Lots of agents will ignore email enquiries if they don't include a number (especially if inspection times are advertised). Some agents will send automated/generic replies to emails but decent agents should be on the phone pretty quickly if you include a number. If you really want them to get back to you, tick the box that says you own your own home (i.e. they will want to know if you are selling) and you might also start getting prospecting calls from them every few months.
Real Estate Agents Unreliable
- Thread starter mwac
- Start date
Lots of agents will ignore email enquiries if they don't include a number (especially if inspection times are advertised). Some agents will send automated/generic replies to emails but decent agents should be on the phone pretty quickly if you include a number. If you really want them to get back to you, tick the box that says you own your own home (i.e. they will want to know if you are selling) and you might also start getting prospecting calls from them every few months.
Thought I might contribute here.
I hate calling this one REA company - Macquarie Real Estate based in Casula NSW. All of their properties show barely anything, and never the address. I hate bloody calling the landline and speaking to Selina the bloody receptionist. Poor Selina must copy **** from everyone. All she does is take details down... and rarely do I ever get a call back. ok ok rant over.
Onto the next one. An REA from Ray White SW Sydney region is shocking. Checking the ad, it didnt show any open house inspection proposed dated, decided to call the REA today to see if I can make an appointment to view the property. Was "blessed" to hear that there is an actual open house today.... Felt like the stars aligned and drove 45minutes to the property only to be greeted by the REA stating that the vendor has cancelled the open house... At the time I wasnt feel that shitty, but now upon reflection. what a dead set ******! another rant over ffs
I hate calling this one REA company - Macquarie Real Estate based in Casula NSW. All of their properties show barely anything, and never the address. I hate bloody calling the landline and speaking to Selina the bloody receptionist. Poor Selina must copy **** from everyone. All she does is take details down... and rarely do I ever get a call back. ok ok rant over.
Onto the next one. An REA from Ray White SW Sydney region is shocking. Checking the ad, it didnt show any open house inspection proposed dated, decided to call the REA today to see if I can make an appointment to view the property. Was "blessed" to hear that there is an actual open house today.... Felt like the stars aligned and drove 45minutes to the property only to be greeted by the REA stating that the vendor has cancelled the open house... At the time I wasnt feel that shitty, but now upon reflection. what a dead set ******! another rant over ffs
I often wonder why my calls don't get answered or an agent doesn't get back to me once i leave a message.Sure some of these agents are getting phone calls from either Tyre kickers, someone putting in a low ball offer, or first home buyers with no finance sorted. They are receiving calls out of the standard 9-5 hours as this is when most people are browsing the net ! but please, its a part of the job! that doesn't cut it though... if you want the sale, make the effort
my experience with REA;
REA are ALWAYS out of the office when you phone, so reception 'has to' take a number to call you back on. They then use this to spam you, even 6 years after you have bought a house and phoned them multiple times to be removed from their lists.
You have to call their office no less than twice (usually four times across a two week period) before they will give you a call. After all, if you don't call four times, you can't be serious.
When they do finally call you back, it is usually 20 seconds after the receptionist tells you they are out of the office -they of course, call you from the office land line when they ring.
Once you make a serious offer, they will start to take you seriously on other houses as well, so they may even answer your direct call to their mobile, and if you're lucky, they'll even give you notice of houses before they go to internet ad (in fact, that is how I got my PPOR - we didn't enter an auction with 3 others over the phone for 2 weeks as we were 'forced' into with other houses I bid on)
I do hope others have had a better experience with REA, but I have only one from ~50 I dealt with at some level that I could respect enough to use in the future when I sell/rent our current PPOR.
My experience has been experienced by my sister in law recently when she was buying her first IP as well - so it's not just me in my area.
As a side note, I know two people that wanted to be REA, after a few months, they both were told they needed to lie more, they both refused to lie and they were told they won't ever succeed in real estate and terminated. One was told this ~40 years ago, the other was ~10 years ago.
REA are ALWAYS out of the office when you phone, so reception 'has to' take a number to call you back on. They then use this to spam you, even 6 years after you have bought a house and phoned them multiple times to be removed from their lists.
You have to call their office no less than twice (usually four times across a two week period) before they will give you a call. After all, if you don't call four times, you can't be serious.
When they do finally call you back, it is usually 20 seconds after the receptionist tells you they are out of the office -they of course, call you from the office land line when they ring.
Once you make a serious offer, they will start to take you seriously on other houses as well, so they may even answer your direct call to their mobile, and if you're lucky, they'll even give you notice of houses before they go to internet ad (in fact, that is how I got my PPOR - we didn't enter an auction with 3 others over the phone for 2 weeks as we were 'forced' into with other houses I bid on)
I do hope others have had a better experience with REA, but I have only one from ~50 I dealt with at some level that I could respect enough to use in the future when I sell/rent our current PPOR.
My experience has been experienced by my sister in law recently when she was buying her first IP as well - so it's not just me in my area.
As a side note, I know two people that wanted to be REA, after a few months, they both were told they needed to lie more, they both refused to lie and they were told they won't ever succeed in real estate and terminated. One was told this ~40 years ago, the other was ~10 years ago.
Perth Real Estate & Property people - Overworked or Lazy?
I was going to start my own thread until I found this one already existed...!
In the past couple of months I have been on the lookout for another IP and the lack of interest, response and customer service has amazed me.
How do these people make an income when 80% (estimated) of my enquiries are never responded to or basically ignored? That is a lot of leads and active agent could be chasing to make another sale. Or are Perth property people so busy they don't have time to respond to new enquiries?
In the recent months I have had the following poor and good service.
1. Property in Perth south-east suburbs listed with local agent. Property was a bulldozer job, but on a R25/40 block at a good price. I called the listed agent, no answer and their voicemail was one of those leave a 10 second message and it will be sent as a TXT. So left a short message and also sent a longer TXT message to their phone. My caller ID would also been shown on their phone. The next day, I hadn't heard back from the agent, so I called the office, the agent wasn't in and the receptionist said she would pass on the message. A day or 2 later, still nothing heard from the agent, so I call the office again and receptionist advises the property is now under offer.
2. I call up another local agent in the area I'm interested in - He bills himself as the top selling local agent - After a couple of missed calls each way, we finally speak and I tell him I'm looking in the area and to let me know if anything comes up in the area. He asks me to send him an email so he can send me any info via e-mail. Nothing heard in the past couple of months, but he has been putting up new listings.
3. Call a person that is a property developer of sorts, looking to engage their services for my first subdivision project. Message left on the voicemail with my phone number given twice, plus caller ID is sent when I call. The next day, nothing heard so I send them a message via their website, again detailed on what I'm looking for and still no reply.
4. Call an agent with a block listed in northern beachside suburb. Voicemail left and my Caller ID left, no response.
On the flipside, I've had the following positive responses.
5. Out of area agent has an R25/40 bulldozer job re-listed as the last buyer was struggling with finance on the property. I call him on the Saturday, leave a voicemail and he responds on the Monday afternoon. We speak again on the Tuesday, he is busy for most of the week. I end up inspecting the property on the Wednesday with one of his junior staff he has sent along, who through no fault of their own didn't know much about the property. Fortunately he was happy to show me the file file kept by the agent which gave me some information that I might not have known. From my due diligence, this deal was a borderline profitmaker, so at the moment I've kept it on my radar to watch.
6. Was looking around Hobart for some cashflow positive, lower cost properties and emailed one agent about a confusing advert posted that seemed quite good value to be true. The agent responded within 24 hours saying he had corrected the advert so it was better understood. I sent back a quick reply to thank him for his time that I was looking for cashflow positive properties and the one he had listed didn't quite make the level I was chasing. He responded about a day later with a list of about 12-15 properties around his area (including those not listed by his agency) that I might like to look at the adverts for. Pretty good customer service, but a different market, where agents probably have to work harder.
My rant over!!!
Cheers,
Wrexy...
I was going to start my own thread until I found this one already existed...!
In the past couple of months I have been on the lookout for another IP and the lack of interest, response and customer service has amazed me.
How do these people make an income when 80% (estimated) of my enquiries are never responded to or basically ignored? That is a lot of leads and active agent could be chasing to make another sale. Or are Perth property people so busy they don't have time to respond to new enquiries?
In the recent months I have had the following poor and good service.
1. Property in Perth south-east suburbs listed with local agent. Property was a bulldozer job, but on a R25/40 block at a good price. I called the listed agent, no answer and their voicemail was one of those leave a 10 second message and it will be sent as a TXT. So left a short message and also sent a longer TXT message to their phone. My caller ID would also been shown on their phone. The next day, I hadn't heard back from the agent, so I called the office, the agent wasn't in and the receptionist said she would pass on the message. A day or 2 later, still nothing heard from the agent, so I call the office again and receptionist advises the property is now under offer.
2. I call up another local agent in the area I'm interested in - He bills himself as the top selling local agent - After a couple of missed calls each way, we finally speak and I tell him I'm looking in the area and to let me know if anything comes up in the area. He asks me to send him an email so he can send me any info via e-mail. Nothing heard in the past couple of months, but he has been putting up new listings.
3. Call a person that is a property developer of sorts, looking to engage their services for my first subdivision project. Message left on the voicemail with my phone number given twice, plus caller ID is sent when I call. The next day, nothing heard so I send them a message via their website, again detailed on what I'm looking for and still no reply.
4. Call an agent with a block listed in northern beachside suburb. Voicemail left and my Caller ID left, no response.
On the flipside, I've had the following positive responses.
5. Out of area agent has an R25/40 bulldozer job re-listed as the last buyer was struggling with finance on the property. I call him on the Saturday, leave a voicemail and he responds on the Monday afternoon. We speak again on the Tuesday, he is busy for most of the week. I end up inspecting the property on the Wednesday with one of his junior staff he has sent along, who through no fault of their own didn't know much about the property. Fortunately he was happy to show me the file file kept by the agent which gave me some information that I might not have known. From my due diligence, this deal was a borderline profitmaker, so at the moment I've kept it on my radar to watch.
6. Was looking around Hobart for some cashflow positive, lower cost properties and emailed one agent about a confusing advert posted that seemed quite good value to be true. The agent responded within 24 hours saying he had corrected the advert so it was better understood. I sent back a quick reply to thank him for his time that I was looking for cashflow positive properties and the one he had listed didn't quite make the level I was chasing. He responded about a day later with a list of about 12-15 properties around his area (including those not listed by his agency) that I might like to look at the adverts for. Pretty good customer service, but a different market, where agents probably have to work harder.
My rant over!!!
Cheers,
Wrexy...
