Are auctioneers really that busy?

[Complainer]

Why not just pick up the phone? If you're serious about a property, then there's no reason not to just ring the agent with a list of prepared questions. Agents are always going to be that bit more receptive and will provide a better feel for a property when confronted over the phone (or better yet, face to face) about a property.

If agents provide an option to be contacted by text and email, and then ignore contacts through those channels, they are being unprofessional.

If I were selling, I'd be doing a bit of 'mystery shopping' contacts to the agent to see how well they respond before choosing my agent.

 

[nai]

This is utterly realistic. I can guarantee you that any service provider who manages to reply to each and every email & text within 2 hours is not doing much work apart from replying to emails and texts.

I presume you mistyped here and wanted to disagree with me ....

I still stand by my response - it doesn't have to be a personal response - it could be an autoreply - just something simple stating that you have received my email and will respond within 24 hours or something would do - no response is akin to sending a mail down into a black hole and just leaving the sender hanging is bad business

 

[PaddyBloggit]

I plus what nai says.

Any company that has a website and contact details up and fails to repsond to email requests aren't up to much.

Companies fail to grasp the importance of a web presence and the importance of keeping in contact with that web presence when they have one.

Auto responders are easily set up.

I do a lot of my requesting via email .... it works well for me. I move on from any company that fails to respond by email to me especially when their contact form encourages me to contact them!

 

[DeKi]

A close friend of mine is an EA so I feel able to respond to some of these very narrow minded statements...EA's have lives outside of office hours too. I know in her case she works every sat durning the year and is often late/misses other commitments as a result of her work. I worked in her office during the summer months and could not believe the amount of time wasters she had to deal with. Genuine people phoned the office and had a concise list of what they wanted to view. Others asked to see houses only to say "I dont want a fixer upper" etc while at viewings when it was clear on the brochure/photographs the house needed work. The comments about times are hard and they should do it at any given hour can be applied to any industry...so those who are making them should consider working till 7 or even later and giving up weekends. I guess I have seen it from the other side of the fence and really those with the really narrow minded comments and bad attitudes should make life easier for themselves and 1. Narrow their search criteria down 2. study brochures 3. list the suitable properties from that 4. Drive by each property 5 shortlist and view. You have also to remember the EA has to report to each seller after each viewing..the last thing you want to be branded is a time waster and risk not being taken seriously when you find the dream home!! I (sold) and bought a house last year and found the experience quite painless..I got to know the agents I met and 4 out of 5 were friendly, helpful, professional...