House hunters - no shows!

[Chouette]

Apologies in advance but I'm afraid I'm in need of a rant and to get something off my chest!!

My other half is a hardworking, honest, agent commercial who does all he can to help people find their dream in home in France.  It is not an easy way to make a living and he only makes money if he makes a sale, but we count our blessings all the same as it is a job that enables us to live in the country we love, France.  But what really makes me mad is the increasing number of inconsiderate people who make appointments to view houses and then don't show up without having the common courtesy or decency to pick up a phone to cancel the appointment!

Today is the second day this week that my husband has hauled himself out of his warm and cosy bed at 7.00am to make the 50 minute drive to his office, prepare the paperwork, put the coffee on in readiness to welcome his clients only to discover that they're not going to bother to turn up   It's not only inconvenient and a total waste of time for him, but due to current demand the agency he works for is having to turn appointments away, so these inconsiderate people that make appointments and then don't show up are depriving other house hunters the chance of an appointment too!

So here is a heartfelt plea to all you house hunters out there - please, if you make an appointment with an agent but for whatever reason you are unable to keep it, spare a thought for the bloke who will take time out to do his best for you, who is trying to earn an honest crust and just take a few seconds out of your time to let him know that you can't make it.  Thank you.

There rant over

[Baz]

Chouette, I know how you feel having worked in a service industry until I retired. Unfortunately, it is one of the problems one has to accept however annoying it is. Like you I could never accept how inconsiderate and rude people can be. Many times when making an appointment I would even explain why it was important to let me know if they could not attend and they would promise to do so and still not turn up.

I think it is necessary to build into any business plan for no shows as par for the course, one soon calculates  how many appointments are needed to make a sale and accept that the next viewing may be a sale. I always thought if a deposit could be taken for an appointment which was non refundable if a no show or not cancelling the meeting was the norm, how much better life would be. But selling is and will never be that simple, so just accept it as a hazard of the job.

Baz

[Ejc]

Hi,

I understand your frustration - and think it's highly inconsiderate - and will give UK buyers a bad press - with mobile phones so easy there is no excuse.

But it also works the other way as well. Last year when we were looking - I made contact with an agent - we chatted by phone and e-mail, we set a date and time and had a list of house we'd like to view and she had a list of the sort of thing we were looking for.

We phone the day before to confirm everything - but when we turned up not only was she not there and kept us waiting an hour - then she had made only 1 appointment for us and the property wasn't suitable. We had driven for a couple of hours to get to her, (as we were on holiday on the coast) but we  told her we had money in the bank, knew the area well and had done everything we could to assure her we were serious buyers.

She made a big mistake - BIG HUGE to paraphrase a film -because when she was so unprofessional - we went to one of her competitors - made arrangements to call back later that week, viewed 4 properties, made an offer on one - and we signed the acte a couple of weeks back. The service we got from this second agent was second to none - so if your looking for a home in the 85 / 79 area - and want an  excellent agent - please PM me and I'll give you Estelle's details in Pouzauge, as I don't think I'd be allowed to here.

Everyone in this field - in the France or anywhere else - really should treat other people as they would like to be treated.

Interestingly - the first immobilier - called us in the spring - to suggest we came out again to look - she was rather upset when we told her we'd already bought, and found someone local to act as  key holder and groundsperson - all services she offers but because she treated us so poorly on that occasion - she lost all our business

 

 

[YCCMB]

I totally agree with both sides, but must admit that EJC's comments struck a chord. We had a similar if not even worse experience when househunting.

AC (English) met us on Day 1 and showed us several unsuitable houses, nothing resembling the brief he had so carefully taken. Included taking us miles to see one property only to arrive and for him to admit he'd forgotten the key!

Had an appointment late afternoon with another agency, so left this guy to meet the other agent. The second agency was far away (some 45 mins drive) and we arrived to find that the second agent (French) was nowhere to be seen, in spite of having made and confirmed appointments for us to view several properties with him over the coming few days (Easter weekend). Outside the agency, several phone calls to his mobile and to the agency's number eventually brought out the story that the English AC worked for another branch of the same agency, and had enlisted the overall boss to "warn off" the second guy from meeting us, insisting that we were "his" clients. Now, at no stage did we know, or were we told, that the two agencies were related, neither did either side tell us face-to-face what had happened. In fact, the English guy was quite happy to let us go off for a meeting, knowing we were making a wasted journey, and the French guy didn't even bother to do us the courtesy of contacting us at all.(NB the 2 agencies had different names, and only a couple of properties available in common).

We lost no sleep, therefore, when the English guy contacted us a few days later (having wasted 3 days of our valuable time on the househunting trip because of the easter weekend) in telling him we wouldn't be meeting him again. I suppose that, with hindsight, he did us a HUGE favour, because without his stupidity we'd probably never have found our present house!!!!

Sadly, it's always going to happen, and your OH, as you say, is losing time, and potential sales commission on time wasters. Unfortunately as well, there are time wasters in all walks of life!

Jane

[Coco]

I totally sympathise with you Chouette.  We have the same thing with our B&B.  People book, we turn people away and then the original people don't bother to turn up.  Well that was last year anyway, this year we have a deposit system in place and that has either deterred people from not showing, or we've had more polite guests this year!!!

But I also agree with Baz, it does, sadly, go with the job.  We still lose out occassionally when people say they are sending the cheque, or transferring funds, take two or three days to do it, we lose out on other (often longer) bookings and then when we chase the original one they say they have changed their plans and won't need our accommodation after all.  Nothing you can do about it except grin and bear it.

But when they really grind you down at least you can come on here and have your rant.  I've done it before.  In fact, only as far back as the first May Bank Holiday!!!

[Chouette]

Thanks for all your replies and you're are right, there are good and bad on both sides of the fence.  It's just that I personally would never dream of not letting someone know if I couldn't make an appointment or honour a booking, which makes it so hard for me to understand why other people do it, but there you go - it takes all sorts eh?

Like Coco said - it's nice to know you can come on here and let of steam when you need to

[Euge]

As others have said it is a two way problem, I spent over £1,000 going to France on three occasions to see properties which had been sold WEEKS before I had made the appointments, first visit was to see three agents and five properties (all had been sold before I got there). Second visit, I made sure the property was still available, but didn’t like it so was happy to viewed three plots of land. I liked them all and offered the full price on one of them, (it was accepted). When the land area drawing came, the plot showed only half the plot for sale on it The agent said the area had been clearly marked on the land, but didn’t know that in my excitement at having found a beautiful plot, I had gone back to it the same day as the viewing and had videoed the land to take home and show my partner. No markings were there (maybe I shouldn’t have been too keen to buy). Third visit to France I agreed to buy land, made an offer (it was accepted) signed the papers, then decided to check with the local mayor to see if the permission to build was okay (I had been told it had been granted and it was a clause of the agreement), The Mayors secretary told me that no permission would be granted in that area. So even though my deposit would have been returned, I’d have been three months committed to a property that wasn’t suitable, thus three months wasted time and possible price increases down the road, with another trip to pay for. I used the cooling off period to get out of it (normally there isn’t any cooling off period with land purchase, but this one had a very small shed on it so I was okay. Luckily, I found another plot (French agent this time), which I am buying now.

I know you can’t put all the English agents in the same smelly pot, but all the problems I had were with English Agents. So pleased don’t drip about just having to get out of bed, think of those who plan a trip, book it, pay for it, get out of bed, drive hundreds (even thousands) of miles, to find the property has been sold, given the wrong details, the massive electric pylon is just out of the picture, a foul stench industrial plant belching out stuff which was luckily blowing your way on the viewing day or the many other things which we are not told about before we make our journey. We don’t have any recourse but to tell who ever we can which agents did this to us. So we go home defeated and have to start all over again.

 

An idea for the agent is to give accrete details, (surely room sizes should be a must) then get the customer to confirm an appointment the day before. As for us the customer, well by that time we have already booked an un-refundable fare to get to France and would be on our way, so we need the agents to be honest and efficient.

 

Telephones: If you use an English mobile phone in France, remember you will be paying for outward and inward coming calls at international rates. But you can call your network before going and pay a one off small fee to get all calls extremely reduced in cost 

[Lizzie15]

 But you can call your network before going and pay a one off small fee to get all calls extremely reduced in cost 

 

Can you? I didn't know that.Do all providers do it? I'm with Vodaphone

 

[Chouette]

Hi Lizzie

Sorry to hear about your awful experiences - like I said earlier there are good and bad on both sides of the fence and there are always bad apples who give Agent Commercials working in France a bad name.  My husband works for an excellent, reputable (English) agency who would never arrange appointments for people to come and view unless the properties were still available.  They also try their very best to and match up the client with the right type of property.  Saying that though, there are still an awful lot of people who come over to France with totally unrealistic expectations, thinking they're going to find a detached renovation project, in acres of land, with a view, in the countryside but near all amenities - all for £25K!!  

Your 'drip' comment irritated me somewhat, in that it implied that I had no right to complain about the inconvenience my husband is put to by inconsiderate buyers, but I realise your view has been seriously clouded by your experience.  However, whatever the circumstances and from whatever side it stems from I still don't think there is any excuse for lack of consideration and down right bad manners.  

[Chouette]

Oops - my last message should have been for Euge not Lizzie!  Apols

[Will]

I have every sympathy for those who feel let down by less scrupulous agencies, of which there seem to be several (and probably more French-run in this area than non-French).

However as Mrs Conq also suffers considerably from clients who don't bother to turn up or cancel at the last minute I know exactly where Chouette is coming from. Like the agency her husband works for, Mrs C's makes every attempt to ensure that houses are stil available, indicating the status on the website and promptly removing those that are sold (though there again sellers who have their houses with several agencies, when the house is sold frequently don't have the courtesy to tell the other agents). Even asking clients for confirmation, or insisting on contact numbers, doesn't always work. They either don't bother to contact the agency, just turn up without confirming, if at all, or the UK-based sub-agents don't bother to pass on the fact that the client has cancelled, leading to considerable embarrassment when, having failed to turn up for the appointment, they are phoned asking where they are.

There's no excuse for bad manners from clients, or unprofessional conduct from agencies.

[Euge]

Can you? I didn't know that.Do all providers do it? I'm with Vodaphone

I’m not sure about all network providers, as I only use O2, but I would assume it would be the same, so call yours and ask.

On O2 the one-off set up fee is about £5 and covers you for a month, then you pay about £2 there after per month (they deduct it by way of equivalent calling time or cash, on pay as you go), you can opt out at any time by sending a cancellation text (it’s a good idea to get the HOW TO CANCEL details at the time of ordering, as they can be hard to find later). But I found it very worth while and cost effective.

 

To the Estate Agent who was letting off steam, well yes you are right, there are few good reasons to account for lack of consideration and I apologize if my post upset you personally. Most every business will suffer from those who are needlessly thoughtless no matter how well the business is organised.

[Iceni]

I have a degree of sympathy with anyone whose time has been wasted in this way. But is that more or less annoying than estate agents who send you details of, or take you to view, properties that are nothing like the spec given to them ?

Perhaps the answer is simple - your wasting my time is more important than my wasting yours.

John

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