I don't know if I've mentioned these guys before, but they have to be the most unprofessional bunch of real estate agents I've ever encountered. They aren't responsible for our worst experience with a real estate agent (a racist landlord for whom a Ray White branch was operating saw to that), but despite the fact we're thankfully past dealing with real estate agents they managed to piss me off yet again yesterday and today.
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The story begins in 2002:
Sarah and Gam have made the decision to leave college and find a place to live together. After strolling the streets of St Lucia they happen upon the Elite Real Estate office, which appears to be the only real estate agent with a base in St Lucia. Sarah and Gam enter the office and are seated by a greasy real estate agent who is rather dismissive of their desire to find a rental in St Lucia for what seems a fairly reasonable budget judging by the research they have done on the websites of other real estate businesses doing rentals in St Lucia. They are informed that Elite generally don't 'do' Australian students because they can extract more money from foreign students who are forced to rent places sight-unseen and often deal with Elite through a third party. He sounds quite boastful of this fact and suggests that some of Elite's crappier rentals might suit their budget. After seeing the outside of these units Sarah and Gam resolve to rent through other real estate agents that are offering clean, new places for the same price.
Sarah and Gam select a lovely-looking rental through Ray White Toowong; Sarah's parents offer to pay 2 months rent, during which time she and Gam will not be inhabiting the unit, in order to secure the place. Long story short, racist landlord informs Ray White agent that she will not rent to a black person/interracial couple; Ray White agent informs Sarah's Mum of the landlord's 'unfortunate' stance (but refuses to put anything in writing, for obvious reasons- i.e. what they did was against the law); the unit is rented a couple of months later to a couple from Sarah and Gam's circle of friends/acquaintances in college, one of whom is a 17 year old smoker who breaks the terms of the lease to get two cats, kicks out her boyfriend/fiance and replaces him temporarily with a door-to-door mobile phone salesman before reuniting with fiance- precipitating an incident at the unit involving the spurned mobile phone salesman, a samurai sword and the police. That racist landlord made a great choice of tenant!
Sarah's parents panic that rental woes may continue and, after hearing one horror story from an acquaintance whose daughter was forced to move house just prior to her end-of-semester exams, resolve to look for a place to buy in Brisbane.
Gam goes back to Botswana for Christmas with his parents, while Sarah and her dad go house-hunting in Brisbane.
First stop in Brisbane? Elite St Lucia!
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We dealt with the same greasy guy who had treated Gam and I with such disdain, only... he was so much nicer when he smelled money. He didn't recognise me from my earlier visit. Even though Dad informed him that the primary reason for his desire to purchase a property in St Lucia was for Gam and I to live there the guy couldn't resist his "We're so good at ripping off Asian students" spiel. While we were in the office one of the real estate agents stood at his desk and lit up a cigarette. The greasy guy didn't even blink at the sight. Dad and I couldn't believe it- not only was it illegal, it was also incredibly unprofessional. Dad said to me later he was glad that Elite didn't have any particularly good properties to show us because he wouldn't have liked to buy from them.
I should also note we didn't even look at what the Ray White agent had to offer for sale, even though Mum and Dad had enquired about it when we went there with the intent of renting. If they're willing to defend a racist landlord they should accept that they'll lose business as a consequence.
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Fast forward a couple of years, and the townhouses across the road from us are regularly rented out by Elite. Sometimes they go up for sale and an Elite agent comes around with prospective buyers. Gam and I always joke that we should stand on our balcony and yell "Don't do it!!!" to scare them off.
In the last few days the latest crop of Americans have moved into one of the townhouses. 'The Smoker' came around yesterday, obviously having some business with the Americans and got out of his big, stinky 4WD, leaving it belching clouds of nauseating fumes that came across the street and filled our unit. It was probably 10 minutes before he left and I could open the windows. Later he came back again and did the same thing- I quickly shut the windows and doors, but I left the back door open; the quantity of fumes was so great that they travelled all the way into the centre of our unit complex and in through our back door!
As if that wasn't bad enough, the dickhead came back again today and did the same damn thing, only this time he parked on our side of the road and had some hapless Asian student in the car with him. Unfortunately our unit had already filled up with the stench of his vehicle when I realised he'd turned the engine on, so shutting the doors had little effect. Once again, he sat there with the engine spewing fumes for about 10 minutes, this time apparently dealing with some paperwork.
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The moral of this long and largely pointless story? Elite suck. And I like to blog about things that piss me off, so now I'm not just badmouthing them to our friends but also to the internet at large. So there, you greasy, stinky-vehicle-driving, unprofessional smoking-in-the-office type arseholes. I hope this entry makes it onto Google above their web page.
7 comments:
I have an overal dislike of RE Agents as a whole and have supported your cause to out google rank them (at least we can try).
See post here: http://www.chriswere.com/?p=108
Hey thanks! You've done well refusing to deal with RE agents- that's principled, that is. I have an overall dislike of those inhabiting the profession too- there must be some good eggs, sure, but I don't think I've ever met one.
Think it would be a good idea to remove my link to their web page? I have only a vain hope of succeeding in my effort to surmount their google ranking, but if my linking to their page is going to hinder my crazy cause I'll remove it...
"Think it would be a good idea to remove my link to their web page?"
I'm not an expert on such things, but I *think* that linking to them may assist their ranking... but no point removing it now as google would have already indexed your page.
What a bunch of fucking arseholes. Luckily my current real estate agent is awesome (family business, non chain, mostly handles renting).
My previous one violated the contact rules on no less than 8 occasions including letting themselves in while we were at home. We loved the place and never said anything - even when they evicted us (me 1 week back from abdominal surgery) because we were scared they'd black list us.
Fucking arseholes. Their counter person hated them too. On her last day she rang their clients and told them not to deal with them. She gave us a great reference !
Nice going! I suppose it's hard to stand up to an RE agent when you're a lowly renter because they in effect control whether or not you keep a roof over your head...
My partner and I are first home buyers (in 20's) and went on our first venture in the Sandgate region to look for houses in our price range.
We headed into Jim McKeering Real Estate and came across a man who worked there called John Smith (remember his name so you don't ever have to deal with him). He was incredibly ruid and would not give us the time of day. We went to have a look at one of the places for sale and would let an older couple (mid 40's) to look at the place and not us.
I have never felt so de-graded.
Thank you for this post!
I was going to inspect a house managed by Elite Real Estate and now will tread carefully. Thanks for that.
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