Estate agents

A quick update on our experience with estate agents in Perth

1. Customer service and estate agents do not go together.
Working hours are typically 9-5pm, Mon-Friday. Now if you are working and house hunting at the same time, make sure your boss is very understanding if you have to pop in and out of the office to view properties.

When viewing properties, make sure you allow yourself plenty of time. Arrive early, because if you are late, don't expect them to hang around for you. However, if they are late, do expect that you should hang around for them.

2. How many estate agent personnel does it take to show a property? Answer: more than necessary.

So, you get a property manager who is assigned to a property. So, if you want to view a particular property, you have to get through to the right property manager, then find out when he/she is available before arranging a viewing.Then revert to Point 1, making sure you can take time out mon-fri 9-5pm.
 
3. Open house viewings
So there are 'open house viewings' which basically means that certain properties are open for viewing at a certain times. We've been turning up to a few of these, which has been great as we have been able to view properties at a short notice because of these open viewings. However, we've also noticed that these open viewings are open regardless if anyone turns up or not - no wonder we've been finding it difficult to get hold of property managers, because they're always out showing at properties whether anyone shows up or not...


CAMP SHANE
We've been viewing a few properties now with the same estate agent and have been meeting the same property manager - Camp Shane (he's called Shane, and either very camp or very gay). Bearing in mind points 1 and 2 of the above, we've been meeting Camp Shane more by accident than by design through the open house viewings. We've turned up to a few open house viewings which Camp Shane is responsible for.

Now, Camp Shane seems always to be in a rush. We have not figured out why he is always in a rush. Take the last viewing we went to with Camp Shane.We saw 2 apartments with him at 12.50pm in the same apartment block. The next viewing was at 1.30pm which Camp Shane is also responsible for. Camp Shane suddenly disappeared and returned 10 mins later all huffing and puffing - why - we're not sure, as the next viewing was literally the block opposite and we had been sitting outside for 10 mins...