REA's, please lift your game, just a little will do

[allmine]

Hi all, a bit of a winge for you.
I know a lot of REA's read this forum, so please offer me a reason for the following complaints.
1. Properties advertised with "Investment" in the title, so as a potential IP buyer, I open the add, and there is no $ values for rates, body corp or even rent earings.
2. Send REA an email (via web page or own web page) with the above questions. Get either not all the answers or none at all.
3. With no answer I think, well, sold, OK. Then I see the same add next week?
4. What I do get is spam from them of all the adds they do have, mostly with out my questions answerd. Funny bit is, once I asked about a place at 499k, got spamed about a place at 4,990,000.00. Humm, yer right!
5. Those REA's that have got back to me, at least 1/2 have said "not to sure" or "about $x.00"

Now I would have thought this one would be easy.
6. Have you been managing this property, hows the occupancy, hows the demand for rentals etc. But this seems to be to hard, "oh, I have to find out".

Funny thing is, yes I know we are all gilty of not enough time, so email's can be over looked, but most of these adds say to "email for information", and yet, I get a lack of response.

And now for the best bit.......
A phone call from my partner to an REA asking for the address of X Y and Z potential IP's in nice small regional town. This was followed by with an explanation of either a friend driving buy, or me with googles help to have a look. No sorry, we don't give out addresses.
WHAT THE???
Then another call with more prompting got us a street name, no number.
Then I look at the oppositions web site, and there it is, an address. No prizes for guessing who will be the likely winer of my business.
Imagine how many cars a saleman would sell if he didn't know what the engine was, or where it was.
I know this is not the case all the time, but the places I have bought or nearly bought, have been an ordeal. And now we are looking for another IP or 2 and PPOR, it is just a pain.
It would be nice if the REA's got together and had a standard of info presented to us potential buyers, especialy for IP's.
I feel better now, thanx...............

 

[ianvestor]

Consolation allmine, may come from Dolf de Roos who said if it's difficult for you to buy it, then it's also difficult for your competition (i.e. little competition), so those crap REAs are actually a gold mine if you're willing to go through the difficulty.

 

[josko]

Allmine,

That is also one of my pet hates. I have also noticed that some suburbs are worse than others. For instance, it's like all of the realestate agents in a particular area all get together for a coffee and say,

"Let's not put any information on the internet, no addresses, no rent, no land size, so that we are bombarded with phone calls."

It suprises me too, that a realestate agent does not know how much their listed property would rent for.

On the matter of agents, I actually made an offer over the phone, site unseen, to an agent in Redcliffe who would not except my offer because I had not physically visited the property.

He said in all his time of realestate he had never had an offer from someone who had not physically seen the property. He was an older guy.

I told him he was missing out and he had better get used to it. I also reminded him he was under obligation to present all offers to his client. To which he replied he would let his client know, but would advise her not to take it seriously.

Regards Jo

 

[wylie]

I emailed an agent a few weeks ago to ask what a house sold for in the same street as a property we have. I explained that I had emailed him previously when it was on the market (to which he replied) and that I now wondered what the house had actually sold for.

I had told him that if we got a great offer, we would consider selling this place.

Haven't heard back .

All I want is a sold price (which I can easily get anywhere) but I thought that in the climate right now, he might be interested in a possible listing.

 

[BayView]

To be fair, there are a few r/e's with intergrity and care for the customer - a few.

It's all based on how busy they are with selling.

Plenty of sales and activity - they prioritise between the most likely to sell down to the least likely to sell - in their mind.

No sales and little activity - they won't leave you alone.

I used to work in that caper for a very short time; had this crazy idea that after 20 odd years of teaching golf that r/e would be a refreshing change .

The Principal's wife, who was also his partner, wouldn't even talk to the Vendors after an Open For Inspection.

She never said why, but you could read the body language - she found them tedious and annoying, and would get around to ringing them - whenever.

Unless there was an actual sale made, and she would then call them with glee.

Operative word:

MONEY

 

[HandyAndy888]

I have been very disappointed with REA recently..very crappy service. It actually came across as "we don't want your business."

 

[ianvestor]

Going against the trend here, but I got a call a couple of days ago from the REA that sold me this ppor 6 months ago... Just to say hello, congratulate me on my wedding, and to make sure I still like the place.

 

[Jon Chown]

Hi Allmine, I am sure that you are not the only person who has been frustrated by the experiences gained while buying or selling property. Let me assure you that the frustrations are felt on both sides of the ledger. (Agents who may not deserve it so often cop abuse from prospects who have pent up frustrations from previous bad experiences).

There is no excuse for the lack of civility that is present in truckloads in the property market, my belief is that many of the complaints can be contributed in part to a lack of understanding of the Act that Agents are expected to adhere to but a greater factor is the inherent lack of trust that people have of ‘Salespeople’ in general and Agents in particular. I am not sure that this is going to change any time soon.

I know a lot of REA's read this forum, so please offer me a reason for the following complaints.

I will do my best to cover some of these – other Agents may have different views.

1. Properties advertised with "Investment" in the title, so as a potential IP buyer, I open the add, and there is no $ values for rates, body corp or even rent earings.

The purpose of an advert is to not to try to sell the property but to stimulate enquiry. Without actually talking to a Buyer, we can not ‘sell’ them anything.

2. Send REA an email (via web page or own web page) with the above questions. Get either not all the answers or none at all.

There really is no excuse for lack of professional communication and all questions should be answered. Let me return this complaint with one in return. Once you have had a reply to an email do you send a thank you reply? Or do you like the majority of people just disappear into the ether?

Allow me to expand on this. The majority of our email enquiries come from Realestate.com via the contact agent link. We get so many of these each week to which we answer, only to never hear from the enquirer again, consequently I must confess to becoming somewhat blasé about them. When I look back on my years of selling experiences the one thing that stands out with the majority of the successful sales is the fact that the Buyer Prospect treated me with a friendly, enquiring, trusting and respectful manner to which I obviously responded in like manner. Over the years, I have made so many friendships and these are the experiences that keep me in this industry.

3. With no answer I think, well, sold, OK. Then I see the same add next week?

I can’t explain this apart from ‘slack agent’. Have you tried phoning again to make an appointment to view? If this does not work, try another agent in the same office (or the Principal).

4. What I do get is spam from them of all the adds they do have, mostly with out my questions answerd. Funny bit is, once I asked about a place at 499k, got spamed about a place at 4,990,000.00. Humm, yer right!

This is usually and automated response and possibly done by the office because your details have been included in a Buyer Prospect list to which you will get updates of all new listings no matter what price. Lets face it most Buyers complain about never being contacted again after the first contact – at least they are attempting to rectify this common fault. It needs tweaking though.

5. Those REA's that have got back to me, at least 1/2 have said "not to sure" or "about $x.00"

The first two questions we always get are “How long has it been on the market”? and either “How much is it”? or “Are they negotiable on price”? Good agents should know how to answer and respond to these questions. No excuse here.

6. Have you been managing this property, hows the occupancy, hows the demand for rentals etc. But this seems to be to hard, "oh, I have to find out".

Most sales agents will have very little to do with Property Management and hence will know or understand little about it’s functions or history, however if the property is managed by the agency there is little excuse for not making some general enquiries prior to marketing the property.

And

And now for the best bit.......
A phone call from my partner to an REA asking for the address of X Y and Z potential IP's in nice small regional town. This was followed by with an explanation of either a friend driving buy, or me with googles help to have a look. No sorry, we don't give out addresses.
WHAT THE???
Then another call with more prompting got us a street name, no number.
Then I look at the oppositions web site, and there it is, an address. No prizes for guessing who will be the likely winer of my business.

While I agree that the Agent in question handled this enquiry poorly, this is a classic example of why good professional agents will not take on OPEN LISTINGS. I have been guilty of trying to help prospects in the past by giving out addresses only to find on follow up call that “Oh Jon, you wouldn’t believe it but when we drove past, there was another agent there so we just went in with him/her and we loved the property and bought it. But hey Jon thanks for you help, you were great”.

Wylie says:
I emailed an agent a few weeks ago to ask what a house sold for in the same street as a property we have. I explained that I had emailed him previously when it was on the market (to which he replied) and that I now wondered what the house had actually sold for.

I had told him that if we got a great offer, we would consider selling this place.

This is a very good example of the publics lack of knowledge of the Property Act that governs us as Agents. The problem here is that if an Agent advises a Buyer prospect that a property might sell if the price is right without a signed Form22a (Vendors authority to sell) and the sale goes pear shaped and the Prospect reports the agent to Consume Affairs – automatic loss of licence for Agent.

I hope that the time I took to reply to this interesting post is not wasted, although I’m equally sure that there are many on this site who will never get over past experiences and are destined to suffer repeat results.

 

[wylie]

Hi Jon.

I am curious about your reply to my comment. Has this changed recently? Ten years ago, Ray White office would not bring anybody around to a house we wanted to sell "at the right price". We were undecided about whether to sell or not. In the meantime another local agent brought buyers through and we signed the appropriate listing form a minute before signing the contract.

That contract fell over because of finance issues (not to do with our sale) and the same agent brought another buyer through (she already had sole agency by now) and sold it.

Meanwhile Ray White kept ear bashing me about auctioning and $2K to $5K advertising budget (yeah right!!). If they had bought a buyer around they would have made such an easy sale.

Perhaps the rules are different now.

I would have thought that this chap I emailed would at least have called me (he had called me once and knew we were "in the market" if the right prices were being thrown around). I had (in the previous phone call) explained the reasons why a sale now would benefit us tax wise so he knew our position.

Perhaps he thought we were tyre kickers, but as fate would have it, tenants will move out in a month and we will get some agents around to see what sort of money we are talking. Seriously, this chap will not get a look in.

Are you saying that unless we sign a sole agency with him, he cannot give us an idea of what he thinks would be an appropriate sale price? I am sure you are not saying that, but when he has a seller who is unsure whether to sell or not, shouldn't he be following us up?

 

[Jon Chown]

Hi Wylie,

Unfortunately when trying to explain an issue with the written word, it is somewhat difficult to cover all aspects of the situation.

What is Leagl and what is sometimes done are two different things. I guess that it depends on just how far you want to push the boundaries or how much risk an Agent is prepared to take.

In the situation that you mention the Agent who bought the Form22a along with the contract for you to sign was definately taking a risk and could have lost their licence had anything gone wrong(Let me tell you it doesn't take much to go wrong for a complaint to be made).

I guess from most sellers point of view, this is the agents problem but with litigation going the way it is today any Agent who has long term aspirations for their job would have second thoughts as to taking on this type of risk.

Are you saying that unless we sign a sole agency with him, he cannot give us an idea of what he thinks would be an appropriate sale price? I am sure you are not saying that, but when he has a seller who is unsure whether to sell or not, shouldn't he be following us up?

Obviously - 'NO' and 'YES' He should definately have followed up with you, perhaps he has missunderstood your comments. I can advise that I often hear people make comments such as 'We would sell if we got $x for our home when the Agent might believe that real value is $x minus $50K for instance - still no excuse for not doing the work necessary to assist the Seller understand real market value.

 

[allmine]

Thanks Jon, nice work.
To be fair, I did know that not all REA's are like this, but I have had to report one to the REA instute, to find out they had already been reported.
To answer your question, yes I have replied to REA's when they reply to me. I just offer a brief comment, but guess that is all that is needed. By the way, I just looked through my Emails to check my self to.

Presently, I am bobbing around in the Nth Sea, so phone calls tend to be difficult, now is when I have the time for my reasearch. Email is my only option. If it is real interesting, I'll call when home.

I guess because I have had such great service from my PM for 13 years now, it balances out. I can recomend The proffessionals in Edge Hill, Cairns.

I also must confess that my 1st REA experience made be so angry, now this is 100% my own doing here not blaming anyone else, but I was in my early 20's, 30k in my pocket, 30k 4wd, 1991. Figure I wasn't happy with my present living arangements, so I walked into a REA in Southport, SE QLD, and asked about a 80k, 1200m, 3 brd, old home with a big shed in the back. This was just off Queen st. I asked this chap who wasn't happy about being disturbed from his sat morn papper, "how do I go about buying a house as I have no idea? I am interested in house X", well he simply said "houses cost a lot of money you know".
I should add I have a reading difficulty which was worse then it is now, so reading books was out.
Now that comment devistated me at the time, I said that I had the 30k saved up and just wanted to know how to go about it.
So yes my fault here, I got angry, said nothing, walked out before I ripped his head of and sorted his office out with a cricket bat.
Being the stubon type, I gave my self a 3 month lavish holiday and spent every cent. Hick?!?
Now that same block has multi level appartemnts on it.
So yes, I should have knocked on someone elses door, but that just did my head in. I gave up, it kind of stuck with me if you know what I mean.

With IP adds, way I see it, if the property was such a great Investment, well show us then. I am now starting to see it as being similar to a "Get Rich Confrence", all hype, little substance. Then the adds where they are giving the numbers in a simple list format, it is there because it is a good buy.
But I guess it is like most things now, shortage of qualified staff.
Sorry for the long winded story here. I look forward to buying our new PPoR soon, and I'm trying both agents advertising the same place, see who give the most professional response.

 

[wylie]

Thanks Jon. My mum had only just retired from selling real estate so probably the reason I may have been given different service to "regular" vendors may have been because the agent was somebody I knew very well personally.

But the Ray White people I knew just as well, and they were so busy banging on about "auction, auction, auction" they missed out completely.

My mother was a highly respected agent, phoned EVERY person who came through an open house and was highly ethical. She was still getting calls from previous vendors and buyers years after she retired. So I know there are good ones out there, and not wanting to "bash the agents".

Having a mother who was extremely good at it, perhaps just makes the bad ones stand out more.

 

[natmarie73]

Hi all, a bit of a winge for you.
I know a lot of REA's read this forum, so please offer me a reason for the following complaints.
1. Properties advertised with "Investment" in the title, so as a potential IP buyer, I open the add, and there is no $ values for rates, body corp or even rent earings.

This is my pet gripe. If they are selling an IP why would they not put in the current rent amount so prospective buyers can at least do a basic calculation of income v interest payments before wasting $$$ on a phone call to the agent's mobile phone which they don't answer anyway.

 

[Dazz]

....why would they not....

Surely that's not a serious question, and as you say, it's just a gripe.


The Vendor's agent has not the slightest interest in reducing a prospective Buyer's phone bill.

 

[Jon Chown]

Wylie,
Thanks Jon. My mum had only just retired from selling real estate so probably the reason I may have been given different service to "regular" vendors may have been because the agent was somebody I knew very well personally.

I'm guessing here but I think that the penny has just dropped. If your Mum is from the old Ray White then, I knew your mother very well and not only was she one of the great Agents in Coorparoo, she was a pleasure to do business with. Say hello to her from me please.

 

[Piston Broke]

The purpose of an advert is to not to try to sell the property

Now that's a cracker! Where did you learn that?
And how much do sellers pay for this wonderful service of "marketing & advertising" not intended "to sell the property"?

With few exceptions most RE agents are interested in nobody but themselves.
The arrogance comes all the way from the top, the REIA, and breeds through to the bottom.
But it is no different from many other services either.

While I agree with the other points (Jon), most just cant shake that "hard sell" "get the customers (buyers & sellers) mind right" attitude from the 80's.

 

[Jon Chown]

Yes PB, it doesn't read the way I ment it, but i'm sure most people got the inference. I'll try again - Properties don't sell from ads, the purpose of the ad is to spike or create interest and encourage the reader to phone for more information. If all information is given there is no need to call. I have never yet had someone say that ad is great and I want to buy the house can I come in and sign a contract now?

Have you ever seen those ads that say basically 'pug ugly on the outside but do yourself a favor and have a look inside' Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Prejudge and you may miss out.

 

[wylie]

I'm guessing here but I think that the penny has just dropped. If your Mum is from the old Ray White then, I knew your mother very well and not only was she one of the great Agents in Coorparoo, she was a pleasure to do business with. Say hello to her from me please.

Snap Jon. I told her last night that you had picked who I was and she said that you were a lovely man, a real gentleman, and asked me to send her regards.

I think sometimes that estate agents often get put in the basket with stereotypical flash, brash, gold chain wearing car salesmen. I know a car salesman and he doesn't even own a gold chain .

I suppose I get defensive about agents because I know a lot of them personally, and like every profession, I know there are some less than great ones, but the majority are just trying to earn a living as honestly as the next person. Emotions run high when vendors and sellers are trying to get a bargain, or get the best price, so it is obvious that in many transactions one may feel they have been cheated and the poor agent gets the blame. Similarly, when a vendor gets a great price the lucky agent gets the kudos.

It is a fine wire agents get to walk.

All those who are bagging agents, have a think about the attitude you have and whether you bring that attitude to the open house? Would you want to deal with yourselves?

I know my mother loved her job, loved helping people but there were a few stories about horror vendors or buyers, and a small number who treated her like a second class citizen. I know one couple who poured and drank some wine during negotiations while my mother sat at the same table and was not offered anything. That is just plain rude. Lucky most buyers and sellers are decent, but just like agents, there are some crook ones out there.

 

[evand]

Agents waste a lot of time with tyre kickers. The biggest tyre kickers of all are the ones emailing from the RE sites. It takes no effort and therefore no qualification to make a quick enquiry via email on re.com.au.

It takes a bit more effort to call an agent to enquire about a property and therefore that enquiry is a bit more qualified.

Again, it takes a bit more effort to actually drop into a RE office and have a chat about a particular property....you get the picture.

I suppose the RE sites offer the email facility as a hook to get agents to sign up without caring whether the enquirers are well qualified or not. But thats not our problem. If the facility is there, everyone is going to use it.

I had a friend in the property madness that was 2000-2003 that would send out about 10-20 email enquiries per day for properties from all parts of Australia. She had a tough criteria re yield, etc and hardly ever got a decent reply.

She was copy & pasting and the agents could tell. I dont use the email link anymore as i hardly get a reply.

As an added comment. Most of the agents i have come across and known arent really professional sales people or marketers. They usually were a panel beater or council worker or something last year and now a real estate agent. Thats a big part of the problem.

Therefore they wouldn't know how to qualify a prospect properly if it fell out of a tree on their head.

They bring everyone to properties in the hope that one out everyone visiting will want to buy rather than qualifying them properly in the first place and this takes up a lot of their time. Hence, they are not big on customer service (satisfaction).

The RE industry loves to bring people from outside the industry and train them in their ways which also sort of causes this problem.

Now, there is a reason for this but i'll give others a chance why this happens and then i'll comment a bit later.

 

[evand]

Wylie,

Its not that there are a few crook agents. The problem is the industry is crook. That is why all property is sold the exact same way with little variation and thats why pretty much all agents are the same and act the same.

They are all trained by an inherently dishonest system.

Lucky most buyers and sellers are decent, but just like agents, there are some crook ones out there.