yes.

EA: It's done.

Silence

Me: Goodbye

EA: Goodbye

We're glad they didn't try to sort things out because we would have just been stuck with them for another 7 weeks with no likelihood of any viewings let alone a sale. We made the mistake of selling through them because we were going to buy our new house through them and it would have made things easier. At the time we didn't realise just how small a company they were, how little advertising they did and that their web site is impossible to find through any search engine.

We won't be making the same mistake again, we're not looking at any house now so we can go with who we like, which will probably be one of three that have boards up on our road at the moment. Before we sign up though, we'll also be asking more questions than they've ever been asked before so we know exactly where we stand before committing. Hopefully, with the right advertising and a propper discussion about the price to ask for instead of holding a finger in the air, we'll have an offer before too long.

We're both feeling more up-beat now we've got rid of the estate agents from hell and it's renewed our determination to get the house ship shape in readiness for more than one viewing in five weeks.

Paul.

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