Acorn Estate Agents

[Trudypeel]

Just thought it important to let people looking for houses in the area know that Acorn are behaving in a very unscrupulous manner. We had an offer accepted on a house 4 months ago, we were one week away from exchanging and Acorn encouraged the seller to pull out and re-market with themselves instead of the original agent who sold the house to us.

I realise this is a competitive market but buyers in the area should be aware that this kind of tactic is being encouraged by Acorn with a very low level of professional integrity. Also be aware that also there are clearly sellers behaving without integrity this has now cost us thousands of pounds in fees and costs and priced us out of the market as prices have gone up so much in the area.

[edcam]

Well I don't think you can blame the estate agent in this case. It's like criticising a cat for chasing a mouse. It's the vendor surely?

[davidallotey]

Sorry edcam you can blame the agent's they should have left well all alone.Estate agent's are vermin and the worst kind at that they play no small part in the silly rental and sale price's going on in the ED area's.

[KalamityKel]

I don't think it's particularly fair to whittle it down to just one estate agents. I think you'll find it's mostly the standard norm in the trade and has been for a very long time.

[Trudypeel]

True the vendor is predominantly to blame. We stopped looking when we could have carried on found something better and done the same to her. when we sold our flat the price went up by at least 25k during the process but when you make a commitment legally binding or otherwise you honour it. Sadly this is not my only negative experience with acorn and when I bought my flat with them experienced similar unprofessionalism. There are definitely more professional agencies such as Roy Brooke's who my friend was with when they experienced something similar and Roy brooks were very proactive in discouraging this kind of thing and also recovering costs on their behalf.

The only way people/agents will ever think twice is if behaviour like this is highlighted and people don't just accept it. Just because it happens doesn't make it ok and it shouldn't be without consequence. Also to people buying properties it's important to know that agents are behaving in this way and to keep their wits about them.

[landellsrd]

How awful. My sympathies to you. This whole house price craziness is terrible, the only winners are the banks. Estate agents really are scum.

[lane lover]

This thread should be simply named Beware Estate Agents.

The sooner the Real Estate industry is properly regulated, the better for everyone.

[Penguin68]

I suspect that sellers may be upping their prices when they find that, with upwards price movements, they cannot any longer afford the property they wanted to move to. Gazumping in boom, gazundering (i.e. it's a buyers' market') in bust. The Scottish system of binding contract is possibly better (and may lead to less volatility) - although there are then problems when hidden obstacles to purchase, particularly leasehold issues, but also the physical state of the property, become known only after an offer has been accepted, during the 'due diligence' stage.

[tomskip]

Why not name and shame the vendors? I really don't understand. The vendors could have said "no, we have agreed a sale to Trudypeel".

[meadow408]

So sorry for you OP.I also had dreadful experiences with Acorn both on the letting and sale side.They have no ethic whatsoever and are primarily after a quick buck.

[surveyorlassie]

Serves you right for going with an agent not regulated by the RICS

[Trudypeel]

You go with the agent selling the house we can't dictate that as a buyer

[brambles]

Acorn have always been rubbish

[BMSE23]

A lot of interesting comments on here, apart from "serves you right for going with an agent not regulated by the RICS". That's just pathetic, you clearly didn't read the original post. Trudypeel didn't "go" with anyone and is now out of pocket due to the seller pulling out of the sale in order to try and get more money. Equally pathetic are comments like agents are vermin, agents are scum. Keyboard warriors. I do agree though with the comments about the Scottish system being fairer and that agents should all be regulated but I doubt if that will ever happen.

Surprise surprise I am an agent (waiting for the bashing) and believe or or not, we wouldn't all sell our own grandmothers for a quid. The market that we're in is horrible but it isn't the agents that are driving the prices higher and higher, it's down to the fact that buyer demand has gone through the roof and the number of properties coming onto the market has dropped through the floor. It's supply and demand, sellers know that they can ask for high prices and they know that they'll get it. It's a vicious cycle, I'm valuing a lot of properties at the moment but if there's nothing for the owners to move on to, what are they going to do? It's great if you're selling an asset and not your home but trying to buy on at the moment is incredibly hard if staying in London.

I keep hearing that agents must love this market, it's easy money, everything sells in a heartbeat, it's a gravy train. Wrong. I don't think many agents are particularly enjoying this market, I'm showing a house tomorrow that has been on the market for a week and there are 26 people turning up. Great for my client, it's pretty much a done deal already, I've no doubt that there will be multiple offers in excess of the asking price. Is it good for me as an agent? No. I can only sell the house to one person. Believe me I'd much rather be showing 26 people around 26 different properties tomorrow.

I feel for Trudypeel, horrible thing to happen particularly so close to an exchange of contracts but not all sellers are like this, 90% will stick to an offer once it's been accepted, just unfortunate that your seller was one of the minority.

[giggirl]

I feel for you Trudypeel. And the person who said "serves you right" is bang out of order. I also think thatBMSE23 has some valid points - there is a lot of vendor greed about, which is driving prices.

Sorry this has happened to you Trudy and better luck next time. Don't get too disheartened.

[landellsrd]

Explain to me how it's not scum of an agent who is not involved in a sale, contacting a vendor and persuading them to remarket for more money with them? Knowing full well it was going to screw over the poor original buyer? The stereotype of estate agents (sales and lettings) being scum is there for a reason. Enjoy your hype-inducing 'open day' today. With so precious few properties coming on to your books it must be so hard to make individual appointments and do your jobs properly,

Edited to say I don't mean to call you BMSE23 personally scum, but the regular practises of EA's are stereotyped because it's so common that EAs act in an unscrupulous manner! And no I'm not buying, I've happily owned for a while now and have no plans to move I just sympathise with the OPs case.

[Trudypeel]

We have just found out too that she did this only for the difference of 15k too! Which if she'd have asked us to up our offer by we begrudgingly would have paid!!

[Sue]

Trudypeel Wrote:

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

> We have just found out too that she did this only

> for the difference of 15k too! Which if she'd have

> asked us to up our offer by we begrudgingly would

> have paid!!

xxxxxx

That's terrible. I really feel for you. What a horrid greedy person she must be.

If you really want the house, is it too late to grit your teeth and offer her the ?15k?

[BMSE23]

Thanks for your response to my post landellsrd and no I don't really take it personally, I do get fed up though with the negative comments on these forums. I've worked in my industry for more than 20 years and have always been fair and honest so I'm sure that you'll appreciate that being labelled as scum is a bit of a kick.

Really enjoyed my open day on Saturday thanks for asking. The result for my client, the person that's paying me was great. That particular client has has three children under five so the open day was more of a convenience for her than hype inducing, but you probably didn't think there would be any other reason for holding an open day other than a greedy agent trying to make his life easier. Shame.

[HennyPenny]

The extra fee the agent would gain from in this circumstance is probably about ?225 (based on a fee of 1.5% on ?15K)and the cost to the agent given the extra work and time involved, updating web sites, booking viewings, attending viewings, following through etc. means that the extra fee would cancel itself, so the agent isn't gaining anything except additional grief from forums such as this. The agent is acting for the vendor and is duty bound to give their client their best advice on a changing market, whether it's going up or down. It is down to the vendor to decide whether to listen and pull out of a sale or not, a decision never taken lightly. We haven't been given the full story for this sale, whether there is a chain involved and if so how long, but assuming there is only a very short chain i wonder why Trudypeel hadn't already exchanged contracts, as she stated they were planing on exchanging the following week. I have been an agent in the area for 15 years (i 'retired' 2 years ago) and always acted in the best interests of both my client and the buyers, many of whom needed their hands holding during the whole process, but always pressed for an exchange as soon as practically possible - once done everyone can breathe a sigh of relief (it's just as stressful for us as well!). There is also much media hype about house prices and demand outstripping supply, it is surprising that more sales aren't falling through because of this.

[Trudypeel]

We have now exchanged, the vendor had gone behind both our and the agents back and had gone to another agent all together after been contacted by acorn so we would both have been disappointed. It seems at the moment that agents are contacting vendors of sold properties deliberately and being told they can get more if they switch. I was surprised the vendor hadn't come and asked us directly for an increased offer rather than just switching but think when vendors who are chain free themselves are told they can get ?50k more it must be very tempting not to take it.

We offered a little bit more in exchange for an immediate exchange which has now thankfully happened. Thanks for all the nice comments my reason for posting was simply to raise awareness of this kind of activity in the current market from particular agents. Not all agents are bad I've previously had an excellent experience with Roy brooks, KFh and the agent who sold the property to us in this case has also been very professional. it's just unfortunate some agents have to operate the way they do to get business. A lot of my friends are buying and or selling and almost everyone has some sort of underhand dealings associated. One of my friends was told by an agent that unless they put their house on the market with them they wouldn't be inclined to have their best interests at heart when it came to the purchase of a property that they were handling which again is totally out of order

[amy30]

Thanks Trudypeel,

We have had a very good experience with some estate agents (e.g. Wooster and Stock are excellent), but we had an awful experience with Acorn when a property we were buying fell through just before exchange, and Acorn lied to us about what was going on (they told us the vendor could not be reached to discuss the matter, while actually they were selling the property to someone else). We complained to Acorn, and even a managing director did not seem to think there was anything wrong with this, which seems to suggest that this sort of behaviour is part of the culture at Acorn all the way up to management level.

I think the best thing to do is to make people aware of behaviour like this and recommend people to not sell their property through Acorn. There are plenty of other agents who act professionally without having to tolerate this sort of thing.