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I put my house on the market in April with Harcourts Invercargill with acting as my agent.I won't bore you with all the details but I wasn't really happy with their services and a complaint was sent off to the Realestate Agents Authoirity or reaa.govt.nz who have taken it to tribunal and I'm still awaiting their decision.
I had a call from Hayden Duncan who is CEO of Harcourts who apologised himself and on behalf of the whole group and agreed that the reason my house is still unsold is because of poor presentation right from the beginning (because as himself told me) it is the first 6 weeks which is the most crutial and is when you get the most interest in your property.
I got caught growing a couple of plants,the biggest was only 11cms tall and of course I had to go to court for and I got my name in the local newspaper.
cut that page out of the Southland Times and highlighted it which only gave my name,occupation the 3 charges and sentence which he sent to the reaa in his response telling the reaa how he's never had any other problems in his 7 years as an agent and so it must be me that has all the problems giving his own opinion that I have serious mental health issues.
The reality is that he was never employed by me to do anything other than to sell my house,not make any sort of judgements and frankly I had to tell them that the personal information he gave them is irrelevant to the matter at hand and is in my opinion malicious rumor mongering and an attempt by him to discredit my complaint as being nothing more than the delusions of a sick mind.
I've had my house with Ray Whites for the last 6 months with buggerall interest and I can only put it down to and company must be putting it about that old martin here is a big bad drug addict who got caught growing marijuana at his house and since everyone in Invercargill knows everyone else and some of the advertising goes into the local paper how they wouldn't want a house with that sort of reputation,would they?
I'm telling you about it to let you know that most people in business here in Invercargill are too supersensitive to handle any form of criticism and their standard response is to any sort of complaint is to retaliate.
I had to say that I thought he might have been a bit more mature and just admitted that he might have made a mistake and gotten on and over it.
I was talking to a chap at Citizens Advice who told me that his son had exactly the same sort of trouble with Harcourts Dunedin when he employed them to sell his house and the real reason never had any complaints from anybody else in the last 7 years is more likely to be because most people down here are too scared of what happens to those of us who will and they don't want the same treatment.
I don't have to "like" you to give you a job,so why do they have to "like me" to do a good one?
What actually happens when you make a complaint to the top man/woman/person is that they put it into someone else's hands to deal with and which is exactly what happened when I emailed it to what I thought was Harcourts head office in Wellington which they redirected it to their South Island business manager who rang the manager of Harcourts Invercargill and asked him to investigate my complaint in which he was also involved and who of course could only find himself not guilty.
I think it came as a bit of a shock to them when the REAA acted on my complaint because the authority before them never used to do bugger all calling themselves the realestate institute who were themselves from a realestate background and were of course biassed towards only really looking after their mates.
I think that Harcourts like most business premises here are privately owned and so they think they can just run them as they want to and do and like old Franky used to say "and did it 'my' way" which is not necessarily the 'right' way.Just their way.
The reality however is that they may own the franchise but that's it and how they operate is a direct reflection on how the whole company is operated.Harcourts Invercargill in this instance being just another branch office of a much bigger company.
I know that if I was in business I'd much rather have you saying nice things about me,by word of mouth being the best form of advertising which is how most successful businesses operate.
Down here however they're pretty much still living in the dark ages thinking that if you're not happy you're only going to tell one person who might tell a couple of people,that's "if" you can even find one person who will listen
to you in the first place.
Me though,if you're in business and you piss me off,I could be your very worst nightmare because with access to the internet 24/7 I've learnt that people who have money don't have to like me or know anything about me to be influenced by what I have to say.
ie Thirty something years ago an Islander murdered someone in Mangare with a machete which became known as the 'Mangare Machete Murder' and people stopped going to Mangere and what about that Rastafarian wanted by the cops in Ruatoria over a church burning and suddenly Ruatoria got a bad name or when that hitchhiker bashed a driver and people stopped picking up hitchhikers,shit when you think about it,isn't it the same everywhere in NZ today,so you'd think everyone would just stay home,wouldn't you?
There are lots of people down here who are quick to judge,who have never been across Cook Strait because of all the bad stuff they hear and there are still people in their 50's who have never been to Christchurch and even some who have never been further north than Gore in the whole of their lives and whose workmates are their old schoolmates who have always lived just down the road,who have drunk at the same pub with their own stool at the bar and you notice it more on fri and saturday nights when it suddenly goes real quiet and all the heads turn when a stranger walks in and you can go away for 20 years and people remember your name because to them it's like you've only been away since yesterday,that's how much their lives have changed.
I think it's an insecurity,lack of self confidence sort of thing myself always having to run everyone else down in order to feel good about themselves;the 'knockers' is what they're called down here.
Personally I wouldn't recommend either Harcourts or the Professionals Invercargill to sell your house although I expect they probably all have their rogue.
I had a call from Hayden Duncan who is CEO of Harcourts who apologised himself and on behalf of the whole group and agreed that the reason my house is still unsold is because of poor presentation right from the beginning (because as himself told me) it is the first 6 weeks which is the most crutial and is when you get the most interest in your property.
I got caught growing a couple of plants,the biggest was only 11cms tall and of course I had to go to court for and I got my name in the local newspaper.
cut that page out of the Southland Times and highlighted it which only gave my name,occupation the 3 charges and sentence which he sent to the reaa in his response telling the reaa how he's never had any other problems in his 7 years as an agent and so it must be me that has all the problems giving his own opinion that I have serious mental health issues.
The reality is that he was never employed by me to do anything other than to sell my house,not make any sort of judgements and frankly I had to tell them that the personal information he gave them is irrelevant to the matter at hand and is in my opinion malicious rumor mongering and an attempt by him to discredit my complaint as being nothing more than the delusions of a sick mind.
I've had my house with Ray Whites for the last 6 months with buggerall interest and I can only put it down to and company must be putting it about that old martin here is a big bad drug addict who got caught growing marijuana at his house and since everyone in Invercargill knows everyone else and some of the advertising goes into the local paper how they wouldn't want a house with that sort of reputation,would they?
I'm telling you about it to let you know that most people in business here in Invercargill are too supersensitive to handle any form of criticism and their standard response is to any sort of complaint is to retaliate.
I had to say that I thought he might have been a bit more mature and just admitted that he might have made a mistake and gotten on and over it.
I was talking to a chap at Citizens Advice who told me that his son had exactly the same sort of trouble with Harcourts Dunedin when he employed them to sell his house and the real reason never had any complaints from anybody else in the last 7 years is more likely to be because most people down here are too scared of what happens to those of us who will and they don't want the same treatment.
I don't have to "like" you to give you a job,so why do they have to "like me" to do a good one?
What actually happens when you make a complaint to the top man/woman/person is that they put it into someone else's hands to deal with and which is exactly what happened when I emailed it to what I thought was Harcourts head office in Wellington which they redirected it to their South Island business manager who rang the manager of Harcourts Invercargill and asked him to investigate my complaint in which he was also involved and who of course could only find himself not guilty.
I think it came as a bit of a shock to them when the REAA acted on my complaint because the authority before them never used to do bugger all calling themselves the realestate institute who were themselves from a realestate background and were of course biassed towards only really looking after their mates.
I think that Harcourts like most business premises here are privately owned and so they think they can just run them as they want to and do and like old Franky used to say "and did it 'my' way" which is not necessarily the 'right' way.Just their way.
The reality however is that they may own the franchise but that's it and how they operate is a direct reflection on how the whole company is operated.Harcourts Invercargill in this instance being just another branch office of a much bigger company.
I know that if I was in business I'd much rather have you saying nice things about me,by word of mouth being the best form of advertising which is how most successful businesses operate.
Down here however they're pretty much still living in the dark ages thinking that if you're not happy you're only going to tell one person who might tell a couple of people,that's "if" you can even find one person who will listen
to you in the first place.
Me though,if you're in business and you piss me off,I could be your very worst nightmare because with access to the internet 24/7 I've learnt that people who have money don't have to like me or know anything about me to be influenced by what I have to say.
ie Thirty something years ago an Islander murdered someone in Mangare with a machete which became known as the 'Mangare Machete Murder' and people stopped going to Mangere and what about that Rastafarian wanted by the cops in Ruatoria over a church burning and suddenly Ruatoria got a bad name or when that hitchhiker bashed a driver and people stopped picking up hitchhikers,shit when you think about it,isn't it the same everywhere in NZ today,so you'd think everyone would just stay home,wouldn't you?
There are lots of people down here who are quick to judge,who have never been across Cook Strait because of all the bad stuff they hear and there are still people in their 50's who have never been to Christchurch and even some who have never been further north than Gore in the whole of their lives and whose workmates are their old schoolmates who have always lived just down the road,who have drunk at the same pub with their own stool at the bar and you notice it more on fri and saturday nights when it suddenly goes real quiet and all the heads turn when a stranger walks in and you can go away for 20 years and people remember your name because to them it's like you've only been away since yesterday,that's how much their lives have changed.
I think it's an insecurity,lack of self confidence sort of thing myself always having to run everyone else down in order to feel good about themselves;the 'knockers' is what they're called down here.
Personally I wouldn't recommend either Harcourts or the Professionals Invercargill to sell your house although I expect they probably all have their rogue.
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