Ausvisitor Posted February 17, 2022 Share Posted February 17, 2022 I was always under the impression that UK lettings agent where a certain form of low life that only existed in the UK. I now realise I was unfair to them, they are perfectly decent human beings compared to their Sydney equivalents. I'm bringing forward buying a house just to avoid dealing with these absolute charlatans. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Marisawright Posted February 17, 2022 Share Posted February 17, 2022 The ones who sell real estate are just as bad 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Toots Posted February 17, 2022 Share Posted February 17, 2022 14 minutes ago, Ausvisitor said: I was always under the impression that UK lettings agent where a certain form of low life that only existed in the UK. I now realise I was unfair to them, they are perfectly decent human beings compared to their Sydney equivalents. I'm bringing forward buying a house just to avoid dealing with these absolute charlatans. Totally agree. I have bad memories of the agents we used a couple of times when we rented in Sydney years ago. Low lifers was my description of them. What a relief when we bought our own house. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Marisawright Posted February 17, 2022 Share Posted February 17, 2022 48 minutes ago, Toots said: Totally agree. I have bad memories of the agents we used a couple of times when we rented in Sydney years ago. Low lifers was my description of them. What a relief when we bought our own house. Funnily enough, I never had any problems when I was renting in Sydney, which I did in several places. Whereas i came across so many sharp characters when I was buying at various times. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Toots Posted February 17, 2022 Share Posted February 17, 2022 9 minutes ago, Marisawright said: Funnily enough, I never had any problems when I was renting in Sydney, which I did in several places. Whereas i came across so many sharp characters when I was buying at various times. The agents when we bought in Sydney then here in Tassie were very professional - the purchases went like clockwork. Can't complain about either of them. Hopefully we will never have to go through selling and buying again though. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ali Posted February 17, 2022 Share Posted February 17, 2022 We've only bought one house here and the agent was fabulous, know it was our first purchase (only been here 2 weeks) and ensured we knew what everything was, at the inspection prior to completion she turned on every tap and flushed each toilet, turned on the gas, lights etc., to make sure everything was working. We've been her 15 years and get a Christmas card from her every year. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ausvisitor Posted February 17, 2022 Author Share Posted February 17, 2022 1 hour ago, Toots said: Totally agree. I have bad memories of the agents we used a couple of times when we rented in Sydney years ago. Low lifers was my description of them. What a relief when we bought our own house. They are so vacuous and money grabbing it really annoys me. Saw one we liked and the agent asked about pay slips, said haven't got any at the moment, they pretty much ran out of the building. On the way out, they asked us what we thought, we said it wasn't a patch on the property we had just sold in London, suddenly the lack of payslips was not an issue, they'd love to broker an application for us... Absolute bottom feeders ... 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ramot Posted February 17, 2022 Share Posted February 17, 2022 23 minutes ago, Ausvisitor said: They are so vacuous and money grabbing it really annoys me. Saw one we liked and the agent asked about pay slips, said haven't got any at the moment, they pretty much ran out of the building. On the way out, they asked us what we thought, we said it wasn't a patch on the property we had just sold in London, suddenly the lack of payslips was not an issue, they'd love to broker an application for us... Absolute bottom feeders ... My daughter has been renting in the Paddington and Woollahra area of Sydney for over 8 years, never heard her criticise them as much as your post, photos are however another story! When we first moved to the Sunshine Coast we were basically shown properties that had been on the market a while, apparently the theory was that as we were new to the area, they might get a sale. We then had a fantastic agent when we bought our house. Hope you find somewhere you like. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rammygirl Posted February 17, 2022 Share Posted February 17, 2022 When we first rented in Aus we had a lovely agent who was very professional, fair to both us and the landlord. Needless to say when we needed an agent to let our Aus property when we were in UK . She was top of our list! We even followed her when she moved agencies. These people are like gold. I would still use a local family agency over a national franchise any day. Some good ,some bad like any profession. 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest AltyMatt Posted February 17, 2022 Share Posted February 17, 2022 We were lucky that after a year of renting the strata fees in the building jumped up so much that the owners decided to cut out the agents and deal with us direct. We stayed in the property a long time (too long in hindsight) as the owners were such great landlords. We just bought a place and we engaged a buyer's agent to get it done - we were so sick of the BS and games being played by the selling agents. Whether that be massively under quoting, lying about time on market, etc Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Blue Flu Posted February 17, 2022 Share Posted February 17, 2022 (edited) Too often, speaking on a general level, at least in my local experience ,Unsavory and not to be believed and too often faciliatory in not taking action (in the very least) with certain activities not conducive to the public good. At best, simply don't want to know and a recent example seems to be wash and repeat. Edited February 17, 2022 by Blue Flu Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DIG85 Posted February 18, 2022 Share Posted February 18, 2022 (edited) Estate agents are fine if you know how to play their game, and no worse than their UK counterparts imo. What I have never understood is why they are called “Real Estate Agents” out here - surely it’s quicker to just say “Estate Agent”. Another odd thing is that they are sometimes abbreviated in casual conversation to “Real Estate”, as in “the Real Estate told me that the vendor wouldn’t accept an offer below X”. To me, the Real Estate is the property itself, not an individual. Edited February 18, 2022 by DIG85 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
beketamun Posted February 19, 2022 Share Posted February 19, 2022 On 17/02/2022 at 20:14, Ausvisitor said: I was always under the impression that UK lettings agent where a certain form of low life that only existed in the UK. I now realise I was unfair to them, they are perfectly decent human beings compared to their Sydney equivalents. I'm bringing forward buying a house just to avoid dealing with these absolute charlatans. The last house we bought here, the real estate guy turned up in three different BMW's during the course of the sale....they have made an absolute fortune in the last 12 months with the rocketing prices and I expect a lot will be retiring early. They are on a different level with the marketing over here though, rapid to get to market, strict advice on how to present the property, professional photographs, drones for the listing videos, open homes with multiple staff to deal with the hassle, they push hard to get the sale, you get the surveys done in advance so they're ready for viewing at open home. It's a totally different experience, and if prices have risen 40% in a year they are going to be going all out to grab those sales margins. Contrast to selling in the UK which i've just arranged. The Estate Agent is really nice, he takes his own photo's with a phone camera (they're crap) , was warning that the process will take 16 weeks from offer acceptance, was wondering when they could send people round alone for viewings, wasn't fussed about the house presentation. He nearly fell off his chair when i said in Australia we're expected to complete within 30 days, or less at an auction. They did try and reform the UK process to speed it up a few years ago but it's still very basic and undeveloped. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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