My struggle with the real-estate agents

Posted on:March 23 2007

I already wrote, I'm struggling with the lazyness, stupidity and the ignorance of Austrian real estate agents again. It's horrible. They usually get 3 times the monthly rent when they broker an apartment (and I've read Vienna currently is as expensive as NewYork) but they don't do anything for this. For most of the apartments I want, I don't even get those people on the phone, their secretaries tell me that they will call back but they won't. And if you get one of them on the line, they are totally dumb. Latest example of a dialog on the phone:

Me: Hi, I'm interested in the apartment XY mentioned on your website, the one in the Foobar-Street, and would like to inspect it.
He: Hi.
Me: So, well, is it still available?
He: (unfriendly) Which one?
Me: Foobar-Street.
He: (even more unfriendly) I've more than one apartment there.
Me: Yes? Nice, so maybe I can see the others as well. I meant the one with XY square metres.
He: Yeah.
Me: Yeah, what? So can I see it? (Usually, agents would give you some appointment to choose from at this point)
He: (Very unfriendly) Yes.
Me: Ok... So how about an appointment?
He: (no answer)
Me: Today (friday), or maybe next week?
He: Tomorrow.
...

And so on. How about a little bit friendliness? How about not letting me pull every single information out of you? I mean on an average, they'll get more than 1k euro for this. Bastards.

Update: Apartments in Vienna are not as expensive as in NewYork, but the cost of living is.

Comments:

Well, not every agent is like this (mine was really friendly and helpful!) but in general I have bad memories of agents, too (one once called me only some minutes before I arrived at a flat to tell me that it was already given to somebody else...).

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2007-03-23 13:27:00

With answers like that, I would just be friendly and say, sorry, I'm not interested anymore... I don't know about where you live, but here in Antwerp/Beveren, if they react like that, fine, I'll go see someone else...

Hope you get beter impressions on your search...

Alvaron

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2007-03-23 15:12:00

Maybe they don't want to sell it to you?

TheRLG

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2007-03-23 16:40:00

I am in the U.S., so I realize it isn't the same thing, but my real-estate agent is my mother, so I don't have any bad experiences. I agree with Alvaron on not giving those people business though.

Nate

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2007-03-23 21:11:00

what about kicking his ass?

yep

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2007-03-23 21:33:00

Acting like that should make him loose business. Hello?!?! Treating customers like that make the customer go somewhere else. Yeesh!

Jonathan Snyder

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2007-03-26 21:35:00

I hope that guy is an exception, Ive had nothing but good experience from real estate agents in my country. I guess business is flourishing where you are, you should become a part time real estate agent yourself and under sell those arrogant bastards!

BlindSide

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2007-03-27 13:04:00

Keep booking appointments and ditching on this fuckhead. Don't give a penny (or 1/100th of a euro) to assholes like that.

mcgurk

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2007-03-27 16:32:00