Frustrated buyers are being invited to take part in a new online game where they can vent their anger by 'firing' estate agents out of a cannon.
The Angry Buyers game may, however, raise eyebrows as it comes from Harry Hill, himself a former estate agent.
The game has been unveiled on the In-Deed website, a conveyancing business created by Hill, who is former boss of the UK's biggest estate agency chain Countrywide.
Hill has now slated agents for their 'frequently poor' service.
TV’s estate agent-friendly Phil Spencer is the face of the new organisation, which floated on AIM and intends to take market share by bypassing agents and mortgage brokers, and marketing directly to consumers. He also hosts the annual ESTA awards.
The new Angry Buyers game sets out to appeal to consumers by giving them the chance to get their rent or mortgage paid for six months.
But it also aims to highlight the number of fall-throughs, often caused, says In-Deed, by estate agents’ poor service and the lack of available finance.
Spencer said: “With more than half a million property deals falling through at the end of last year primarily due to a lack of available mortgage finance, it is no surprise buyers are angry.
“Angry Buyers is a new online game where players can let off steam by firing estate agents and property lawyers out of a cannon for the chance to win their rent or mortgage paid for six months.”
Research from In-Deed claims that from September to November last year there was a dramatic spike in failed property transactions, and suggests that more buyers than ever give up trying to purchase through sheer frustration.
Its research says that some 531,000 sales fell through in these three months, compared with 394,000 for the three months from December 2010 to February 2011.
The firm claims that in the last six months of 2011 it was more likely that a transaction would fail than succeed.
In-Deed reckons that half of buyers lose money when the move falls through, costing them an average of £5,500. As a result, the number of buyers who give up on purchasing after the first try more than doubled last year.
Difficulties securing mortgage finance is a key factor, seriously aggravated by declining service standards among property professionals, according to the firm’s research.
Legal issues were the culprit in one in eight cases (12%) with reports of incompetence, delays and mistakes by solicitors, and anger with the legal profession.
Estate agents were also the target of buyers’ rage with 18% saying they were upset with them.
Hill said: “With mortgage finance harder than ever to secure and poor service standards rife in estate agency and conveyancing, it’s no surprise that home buying is such a frustrating process.
“You can make it a lot less stressful by using a reputable online conveyancing service.”
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Comments
Got to give him credit, hes trying to create something and prove he was not a one trick pony and not just in the right place at the right time at CW, pity investors who believe his hype without any real substance. But then again if you are that daft or greedy, suffer…….who will be the winner of the game then? Wife son/?????
Rupert-Glasgow.
Only got to 547 m
PA called Wife, Wife called Mother, Mother called Daughter. General female consensus is along the lines of:
You need help.
I have now been have been banned from playing it.
"Hill has now slated agents for their 'frequently poor' service."
Hill said: “...You can make it a lot less stressful by using a reputable online conveyancing service.”
I do not totally disagree with Mr Hill on either point - however I would like to add this following.
Firstly, such a sweeping statement aimed towards the competency of Agents leaves much to be desired. Are ALL Agents offering this "frequently poor" service? Some? Or - which I would suggest be far nearer the truth - just a few? And what part of the service is he maligning?
With regard to his second statement, I would simply say "...by using a good conveyancer". Sometimes, as we all know from experience, not being able to see the person you are talking to is stressful in itself.
I would remind him of the old adage regarding stones and glass houses.
I sincerely hope (solely for the sake of those who will be using your service - as it will be ONLY them that are affected...) that those words do not come back to haunt you, Mr Hill, and that InDeed can fight as good a fight as you can talk on its behalf.
'Rupert - Glasgow': Sir - opinions are like @r$eh0les. Everyone has one.
No stats. Just an opinion. You probably won't cry laughing at re-runs of the late, great Les Dawson. I do.
@ Mike
How much have you got and do you mind sharing ?
@ PeeBee, Harry Hill ,off the telly, is so funny.
But, bet you will go away and find a bunch of stats to "prove" the rest of the world wrong.
My PA just caught me playing the Pingu game, she actually started crying and called me a heartless b'stard.
Then she phoned the wife, anyone got a spare room for the night?
Reply Puzzled of Tunbridge Wells
To use your figs JKM would Market at 300k and neg deal with vendor to accept 270k. The benefit is that the marketing is improved dramatically from day one as potential purchasers who are not able to organise these works themselves get to do the 'nice' bit which is choose colour schemes, kitchen/bathroom design ETC plus the online marketing presented the before and 'potential' after pics ( My instructions in my area had really good CTR on Rightmove)
Helped some Agents win instructions from Vendors who knew their property was dated but did not have immediate cash to renovate.
In effect JKM advised the vendor what was needed to be done to improve the marketing but were also able to complete the works ( Just made a complete Balls Up of it)
Inside PD - thank you for your reply. You wrote: 'JKM service was to allow vendors with 'tired' property to remarket it with the buyers choice of new kitchen, Bathroom, Carpets and redecoration.' But how should it have worked? Vendor is on market at 300k with ordinarily shabby property that most buyers would buy thinking 'it needs a new kitchen, bathroom, redecoration and carpets'. Buyer offers 270k thinking he has 30k to spend - normally vendor says 'no' - or agent negotiates and a deal is done. How did JKM get involved? Agent calls them up and says 'we've got a tired one here - give us a price to do the business etc.'
And ... 'Work was undertaken between an extended exchange and completion and the vendor received completion monies minus agreed cost of the works, therefore no upfront payments to either Buyer or seller.' Wow, sounds like a legal minefield. Did anyone actually use the service?
And ... 'Very good idea and COULD have been game changing in the way people buy & sell property but the quality of the finished article was awful due to inexperienced managers and complete lack of customer care' When you say the quality of the finished article was awful - you mean the work was done badly? Boy, who was responsible for that. Sounds like another minefield.
I never understand why agents aren't a lot more proactive about the state of a property - when valuing it. You see all sorts of drivel on the box (American woman 'Anne Marie' - taking properties that have been on the market for a year, declutter, a lick of paint, a new carpet and a few cushions and, abracadabra, property is sold. Who don't agents say to people 'the house is tired and if you do this and this it will sell more easily and at a better price. We think if you spent 3 grand you'll get 10 grand back and a much easier sale etc.
JKM service was to allow vendors with 'tired' property to remarket it with the buyers choice of new kitchen, Bathroom, Carpets and redecoration.
Work was undertaken between an extended exchange and completion and the vendor received completion monies minus agreed cost of the works, therefore no upfront payments to either Buyer or seller.
Very good idea and COULD have been game changing in the way people buy & sell property but the quality of the finished article was awful due to inexperienced managers and complete lack of customer care
'JKM was and is a brilliant concept...'
I had a look at the web site - can anyone explain what, exactly, the concept is? Is it that agents and vendors work in partnership with JKM .. and that JKM come in and say 'you need to refit the kitchen, tart up the en-suite, returf the front garden' ... and organise the work and then the property will sell?
Okay. Maybe I'm being a bit naiive here; maybe I'm missing some kind of ironic humour - but is there an element of contributors who ACTUALLY BELIEVE that the Harry Hill this story is referring to is the TV unfunnyman?
Harry
Your reply is genuinely appreciated.
I must pay Harry Hill respect for answering the question ref: JKM.
A great concept, poorly delivered.
Harry Hill should stick to what he's good at, namely, acting like a prat on television. At least we can switch him off there.
A bit more number crunching.
The scary "1/2 a million sales fall through" headline would be based on a movement of less than 7 people! i.e. about 7 more people said that attempted their purchase had fallen through in Sep-Nov 2011 than in Dec-Feb 2011.
Hmmm. Maybe people who have since successfully moved are less likely to recall an attempted purchase of another property as a 'fall-through'.
Maybe the purchase fell through because the seller chose to sell to another buyer and the sale didn't fall through at all.
or maybe deals that don't get closed before Christmas are more likely to fall through
Or maybe it is an entirely explainable statistical blip which would always be a risk in any survey that is based on such a tiny, tiny sample.
My advice, take absolutely no notice of any statistics that are published with their own accompanying game!
Following on from Statto...
Who the **** came up with these MDT figures??
Numbers of sales by quarter (and numbers of FAILED sales in brackets):
Dec 2010 to Feb 2011 - 396,000 (394,000)
March to May 2011 - 461,000 (376,000)
June to August 2011 - 367,000 (542,000)
September to November 2011 - 513,000 (531,000)
So - that's ONE MILLION SEVEN HUNDRED AND THIRTY ONE THOUSAND successful sales in a twelve-month period, and ONE MILLION EIGHT HUNDRED AND FORTY THREE THOUSAND abortives in the same period. 3.58 million property transactions went part- or all of the way to completion.
Sorry - I thought I read somewhere that we were in the depths of the worst property sales famine ever? Aren't the above figures reminiscent of - or even higher than - the crazy days of 2006-2008?
Lies... damn lies... statistics. Takes yer pick, friends.
Messrs Pryor and Hendry (apologies to the former for associating his name with that of the latter...) will no doubt be quoting these 'facts' later in the month in their "Reasons to be Cheerful, Part 3"-type monologues...
Reply to "anotherexpd"
Point 1 Type in www.angrybuyers.com Good luck!
JKM was and is a brilliant concept into which friends and I invested materially and I became non-exec chairman.
As with all businesses, success or failure depends on a variety of factors including amongst other things, management skills, cost control, product, state of the market, debtor management and sometimes luck. I visited the operation regularly, and have no doubt that many people within the business worked very hard and long hours-but, as you know, without much success and the whole thing has, for now at least, been scaled back to a very small team who are initially overseeing the completion of all deals in the pipeline.
Had all PD's achieved a reasonable volume of sales each month, JKM would have been an outstanding success-but sadly many achieved very little despite good sustained financial support over an extended period and I don't believe that anyone other than investors (and we are big and ugly enough to know that all new business investments carry a high degree of risk) suffered any financial loss. Do I think it is a shame. Yes absolutely-a terrible terrible shame.
Love this and love the use of my name! Big collars for everyone!
If you read the original press release the 'research' is a total sham.
To extrapolate to the whole market by asking only 122 people who had tried to buy a home in the last year, is a joke.
The scary thing is that much of the press regurgitate this stuff without considering whether it is valid.
This is taken straight from their website.
Notes to editors
All research was conducted by ICM Market Research and carried out between 20th December 2011–6th January 2012. Sample was 4,067 people, of whom 3 per cent had tried to buy a home within the last 12 months.
..
I tried it - fun for 5 mins.
Had to stop as the lawyer went to lunch and isn't back till Monday
Absolute disgrace - advocating violence against agents.
Enjoyed shooting the Lawyer though
Blatant marketing tricks never fail to make me laugh but as it’s predominantly estate agents that read this site I have to assume this idea was concocted after a few beers. Indeed should probably focus on selling a little more convincing; they could then probably influence fall through rates, rather than spending their investors’ money on games and fair weather, part time, estate agents.
isn't harry hill that silly fellow on the tv on a saturday night? either way he's a joker!
Might I suggest that this game is a little bit more fun:
http://www.verydodgy.com/downloads/flash/pingu.html
It involves polar bears, penguins and spiked baseball bats.
It is not in the slightest bit PC and almost certainly will get you fired if your boss spots you playing.
Maybe if we change the penguin to Harry Hill?
Well done Harry, great idea, how do i find it though?
A word on JKM from an ex PD.
Gutted, dissapointed, an opportunity completely wasted.
Harry I would appreciate if you would make a comment on your thoughts.....
Come on guys-lighten up. This is essentially a bit of fun in a housing market that is anything but fun for anyone operating in it. Despite the odd unkind remark, I was in agency from 16 years old to 60 and saw good, mediocre and bad operators in all businesses associated with house sales. One or two I would merrily have fired from a cannon-but probably less than the number of' vendors' for whom I worked hard for months for them either to (a) pull out of the transaction at the end of the day or (b) complete and then bitch about my fee.
I'm sorry if my efforts to publicise In-Deed Online, or our efforts to lift fees and standards in the conveyancing industry have offended anyone. To those peoplew may I sincerely apologise.
I participated in a BBC Radio Leicester interview with Phil Spencer last week and have to say he was quite complimentary about estate agents, and didn't actually directly appotion any blame on agents.
The speculative amount of fall throughs of 531,000 in the final 6 months of the year was not in my opinion quantifyable and was just scare mongering.
Let's face it the main reason for sales falling through is that buyers and sellers just change their minds through sheer frustration, and no online conveyancing facility will remedy this.
Sellers & Buyers have always sought someone to blame other than themselves but it's the sheer proccess of the transaction, from lack of decent mortgage funding to lack of desirable properties in some areas.
Yes admittedly some agents, solicitors and mortgage brokers might be inefficient, but until the trnansaction goes thorugh they don't get paid so they all have a vested interest.
Will In-deed make money like his JKM investment, which appears to have closed down after £1.5m invested.
This is just a huge big (ish) free advert for Harry Hill, Phil Spencer and InDeed......
Note to self:
Think up a controversial headline and then direct everyone to my website.
Pingu .. silly but funny.
It's a joke, but it represents the outfit displaying it.
A joke
level 5 is hard!
Top scores?
I got 7900 points
Having spent over 35 years in the residential estate agency and letting agency profession (it IS a profession to those who are real qualified business people – surveyors are a separate profession) I have never known such confusion and childishness recently (not specific to this particular "Headline") from many who should know better. They are destroying credibility and that part of the general public (you know the type) who want to knock us must be laughing their socks off.
I find this story incredulous. How on earth can the Estate Agent be held responsible if there are finance or legal problems with the transaction?
He really should know better having run one of the largest groups of agents in the UK.
We EA's are a bit of a target of course, as is any agent acting as the middle man between buyer & seller. The game sounds fun but dumb. The encouragement to 'fire' an agent in return for money doesn't really seem like cricket chaps, people should complain for a fair reason, not for the chance of getting money from the game.
If the aim is to vent frustration at fall throughs, these are surely events which are usually caused by buyers or sellers changing their minds, by AIP's not becoming offers, by unexpectedly bad surveys or by painfully slow conveyance. I'd think it very rare that the agent was responsible for a failed transaction as we only get paid when the transaction is successful .... so that aspect of the game seems very stupid. HH may not be very lovable, but he is not stupid.
"Research from In-Deed claims that from September to November last year there was a dramatic spike in failed property transactions, and suggests that more buyers than ever give up trying to purchase through sheer frustration."
That was a patricularly amusing paragraph. It suggests that EAs are causing ALL the problems. Nothing to do with lenders refusing to lend despite AIPs being issued, or surveyors down valuing/finding defects with a property? Nothing to do with buyers being made redundant, or having some similar bad run of luck?
And surely...
"Estate agents were also the target of buyers’ rage with 18% saying they were upset with them."
...could equally be reported as 82% of buyers had no reason to be upset with the service provided by their agent?
I know there are some crap agents out there, but it always pains me for us all to be tarred with that same simple brush. At my company we get no proper complaints from any of our clients, and never have. The only whinning we get is from buyers who stamp their feet and shout and can't understand why we don't give in to their ridiculous demands straight away just like mummy used to do when they were growing up.
Think Harry Hill was/is a Doctor. Don't think he was ever an Estate Agent!
For this story to make any sense surely it should be mortgage lenders being fired out of cannons?
Perhaps the report can elaborate on the 'declining service standards of property professionals' ? As EA's are not professionals surely this refers to surveyors (who have limited contact with buyers compared to EA's) and conveyancers?
So Harry Hill, are your conveyancers' service skills better than high street conveyancer's who have been around for years and survive on repeat business and reputation?
We should start a game called 'Fire P155 poor comedians'. H H Is a jerk and he gets from me the same treatment as all soaps on the T.V. - the off switch comes into play.
Not read the article as I have better things to do.
To the first poster, don't do it, it will be a white elephant. It is not about funding - as any law firm has always been able to get business funding for conveyancing expansion.
The larger the business, the lower the quality - obviously as it is about economies of scale, mass production and poorly trained non-LLB conveyancers.
Wow, what a fantastic game, I love the bit where it says "Internet Explorer cannot display the webpage".
Harry Hill is a joke and so is he InDeed business.
I know a major new offering that will blow his expensive conveyancing offer out of the water!
This new start up has £50m of funding committed.
Watch this space !
Mmm Mmm.....I like the Angry Buyers Game................ Mmm, But I also like Estate Agents...............Which ones the best............... Theres only one way to find out........ FIGHT !!!!!!!