Why do people hate estate agents?

Since the Anglo Saxon tribes of old England first exchanged pebbles for mud huts, estate agents have been detested as a profession.

The perception of dishonesty and inefficiency, indeed laziness and arrogance, that surrounds the label is well documented. Certainly here in the UK where successive surveys place estate agents as lower in the pecking order of humanity than tabloid journalists (even in the wake of the hacking scandal); traffic wardens and bankers.We love to hate estate agents.

But why? Why are those young men and women that put themselves between a buyer and seller to ‘help’ things along, so reviled?

Well, there are a number of reasons and which whether the industry like it or not, are generally true.

First off, estate agents are tasked with assisting with the conveyance of a precious, valuable asset yet without the requirement for any qualification or licence at all. How can that be in a world of regulation and red tape? Think financial services or law. Or medicine. Or anything else important for that matter. All require a substantial investment in knowledge and accountability. But estate agents can set up shop without any barrier to entry whatsoever. No wonder things go wrong.

It’s often said that estate agents decide to be estate agents because they didn’t get that City trading room job they yearned after. They crave the thought of big rewards and wheeling and dealing but didn’t cut in when it came to having the qualifications needed to do a proper job. Or they simply don’t have the guts to be a proper criminal, choosing instead to be a lower level one where their shady dealings will generally go unpunished. You could argue perhaps that their seemingly antagonistic and devil-may-care approach is born of some inner resentment?

One of the biggest reasons for questioning the integrity of said agents, surely has to be their incentive to be bad. What I mean by this is the way that they and their bosses are paid. Picture this… for each deal that you do you earn 10% of the overall fee that your company charges. In the UK currently that represents about £4000. But typically, an estate agency shop will sell just four homes per month and one third of those will fall through before completion. And so the volumes are tiny but the rewards per transaction are very big. So is it a stretch to presuppose that an individual will do anything to get a deal over the line? Including fibbing profusely. Agents often act in their own interests rather than their clients. No wonder.

Finally, the reality is that many estate agents offer piss poor service and this can easily be seen to be true on the various third party online review websites such as AllAgents.co.uk. The fact is that bad service is endemic, especially when compared to the cost of the service. Maybe because the industry knows that you will perhaps only sell a home every few years, so why care if you want to come back again? There’s many a story in the trade press such as Property Industry Eye and Estate Agent Today, almost weekly, of agents running off with people’s money or being prosecuted for some such thing or other.

If it seems true then it probably is. Estate agents are perceived as bad because, frankly, most of them are.