The rental market

ugo.santalucia

Wakey wakey

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-55331081

This has been going on for decades... it gets even worse, when agencies refuse to schedule viewing appointments with potential customers with a foreign accent... I had to endure that crap for years... I call... nobody calls back, then my wife calls and she gets a call back within minutes.

It is no coincidence that Trump chose real estate to make his money... it's a rotten market

thistle_

ugo.santalucia said:

Wakey wakey

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-55331081

This has been going on for decades... it gets even worse, when agencies refuse to schedule viewing appointments with potential customers with a foreign accent... I had to endure that censored for years... I call... nobody calls back, then my wife calls and she gets a call back within minutes.

It is no coincidence that Trump chose real estate to make his money... it's a rotten market

I think it's quite a widespread problem. When I moved for my first job several lettings agencies cancelled appointments with hours notice after I'd already travelled over for them, one took all the application fees etc. from me then let it to someone else a week before I was due to move in and didn't even bother to let me know.
I'm white and British and not on benefits so I suspect other people get treated far worse than I did.

I ended up with a new build apartment but there were so many issues with the place I felt sorry for the neighbours who had bought and were struggling to sell. Even though they're no longer new (15 years old now) the rent is about 50% higher.

Stay at home.
Save money.
Buy a fixer upper.

coopster_the_1st

Yawn!

It's mostly a lack of respect/competence of the Estate agency sector. You get some good ones, many average ones and some really poor ones. When I was renting I experienced most of what you list.

When buying a house, the agents always go on the emotional response of the property of the woman, as they know that is driver for the decision making.

On the housing benefit exclusion, it's simply risk management from the person who owns the asset.

david37

I've only had a little experience of renting but when i did I can say absolutely that the letting agents were beyond rude. To the point i went to visit and made him stand there and apologise in front of the whole office.

like a little turd from the apprentice.

ole.gunar509tLS-G_Yq

Not my experience though and I speak with a foreign accent too. I had been renting for a couple of years before buying a house, and both the agents and the landlords were all great. To the point, they helped me to find a new house when I severly flooded the previous one. When I was looking for a property to buy in 2015, I dealt with quite a number of local estate agents, here in Cheshire, and they were all very quick to respond to my enquiries and very polite. The property I actually ended up buying, appeared on Rightmoves on a Saturday morning, so I called the agency on the spot to arrange a viewing, which they managed to schedule for the Monday, and it all went very smooth from that point on. Maybe I was just lucky.

The only thing that annoyed me was that the estate agents/letting agencies always put up photographs of the property made with a wide angle lens so the rooms/surrounding appear to be twice as spacious than what they really are, but you find out only once you visit the property. So only after a couple of disappointing visits you learn to expect everything to be sized way down.

Cargobike

The whole of one side of the extended family are in the property game, housebuilders, estate agents and conveyancers.

To a T, every single one of them are morally defunct toss-pots.

Two of them, the builders even ripped my parents off for over £100k on a restoration project 25 years ago. I haven't spoken to either of the f*ckers since, yet my old man paid them every penny they asked for.

However, it's made me realise that nothing is good and proper without it being put in writing first, right down to the last saw cut and hammered nail. You want my money, I'll make you earn every single penny

Luckily, I haven't had too many dealings with agents. Two of my house purchases have come about by sticking letters through the letterboxes of houses I've been interested in and dealing directly with the owners, helped by being able to cash buy, while the first house I ever bought was an auction "special", literally four tumbledown walls and not a lot else.

As for renting, I never deal with agents, private landlords every time and made some friends for life through it. I always push hard for as big a discount as I can get, but pay 6 to 12 months upfront on the nose. That way everyone knows where they stand.