Most dislikeable professions

[MrMan]

But when asked " do you know someone who had a bad personal experience in dealing with an EA ? " I would suspect most people - in Ireland anyway - would say yes.

I've already stated that the response was generally no to that question. My point being many people know of a friend of a friend that got screwed by an EA who used a phanthom bid to up the price etc. Generally its unsubstantiated. i do understand that people hate to part with their money and want a bargain, but its not the EA's job to sell for as little as possible.

As Mr Man has revealed, it's something of a no-no to say "I don't know" in the EA industry and so the temptation is to lie and pretend you do. However this doesn't exclude the more reasonable "It's difficult to say with any certainty". That would be an honest answer (God forbid).

You have taken my point and twisted it to suit your argument. When I say its something of a 'no no' I mean that you are expected to have the answers or the client will lose faith, I don't mean make up the answers as this will obviously not enhance your reputation or indeed further your career, it is a small island after all.

Staples, I'm not sure what it is you expect of an EA when performing their duties, but I would say that understanding your local market is of paramount importance and that would include having knowledge beyond that bof the public domain so that you can provide educated assessments on where things are going.

However, I do not think even second hand car salemen - never mind a salesperson in a shop for example - would like to be compared with EA's though.

Heaven forbid someone would be compared to an EA, they might need counseling to get over the trauma.

In any of those years, EAs had no more knowledge of how things were going to pan out than anybody else.

EA's tend to have closer dealings with developers etc so it is plausible that they would know more about the local market than the average joe.

I would accept that in any selling occupation there are both genuine and deceitful operators. However, I believe that the functions and structures of the EA sector make this a breeding ground for the latter.

I would be interested to hear the basis of this point.

 

[redstar]

When I say its something of a 'no no' I mean that you are expected to have the answers or the client will lose faith, I don't mean make up the answers as this will obviously not enhance your reputation or indeed further your career, it is a small island after all.

I think you may underestimate what a client expects. Having been a 'client' of a EA's three times, i expected honesty, and if they didn't have an answer then let them say so, and maybe a pointer to who might have the answer. This comes across as more professional and honest than trying to b**s**t. This is true of any profession, not just EA's though.

Successful businesses usually know their clients expectations extremely well.

 

[MrMan]

I think you may underestimate what a client expects.

how so? I've just stated that we should know the answers and that making up an answer isn't the way to go. Obviously when the questions are very pointed outside of our field of knowledge i.e the structural make up of the property, most EA's will point out that only the engineer will be able to provide answers in full.

 

[redstar]

You said

you are expected to have the answers or the client will lose faith,

not that 'you should know the answers'. You expect that a client will lose faith if you do not have the answers. I disagree. How you handle not knowing the answers is the key to being classed as useless or honest.

I certainly wouldn't expect made-up answers.

 

[DavyJones]

with that revelation in the news some weeks back, where EA's were stating higher sold prices in national papers, thats blatant lying and alot of companies were doing it. It does make you think that the EA business is a bit off.

 

[MrMan]

not that 'you should know the answers'

I don't quite see how someone expecting that you should know the answers and 'you are expected to have the answers' is that different

 

[Staples]

When I say its something of a 'no no' I mean that you are expected to have the answers or the client will lose faith,

Well if you don't know something and give an answer anyway, that's a deception, whether you choose to recognise it as such or not. I'd agree with Redstar that as a client, you don't necessarily expect the EA to have all the answers. If, as you've pointed out, an EA can't attest to a property's structural soundness, why do most of them feel at ease to talk about the future values of property.

Staples, I'm not sure what it is you expect of an EA when performing their duties, but I would say that understanding your local market is of paramount importance and that would include having knowledge beyond that bof the public domain so that you can provide educated assessments on where things are going.,

I'd agree that the role of an EA should be to understand their local market but I fail to see what knowledge they have that's somehow beyond the public domain that allows to make projections that the rest of us are expected to accept.

I would be interested to hear the basis of this point.

Where to start.......

It's a largely unregulated sector even within the profession. There's no particular incentive for EA's to behave ethically. There's limited chance of serious censure.

Very often, the EA has both the seller and vendor as clients and can know how far a buyer can stretch financially. This opens the risk of the price being raised to the maximum point the buyer can reach.

Houses are imperfect products in the sense that they can't be reproduced to meet buyer demand. If there's only one "1 High Street" and there's a lot of interest, the EA can encourage gazumping (hope I've spellled that correctly) if they so wish.

The percentage based commission, IMHO, encourages greed and provides an incentive for the pursuit of dubious selling techniques.

The nature of property is such that it represents a significant outlay for most punters. Yet there is no censure for EAs who take this responsibility lightly. You don't have to go beyond this site to hear of people who were sold a valueless pig in a poke, yet the EAs can carry on regardless. Sellers of financial services are at least subject to IFSRA regulations, however weak they may be.

I'm not suggesting that the EA sector is wholly populated with chancers or that is the only sector that might attract them. My point is that it does nothing to discourage them.

 

[Staples]

[

When I say its something of a 'no no' I mean that you are expected to have the answers or the client will lose faith,

Well if you don't know something and give an answer anyway, that's a deception, whether you choose to recognise it as such or not. I'd agree with Redstar that as a client, you don't necessarily expect the EA to have all the answers but you'd expect them to distinguish between what they actually know and what they're obviously making up. If you catch them out on one point, how can you trust anything else they say? If, as you've pointed out, an EA can't attest to a property's structural soundness without referring you to an engineer, why do most of them feel at ease to talk about the future values of property without referring you to an economist?

Staples, I'm not sure what it is you expect of an EA when performing their duties, but I would say that understanding your local market is of paramount importance and that would include having knowledge beyond that bof the public domain so that you can provide educated assessments on where things are going.,

I'd agree that the role of an EA should be to understand their local market but I fail to see what knowledge they have that's somehow beyond the public domain that allows to make projections that the rest of us are expected to accept.

I would be interested to hear the basis of this point.

Where to start.......

It's a largely unregulated sector, without any apparent self-regulation. There's no particular incentive for EA's to behave ethically. There's limited chance of serious censure.

Very often, the EA has both the seller and vendor as clients and can know how far a buyer can stretch financially. This opens the risk of the price being raised to the maximum point the buyer can reach.

Houses are imperfect products in the sense that they can't be reproduced to meet buyer demand. If there's only one "1 High Street" and there's a lot of interest, the EA can encourage gazumping (hope I've spellled that correctly) if they so wish.

The percentage based commission, IMHO, encourages greed and provides an incentive for the pursuit of dubious selling techniques.

The nature of property is such that it represents a significant outlay for most punters. Yet there is no censure for EAs who take this responsibility lightly. You don't have to go beyond this site to hear of people who were sold a valueless pig in a poke, yet the EAs can carry on regardless. Sellers of financial services are at least subject to IFSRA regulations, however weak they may be.

The practice of not allowing more than one agent per property inhibits competition and effectively traps both the buyer and seller.

I'm not suggesting that the EA sector is wholly populated with chancers or that is the only sector that might attract them. My point is that it does nothing to discourage them.

 

[Purple]

Where to start.......

It's a largely unregulated sector even within the profession. There's no particular incentive for EA's to behave ethically. There's limited chance of serious censure.

Very often, the EA has both the seller and vendor as clients and can know how far a buyer can stretch financially. This opens the risk of the price being raised to the maximum point the buyer can reach.

Houses are imperfect products in the sense that they can't be reproduced to meet buyer demand. If there's only one "1 High Street" and there's a lot of interest, the EA can encourage gazumping (hope I've spellled that correctly) if they so wish.

The percentage based commission, IMHO, encourages greed and provides an incentive for the pursuit of dubious selling techniques.

The nature of property is such that it represents a significant outlay for most punters. Yet there is no censure for EAs who take this responsibility lightly. You don't have to go beyond this site to hear of people who were sold a valueless pig in a poke, yet the EAs can carry on regardless. Sellers of financial services are at least subject to IFSRA regulations, however weak they may be.

I'm not suggesting that the EA sector is wholly populated with chancers or that is the only sector that might attract them. My point is that it does nothing to discourage them.

The EA is employed by the seller. The seller is the only person who should seek advice from the EA.
As for "There's no particular incentive for EA's to behave ethically. There's limited chance of serious censure", the same could be said of solicitors and doctors.

 

[MrMan]

with that revelation in the news some weeks back, where EA's were stating higher sold prices in national papers, thats blatant lying and alot of companies were doing it. It does make you think that the EA business is a bit off.

I think they were giving misleading price regions i.e it sold for under €800,000, rather than the actual price of €705,000. The IAVI have come out strongly to members in light of this and now sales prices can only be quoted as the actual price and with both buyer and sellers consent, so if anything there will be lass sales info available. I don't think it was a case of that practice being the norm, sure the EA's may talk it up, but most would be wary of over selling the market.
Why would I say a house sold for €100,000 more than it did when it will only bring me grief from the next vendor wondering why theres is failing to attract the same price?
It is short sighted and ill judged, so the IAVI may be saving a few firms from themselves.

 

[Sylvester3]

The estate agent we used when we first moved from the UK to Ireland was extremely helpful - they even went the extra lengths to vouch for us at the local bank and get us our first Irish bank account. They also advised us on all the different things we needed to have in order before we completed our move, such as getting our social numbers etc. They were really wonderful to us, to the point that we felt genuinely bad that they weren't the ones to be offering the house we bought after 18 months of renting through them. We still send them chocolates at the end of the year,

I have come across less pleasant estate agents, but they simply didn't get our business.

 

[ubiquitous]

The tendency of EAs to arrange mortgages on behalf of people to whom they are arranging property sales is a scandalous conflict of interest, in my opinion. However they are not alone in this. Many banks, accountants and solicitors seem to have no problem with conflicts of interest.

 

[Purple]

The tendency of EAs to arrange mortgages on behalf of people to whom they are arranging property sales is a scandalous conflict of interest, in my opinion. However they are not alone in this. Many banks, accountants and solicitors seem to have no problem with conflicts of interest.

Agreed

 

[MrMan]

The tendency of EAs to arrange mortgages on behalf of people to whom they are arranging property sales is a scandalous conflict of interest, in my opinion. However they are not alone in this. Many banks, accountants and solicitors seem to have no problem with conflicts of interest.

I agree too, I don't see it lasting if the regulatory authority ever comes about.

 

[DavyJones]

I belive that this thread could be about any one of our professions, trades, vocations, whatever. fair play to MrMan for defending his position while recognizing the faults in it.

 

[truthseeker]

I belive that this thread could be about any one of our professions, trades, vocations, whatever. fair play to MrMan for defending his position while recognizing the faults in it.

You are absolutely correct. In fact this thread opened with a list of 3 hated professions and then turned into EA bashing as many other threads have done around here recently.

 

[Purple]

I belive that this thread could be about any one of our professions, trades, vocations, whatever. fair play to MrMan for defending his position while recognizing the faults in it.

Agreed again.

 

[MrMan]

Well if you don't know something and give an answer anyway, that's a deception, whether you choose to recognise it as such or not

I haven't said otherwise, so we agree that correct answers are the way to go.

If, as you've pointed out, an EA can't attest to a property's structural soundness without referring you to an engineer, why do most of them feel at ease to talk about the future values of property without referring you to an economist

Economists are a little harder to tack down and by the time that they have told 100 different possible scenarios the property would be sold. EA's are giving their opinion they can't be expected to provide their opinion as a definite fact as to future values.

I'd agree that the role of an EA should be to understand their local market but I fail to see what knowledge they have that's somehow beyond the public domain that allows to make projections that the rest of us are expected to accept.

There are people possibly like yourself that will research property and areas and the like but the majority of people that I will interact with will have no real knowledge on what is proposed for the area or what is in the development plan etc, so to the average punter the EA will have superior knowledge on the local market.

It's a largely unregulated sector, without any apparent self-regulation

Something that 95% of IAVI members want changed.

Very often, the EA has both the seller and vendor as clients and can know how far a buyer can stretch financially

Not as often as you think although it is happening more frequently now, but that just means you have two buyers that are in a chain so its not as attractive as it sounds.

Houses are imperfect products in the sense that they can't be reproduced to meet buyer demand. If there's only one "1 High Street" and there's a lot of interest, the EA can encourage gazumping (hope I've spellled that correctly) if they so wish.

Unfortunately gazumping is legal but is less likely to happen in todays market, an EA is legally obliged to pass on all offers, to do otherwise would be mean they were not providing a full service to their client.

The percentage based commission, IMHO, encourages greed and provides an incentive for the pursuit of dubious selling techniques.

I don't see how the fee structure would alter the sales technique.

people who were sold a valueless pig in a poke, yet the EAs can carry on regardless

How can you blame an EA for selling a property on their books, its the purchaser that makes the final decision.

The practice of not allowing more than one agent per property inhibits competition and effectively traps both the buyer and seller.

Vendors decide how many they want, but EA's rightly can decide not to deal with a property if its a joint agency.

 

[Staples]

The EA is employed by the seller. The seller is the only person who should seek advice from the EA..

So in that case they differ from furniture and snake oil salespeople?

As for "There's no particular incentive for EA's to behave ethically. There's limited chance of serious censure", the same could be said of solicitors and doctors.

And many others besides. I acknowledged this at the end of my post.

Mr. Man. I appreciate your candour and acknowledge that not all EAs should be tarred with the same brush.

 

[Remix]

The German President didn't pull any punches in letting us know what his most dislikeable profession is:

Also in Wednesday, it was reported that German President Horst Köhler – a former head of the International Monetary Fund – called for tougher regulations and the reconstruction of a “continental European banking culture” in response to global financial markets which have become “a monster” and “must be put back in its place.”

The German president compared bankers with alchemists who were responsible for “massive destruction of assets”.

Bankers “have made huge mistakes”, Köhler told Stern magazine in an interview to be published today. He said in relation to the subprime crisis: “I am still waiting for a clear, audible mea culpa. The only good thing about this crisis is that it has made clear to any thinking, responsible person in the sector that international financial markets have developed into a monster that must be put back in its place.

monster link