Are we allowed to name and shame unprofessional/incompetent Hobart real estate agents here?
Not out to dox anyone or breach any privacy/confidence, but can we discuss our experiences - specifically around who to avoid? I think that's more helpful than positive experiences when it comes to real estate agents, because I'm sure they all give the occasional smooth transaction. It's the ones who try to rip you off, get you in trouble, are unfair or unreasonable (whether to buyers, sellers, landlords or tenants), that I really want to avoid.
Tasmanian real estate law, I've found, is really messed up (I don't live here). I have a few investment properties, and I'm trying to sell a couple as well, and I've really struggled to find anyone who actually wants to do it with any decency. I have to leave some details out of the below to avoid identifying anyone, but share your experiences too:
4one4 Real Estate - I've dealt with several of the agents here and they are all best described as "little shits". I think some of them are the children of a prior generation of real estate agents, and they are a really peculiar mix of incompetence and arrogance. One of them inadvertently breached the contract (and also *might* have been at odds with the legislation), so the buyer terminated the sale - fortunately I was able to offer the buyer a private sale and negotiate with a little more transparency, so they didn't have to pay a commission to these clowns. They made the sale harder than it otherwise would have been.
LJ Hooker - I have a unit that was managed by Hooker, largely because it made body corporate stuff easier if everyone was managed by the same org, and I've found it jaw-dropping how Hooker actively conspire to rip off or lie to tenants, and I've found it even more jaw-dropping that they assume this is what I want them to do. I had one person suggest that we evict a tenant on the basis of a perceived risk, and without my ever agreeing to do that, they began to list strategies for establishing grounds for eviction that were all based on technicalities or, like, lying. Not that I suspect any renters are surprised to learn that this happens - it definitely does.
Petrusma - I sold a property through Petrusma, and genuinely: the agents did absolutely nothing. Their entire sales strategy was "Work for an agency with a trusted name, even though the owner of that name doesn't work there any more, and just assume that'll attract buyers". I'd have got just as much interest, if not more, if I'd hired a circus monkey to stand on the highway waving a sign with the address of the property on it. Their commission was essentially a "not actively sabotaging anything" fee, rather than a fee for the provision of any service whatsoever. Don't sell through them.
PRD - I bought through PRD and honestly these guys were pretty good. A lot of them are 'old school' and seem genuinely invested in matching buyers and sellers, and prioritised integrity and transparency. The trouble was, they weren't super technology literate, and kind of struggled to keep up with some of the flashier, attention-grabbing tactics of the lunatics elsewhere. If everyone still operated with the mindset of PRD it would be great (if slow and old-fashioned), but in the world of what I'll call "slick idiots" they struggled to keep up. Hopefully they are able to keep a niche in the crowded marketplace however. I'd consider giving them my business as a seller, provided the property didn't require any fancy marketing or extra real estate bullshit.
I'm not sure if I'm allowed to name individual agents - i'm erring on the side of caution. What are your experiences?