How to choose an estate agent to sell your property. Well here is our take on this and hopefully you can take some value from our extensive experience.

In the last twenty-three years, my, things have changed so much. They really have. 

When Green Grey was first founded in Meriden, believe it or not, what we now call things like ‘property portals’ were only just being thought of. 

Rightmove was launched the year our business group was launched and to begin with we were unable to even set up an account without an area manager coming to our offices to check that we had what was called ‘visitable premises’.

It’s strange that Rightmove, Zoopla and OnTheMarket now take money from literally any ‘agent’ whether trading from an office or their girlfriend’s spare bedroom as is the case as one ‘agent’ in Meriden.

In Coleshill, there’s one woman who bounces around from town to town flaunting Google guidelines by setting up an address in a building that she doesn’t even own!  Google seems to have some standards though by not allowing a man in his girlfriend’s bedroom from being listed according to their advertising Guidelines or like the lady in Coleshill, just renting an address and hoping no one ever visits. Google does seem less inclined to police this now, what with making so many people redundant globally. So it’s a bit of a free for all when it comes to estate agents and their offices. Whether this is an important consideration is for you to decide, of course.

It’s odd, that the only people Rightmove won’t take money from for listing their properties is actually the seller! 

Notwithstanding, the world is a different place and what with Facebook and Instagram you can be anyone you like. No one will know or care. 

Taking things further, with the development of apps like tinder and grinder, who cares? You can be whatever you like or who you like, and no one will ever know. 

Well, unfortunately, it is really like that in property, too.

You search ‘estate agents Meriden’ and get an 0333 number. A human answers and arranges to come and see you after a bit of flannel.

They turn up in a suit and branded vehicle, bragging about how many google five star reviews they may or may not have bought off a Dutch firm, ironically also advertising on Google, and proceed to give you a print out of a free valuation sheet that they only ten minutes ago downloaded off a website. The same website that you have access to if you look hard enough!

So they proceed to tell you their costs, use the annoying phrase ‘In my experience’ of which they have none, and then proceed to direct you to For Sale boards that are in local roads that you know and have seen, but fail to tell you that they paid their mate to put it there.

Cynical. Too right.

Anyone can set up as an estate agent without any qualifications except for the prison sentence that they fail to tell you about. Even with that, National Trading Standards can know about it but can’t do anything about it unless it involved violence. 

But this person is already sitting in your lounge, drinking your tea and blagging narcissistically about them.