In late
November I was surprised by one of my high school chums informing me that he
had already put a deposit down on a house for his second year at university.
This immediately put me into a state of panic, as I assumed that everyone else
had started to secure accommodation whilst I had barely thought about it.
Driven
by fear of being a homeless student I wandered into the closest estate agent
and pleaded for assistance with finding a suitable abode for myself, and two of
my current flatmates. I was told by an agent to peruse the properties on the
companies website and email him when we had found some houses we would like to
look at. This seemingly easy task was made infuriating as, for reasons still
unknown, the estate agent wouldn’t respond to an email unless I sent it to him
multiple times. I decided that the reason for this derives from the
stereotypical estate agent being a wanker. It wasn’t his fault it was merely
part of the job description. After numerous emails sent, in return for little
advice or insight, we eventually secured a viewing of three houses in early
January.
We met
a representative, near the first house on our list, then ventured to it. After
knocking on the door with no answer she assured us that the current tenants
were aware of the situation then promptly let herself in. I personally felt
like we were breaking some kind of law entering someone’s house without knowing
whether they really gave their consent. However we wondered in anyway and found
one of the tenants still asleep unaware of what was going on. At this point I
started to doubt that he had given his consent. After looking around briefly
and quietly we decided to move onto the next house.
Like
the first house the agent knocked, then let herself in. Although this time the
two people who were in knew that we were coming and provided us with more
information about renting houses than our estate agent did.
At the
third house the sales rep didn’t get a chance to use her set of keys as a chap
with a broad grin opened the door slightly and told us to give him five
minutes. After waiting five minutes we entered the house to be greeted by a
strong herbal aroma and another guy who was also clearly in high spirits. We
explored the house a bit and in one of the bedrooms found two plant pots with a
light above them, which were obviously for growing bedroom tomatoes. After
looking around for a short while we decided that we liked this house the best
as it was the cheapest, at the best location and smelt nicest.
The next
day I emailed the estate agents three times, as I was now accustomed to him
being awful, telling him we would like to put a deposit down on the third
house. A couple of days later I received an email from him telling me to ring
him.
I attempted to
ring him several times but he was equally difficult to communicate with over
the phone. Eventually he picked up the phone and apologised as the estate
agents had advertised the house we wanted incorrectly.
Apparently the
price and number of bedrooms were incorrect. I understood how the price could
be incorrect but the number of bedrooms we saw was three and number advertised
on the website was also three. How they managed to hide a bedroom is a mystery
that made the house even more desirable to me. After finding out that all the
houses we viewed that day were now unavailable to us we found ourselves back at
square one.
After this ordeal we have decided to cut out the
middleman and not bother with estate agents. Instead were looking exclusively
at properties where we can speak directly with the landlord. This way you get a
good idea of whether or not you’re going to get on with the landlord, you save
paying all the ridiculous agency fees and you don’t have to deal with the
bastards that are estate agents. Hopefully we shall find a house soon.
