An agent complained on social media yesterday about the number of touting letters – 26 – that went to a client’s property in 24 days. All apparently came from just one firm.
Martin & Co Norwich copied in The Property Ombudsman, Norfolk Trading Standards and EYE on its tweet, which appeared to point the finger at haart.
The tweet was headed “Beyond harassment”.
It said: “Our landlord client has received 26 touting letters from the same agent in 24 days!! And the property has been marked ‘Let Agreed’ for eight of those. Sadly, such velocity of letters is the norm.”
The tweet uses the hashtag “desperate or what”?
Yesterday evening Martin & Co Norwich partner Matthew White told EYE: “A colleague was at the property today with the people who are about to move in, when this pile of letters was seen, with haart’s name visible. There were 26 of them.
“Agents do tout round here, but haart are easily the worst offenders – to the extent that it’s quite shocking.”
We have approached haart for comment.
TPO does have a code on canvassing. It does not outlaw it, but cites inappropriate practices including “continuous unsolicited calls, texts, emails (including online communications) or general junk mail”.
Well surprise surprise Headphones Quirk leading the charge
“Knock on this doors and you’ve got a six in 10 chance of that property coming to you and you potentially selling it” he tells industry commentator and consultant Christopher Watkin in a video interview.
When challenged by Watkin, saying that agents don’t knock on doors, Quirk says: “Why the hell not? … People are scored of doing it, but do you know what? I do it now.”
Quirk’s Keller Williams operation in Essex – which he runs with relative Anthony Quirk, who founded online firm HomeSeller, and Mark Readings, ”
Doesn’t look as if its done any good mind Keller Williams haven’t got 1 single instruction in Essex
You must be logged in to like or dislike this comments.
Click to login
Don't have an account? Click here to register
Has Mr Quirk stood you up? You seem to have a thing for him.
You must be logged in to like or dislike this comments.
Click to login
Don't have an account? Click here to register
Well if you are happy with him giving interviews weekly as an ambassador for the industry I am not
. It was only a year that Emoov fell of a cliff where investors , sellers and agents got kicked in the teeth His fanciful predictions have caused untold harm
You must be logged in to like or dislike this comments.
Click to login
Don't have an account? Click here to register
The only audience that the kind of interviews he gives will be of the industry itself and all the industry does is a mix of ignore him, laugh at him or get angry and shouty about him. I wouldn’t worry about him frankly and stick with ignore. Like a naughty child who misbehaves for attention when the behaviour stops getting him any and he realises he’s not relevant will stop playing up and feel a bit stupid.
You must be logged in to like or dislike this comments.
Click to login
Don't have an account? Click here to register
Personally. I don’t think they’ve delivered enough. I think the agent complaining should stop complaining and start thinking of ways to generate more business. Maybe the agent complaining should be touting some more.
You must be logged in to like or dislike this comments.
Click to login
Don't have an account? Click here to register
So landlord does not give 2 hoots about the letters but agent gets bent out of shape?
As said above the agent would be better off concentrating on their business rather than worrying about this.
You must be logged in to like or dislike this comments.
Click to login
Don't have an account? Click here to register
why write to property eye moaning? I would have taken a selfie of myself next to the let by board holding all the tout letters and sent it to them on a moonpig with sympathy card.
You must be logged in to like or dislike this comments.
Click to login
Don't have an account? Click here to register
henrymarr80…
”Why write to property eye moaning…” this made me chuckle, given the irony of the agent in question being Haart!
Perhaps M&C have taken some lessons from their competitor (or at least their competitor’s chief and leader!), he’s always on PIE casting aspersions and moaning about other agencies ;)…
You must be logged in to like or dislike this comments.
Click to login
Don't have an account? Click here to register
The Ombudsman won’t do anything, they only act on complaints from clients.
I alerted them a while ago to something that an agent local to me was doing that was totally against their rules and was going to seriously cost vendors who chose them but they told me they only dealt with this sort of thing after a complaint had been made. They wouldn’t even speak to the agent to tell them to stop doing it to protect customers in advance.
Thankfully the agent in question closed soon afterwards, saving consumers from losing money, but no thanks to the Ombudsman.
You must be logged in to like or dislike this comments.
Click to login
Don't have an account? Click here to register
I cannot reocmmend to any of our 2000 clients that they should use a high street chain estate agent. Shocking feedback from clients, estate agents and personal experience – so if you chose to use one – good luck, Sadly.
You must be logged in to like or dislike this comments.
Click to login
Don't have an account? Click here to register
Are you citing “followers” as your “clients”?
You must be logged in to like or dislike this comments.
Click to login
Don't have an account? Click here to register
Interesting to see the split of opinions. From an environmental point of view it’s quite depressing to see; but nature of the beast I suppose
You must be logged in to like or dislike this comments.
Click to login
Don't have an account? Click here to register
I generally forewarn my clients they will be bombarded by touting letters as soon as we launch, incredibly. I advise these are typically the ambulance chasers of our industry, parasitic bottom feeders chasing the crumbs of proper Agents. Sure enough within a week my clients report how many desperate agents there are, automatically ruling themself out of any future chance of business having now taken themselves out of proper agent status.
You must be logged in to like or dislike this comments.
Click to login
Don't have an account? Click here to register
Hamptons and Chancellors are the worst offenders on my patch. As soon as a property is uploaded to a portal the ‘Strictly Private and Confidential’ letters start arriving once a week. No doubt they have some wizzy Proptech to scrap data and produce computer generated junk mail. I’ve never lost an instruction to either so just see it as a waste of their resources.
You must be logged in to like or dislike this comments.
Click to login
Don't have an account? Click here to register
The local Haart office wouldnt have clue. They have popped it on a database at some stage and all marketing is taken over by an automated process then. Not saying that is right or wrong but its how Haart operates. It’s not local it’s generic.
You must be logged in to like or dislike this comments.
Click to login
Don't have an account? Click here to register
Touting is part of the job in a competitive market. I know agents who’ve done over £100k of business in a year off the back of touting slow-moving properties. Morally, it’s absolutely no different to verbally selling your services to another agent’s vendor on a viewing or on registration as an applicant and if you’re not doing that then you won’t be in business very long. It has to be done intelligently though, and not to excess, or it’s going to be counter-productive on every level. 26 letters in 24 days to a rental property is just a ridiculous waste of paper and postage funds, apart from anything else.
All that said, if your vendors are unhappy enough that they’re disinstructing you in favour of agents who’ve knocked on their door then you need to stop boo-hooing about it and instead have a look at whether you’re doing a good enough job to establish a relationship of trust with them. Vendors don’t disinstruct if they know they’re in good hands.
You must be logged in to like or dislike this comments.
Click to login
Don't have an account? Click here to register
Spot on!
You must be logged in to like or dislike this comments.
Click to login
Don't have an account? Click here to register
I despair. Do the agents commenting on here realise that this is a public forum? Visible to all, including journalists and potential clients? The standard of English, alone, is enough to make a primary school child weep, never mind the attitude to the business so often shown.
You must be logged in to like or dislike this comments.
Click to login
Don't have an account? Click here to register
Says the chap posting under his full name while, seemingly, sprinkling punctuation marks over his missives at random. that post reads like you were taking dictation from William Shatner…
You must be logged in to like or dislike this comments.
Click to login
Don't have an account? Click here to register
I think you just proved my point. Thank you. BTW – what was ‘random’ about my punctuation – or using ‘my full name’?
You must be logged in to like or dislike this comments.
Click to login
Don't have an account? Click here to register
I’m still not entirely certain what your point was; you failed to elucidate on your opinion of touting one way or another (though I suspect I can guess). My point about your use of your full name being that ‘potential clients’ (who are, in any case, about as likely to read this as you are to encounter Elvis at the deli counter in Waitrose), journalists or anyone else will be unable to identify pretty much anyone commenting on this article, with the exception of your good self. As to your punctuation: extraneous commas and question marks abound, but who’s counting? 😉
You must be logged in to like or dislike this comments.
Click to login
Don't have an account? Click here to register
Visible to all, including journalists and potential clients?
Certainly does and that’s puts to bed the argument over why agents wish it to be known their disgust at others behaviour and risks the public take with some others. Most agents are good agents and go above and beyond the call of duty, yet stories and comments like TwitterSalisPropNews is nothing more than biased and unfounded, to cause as much damage to agents reputations. In recent times it has been the so called hybrid (no they are not) or more appropriate limited service on-line only agents that have caused considerable distress for their customers and employee’s, often lead by the likes of the Quirk’s of this world. That brings us to Keller Williams and their bed partners!
You must be logged in to like or dislike this comments.
Click to login
Don't have an account? Click here to register
Do unto those that do unto you
The end
You must be logged in to like or dislike this comments.
Click to login
Don't have an account? Click here to register