Haart on LL

[dulwichflower76]

Hi

I registered with Haart earlier this week. I'm not too sure what to make of the service so far, I didn't receive any calls since registering but this morning whilst walking by I noticed two properties in my price range,( maybe they were put on today), I went in a spoke to the guy from earlier in the week, and he didn't seem too bothered, anyway he gave me the info sheets. Have arranged bookings but he doesn't seem to be very encouraging (?) Is it just me? or maybe he's just not having a good day. what are others experiences with Haart? when i bought my current place the estate agents were constantly calling, but this is too quiet for my liking.

Oh well, i've had my little moan : (

Flower

[Bellenden Belle]

Haart were pretty good when I was looking - Gerwyn (doubt that's how you spell it but tht's how you pronounce it) did keep us informed. But overall our experience of estate agents in Lordship Lane was complete disinterest... because quite frankly things sell so quickly in the area you need to be very proactive - we had to pound up and down every week for about six weeks. It was hell.... but worth it. Good luck!

[macroban]

Houses in East Dulwich are still selling at the same rate as this Summer?

[Andyng]

went to haart when I was looking too complete rubbish service very poor

found them a bit arsey

[Princess]

We recently sold through Ludlow and bought with Haart. I have to say Gerwyn (again unsure of spelling) and Sandy at Haart were brilliant. They mediated really well and kept us up to date at all times.

I've bought two houses in East Dulwich in the past three years. In my experience, you have to trawl a lot of rubbish and hassle to see things for a couple of weeks until the agents get to know you, once they figure out what you're after, you start to get the calls about the places that haven't yet come on the market.

Good luck.

Px

[Pickle]

About a year ago we sold with Haart and bought using DVR. Haart were OK (at the time we went with them as they offered the lowest commission) from a sellers perspective - kept things moving, very proactive when it came to getting things finalised once the property had sold - Sandy was excellent at keeping in contact etc. We also used their mortgage broker at the time who was great (unfortunately he's now left, and I'm not sure if they replaced him).

When we were looking for a new property we signed up with all of the local agents. Most of them never got in touch again, other than with the occasional "this is perfect, everything you need, only ?100k over your budget with less room than your old house but definitely worth a look" type offerings. Haart were pretty good, but that was because they sold our house and were keen to find something else so they didn't lose their commission! Although saying that, they didn't actually find us anything.

The only agent to actually show us what we were looking for, within budget was DVR. By far the best we dealt with, friendly, professional agents who weren't pushy at all. Very smooth process when it came to offering and all the follow up afterwards. Even now when we walk past their office the guy who showed us our house waves and often chats and asks how we're getting on in the house!

[lozzyloz]

I'll second that pickle. Well looked after at DVR, very sincere.

[Spangles30]

I doubt DVR will survive now that Foxtons have entered the market Pickle. With their 0% commission sales offer, most people would be crazy to pay an agent to sell their property. I know some people have ethical issues with Foxtons, but blow that if you don't have to pay any commission.

My experience of Haart when I was buying is that they were quite unhelpful, and never contacted me. They weren't rude as such, they just never kept in touch.

I found one of the guys at Winkworth rather supercilious and 'public schoolboy-ish' telling me everyone is moving to ED from Clapham and Battersea..how lucky the area is... (yawn).

Acorn: found them down to earth and friendly.

Bushells: snooty and horrid. Rude about my own house when I asked them to value it. Agent boasted about how he lived in a much more salubrious area than I did. He slated my cooker hood! LOL.

Ludlow: OK, and quite friendly really. Helpful and kept in touch.

Wates: bitchy ladies in mini skirts and stilettoes, quite Chavvy and not very helpful AT ALL. Rather rude on the phone.

DVR: Fine and quite helpful.

Halifax: In my opinion, the best of the bunch for being down to earth, not over valuing properties, very helpful and not up their own ar@ses. Thumbs up to Halifax. Though I don't rate 'em much as a mortgage provider...

[Jeremy]

Wates sounds awesome, I know where my first stop will be when I start house hunting again!

[zephyr]

8 years ago we bought through Acorn who were excellent and sold through Wates who were excellent. I guess times may have changed.

I think DVR will do OK - I have known Mel (who is co partner in the business) for 13 years. He is local with an immence knowledge of the area.

Bushells have always been horrid

[Spangles30]

Jeremy, had to laugh at your point there!! :)

[mamafeelgood]

sold in brixton using haart and bought here using haart.

they were both pretty usesless, as stated above a house will sell in this area with little work from the agents.

i refused to go with their mortgage broker who wanted a % of what he negotiated for us: negotiated?? purlease, he just enters your data into a computer prog and it does all the work for him, plus he kept telling us we couldn't afford anything, which even with my limited knowledge we could. and by the by we are not mortgaged to the hilt, far from it, it's the pain of getting a mortgage when you're freelance.

no one should have to pay for financial services like that, they make a big enough commission from the mortgage companies and if they're good you'll go back and get more.

then haart's legal team, we we stupid and went with them, kept getting all the forms wrong so we'd have to go and get them witnessed over and over again.

they never called to tell us what was going on, we had to do all the chasing...

basically they weren't worth the thousands we paid, but then i often think it's the luck of the draw. if you get an enthusiastic rep then great, we were unlucky both times.

[downsouth]

Has anyone ever tried to sell through www.Propertybroker.com? That way you avoid the agents and their fees (Foxtons current promotion excepted).

[dulwichflower76]

I feel quite depressed now:( but I suppose i should join up with other agents on LL, so that's my plan for tomorrow! I don't rememeber it being so hard when i was looking two years ago but then i was a first time buyer all keen and excited! Now I just want to buy somewhere and move in-no hassle, wishful thinking methinks:-S

Cheers.

Flower

[Spangles30]

Downsouth, yes I sold through propertybroker, and can only say how fantastic it is. It cost ?138 for a board and photos, and the company couldn't have been more helpful. Within days I found a buyer, and that was that. I would use them again.

[downsouth]

Spangles30 - that's good to hear. I was thinking to do the same next time I'm ready to move. You save thousands. Obviously you have to put the 'work' in yourself - but it's not that difficult.

Back to Haart - I used the one in West Norwood (they cover West Dulwich) previously and they were useless. I've not tried the one on LL.

[Crepe Suzette]

They are ok when selling your place but don't seem to want to put an effort into helping you buy, at least not from the start. They want to put the least possible effort into every sale, and they reckon people who've just signed up will say no to the first few properties they see anyway, so they focus their efforts on 1. people who already have a buyer for their current flat; 2. people who are also selling through Haart; 3. first-time buyers who have seen lots of flats already, know exactly what they want and have made it clear they are willing to move fast.

The best thing you can do is use a multi-agency site like rightmove.co.uk and check every day. Whenever there's something interesting, call the agent yourself (you'll start wondering why they were asking the vendor for that 1.5% again) and if you don't like it after viewing it, repeat what it is that you want and ask them to call you. Keep stalking them this way until they realise you're serious about this.

It's sad but that's how it worked for us

[char1ie]

downsouth Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> Has anyone ever tried to sell through

> www.Propertybroker.com? That way you avoid the

> agents and their fees (Foxtons current promotion

> excepted).

Yes. It didn't work. We tried and tried but just didn't get the traffic. Six months we gave it. House was priced at ?350k. We didn't get a sniff. As soon as we gave it to Winkworth they got an offer of ?369k in the first couple of weeks.

If findaproperty and rightmove allowed private ads to feature on their sites propertybroker would have a chance.

Charlie

[Momo]

We bought through Haart when we moved to East Dulwich and found them to be ok but similarly not very interested in us. It was more a case of us finding the property that they happened to have on the books.

I recommend you go and see Mel at DVR as well. He works at the office near the Library but showed us places all over E.Dulwich. He really made an effort to understand what we were looking for and made looking round umpteen properties a pleasure.

Good luck with the search Flower!

[snorky]

Had dealing with some on LL - I found Haart OK to be honest.

Waites are a bunch of sly schemers IME.

[Cuthbert Dibble]

Avoid using estate agents' in-house mortgage brokers, or any they recommend.

You'll never get the best deal as they rarely, if ever offer fully independent advice - and you may well have to pay a fee! A complete, unnecessary waste of money.

If they imply that you're more likely to get the property if you use their broker then report the Agent to the National Association of Estate Agents. It's illegal - and seems to happen quite regularly.

London and Country Mortgages are widely recognised by MoneySavingExpert.Com and numerous others as the best, impartial, fee-free mortgage brokers. I've used them twice and they are excellent.

[ziggy]

Used Haart to buy 2 years ago. A couple of things to beware of (from my experience), first we put an offer in and spent two days negotiating through Haart until we reached an agreed price. After all that was done, I got a call from the 'manager' at Haart who I'd not dealt with up to then saying 'OK, so there are now 2 of you offering the same price, so will you go higher?'. This was the first I'd heard of another bidder, and it seemed odd, so I called his bluff and said to forget the whole deal. An hour later he called back to say the vendors had decided 'Just to go with my offer'. The vendors later told me they weren't aware of any other offer.

Haart's 'Financial advisor' also phoned me and said they were not allowed to pass my offer to the vendors without 'Checking my finances first'. I told him he was a bit late as the offer had already been made. He then tried to extract personal details for the sole purpose of trying to sell financial services I didn't want/need.

During the process, there were several occasions when Haart phoned me asking for documents they already had. Once because there was nobody in the office that day 'Who could check the fax' (how difficult is it?).

I think its the same with most agents and you just need to keep well on top of things and manage them!

[WickedStepmother]

A little off-topic I guess but picking up on the comments above about selling privately, when my partner and I first decided to sell our cottage in Richmond we put it on the market with halfapercent.com (a sort of compromise solution between DIYing and an agent) at the price they recommended: ?350,000. We had around 50 viewings and not a single offer.

Almost as soon as we took it off the market, the local branch of Foxtons contacted us. We were rather reluctant to list with them because of their reputation so we procrastinated for a couple of months before deciding to give them a try. They sold it in less than three months for ?397,000.

I must admit that for the most part, Foxtons staff were helpful, attentive and agreeable to deal with - greatly to my surprise.

We bought our new flat through Winkworths on LL. Our original contact there, Alex, was wonderful. Took time to understand exactly what we were looking for and why. And found us just what we needed. However, he relocated to another office and we found ourselves at the mercy of the rudest, most unpleasant woman it has ever been my misfortune to deal with. Addded to which, it has emerged that she may have advised our vendors to forget about one of the conditional stipulations we made in our offer letter in order to get the sale through more quickly. I'm investigating this with our solicitor now but it's starting to look as though we'll have to file civil damages claims against both the vendors and Winkworths. I don't so much mind about Winkworths but I feel rather sorry for the vendors.

[dulwichflower76]

Well, I had a viewing with the guy from Haart of a flat in ED. He did not know anything about the flat, couldn't answer any of my questions, wasn't very chatting, all in all I wasn't very impressed! and this is a flat I had to chase him about, again this week, no phone calls from him. I've regisitered with other agents now and at least I'm getting some response back.

If I ask for another person from Haart instead of this guy who really doesn't seem bothered, would that make things difficult for me? I am thinking about it as I don't think I can bare to call this guy again.

Flower

[Spangles30]

Haart isn't coming out of this thread particularly well is it? Perhaps if the agency gets wind of this thread they'll improve their alleged dire service?:)