Saturday March 29, 2008
I phoned the agent yesterday. He wasn’t there. I phoned him again shortly after the time at which I’d been told he’d call me back. He wasn’t there again. I expressed my disappointment and he called me back about half an hour later.
“I’m not impressed,” I said after being blitzed with a list of facts and figures as he tried to prove how well our property was doing. ”Statistics are all very well but it’s punters I want to see. And punters are exactly what I haven’t seen.”
The outcome was that Graham and I are to meet him in his Bridgwater office on Wednesday morning. He could rescue the situation before then. I certainly would.
We shall see. If the meeting is not successful I shall sack ‘em, drop the price a tad, and shove the house back on the market a fortnight later with our second choice. You know, the one who’d have been first choice if we’d had the benefit of hindsight. Then we’ll turn on the patience filter and settle down to wait the thing through, no matter how long it takes.
The sacking is of their own making. They insisted on a fixed fee based on our present asking price. It will not be reduced no matter how low the figure at which we eventually sell.
It’s a strange thing, and I’d have to collect more information before proclaiming it a Law of Estate Agents. When you criticise them for poor performance it’s always blamed on staff sickness and absence. This is the third agency at least where I’ve been obliged to point out that their difficulties are not my problem and that they are remiss in attempting to make it so.
The author, webmaster, and minder of the cat
