Are Online agents any good?

While browsing available properties as I do to see what’s going on in the market, I came across a property put on the market in our core area (Acton W3).

The rent was well overpriced so I looked further into and it seemed like some sort of online agent that didn’t really have any other properties in this area.

Trying to be a friendly agent (and thinking maybe I could help them let the property), I thought I would email them and tell them that they may have put the wrong rent on it or inform them that such properties in this area would not rent for such an amount.

I thought it possibly could be that they may not have that much experience in the area hence got the rent so wrong.

Below is the advert – I have removed their details as I don’t believe naming and shaming them would add any value to anyone.

After 3 days I got a response…

The problems:

Response time: 

It took them 3 days to bet back to me, so much for being a active agent, if I were a landlord I would expect them to respond to any enquires with a day at the most (we try to respond within a maximum of 3 hours although during office hours we usually respond in 1 hour).

Incorrect name:

As you can see they responded calling me Soha, no idea who Soha is but hopefully she doesn’t rent with these people.

Incorrect property:

The link of the property they included was a different property altogether which wasn’t even on the market anymore:

Attention to detail (or attention to anything):

If they have actually taken some time to read the message I sent they would have known that I wasn’t even looking to rent the property, I clearly stated I was a local agent and that the rent they were demanding was incorrect and not feasible.

Honestly, I don’t think they could get anything more wrong even if they tried.

Conclusion

As a lot of online agents and some large corporates, don’t give a poo about the landlord or their property.

PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE avoid using such agents, honestly, it is not worth it.

The best is to enquire about a property your agent of choice may have and see how they respond.

If you aren’t happy with their response, why would a tenant be?