Four months of inaction and missed opportunities
Forest Marble held an exclusive four-month contract on my property. During that time, they arranged two viewings. When I requested an open house, they agreed but advertised it with 48 hours' notice. Not a single person registered. I only learned this after the event had passed. By the time the exclusive period ended, the prime summer marketing window had gone.
I work in property journalism, so I understand what a competent estate agency looks like. This was not it.
The marketing consisted of a Rightmove listing, an OnTheMarket listing and a single social media post that linked back to Rightmove. Adding the property to their own website took a week, despite their insistence that it had been there from day one. There was no discussion of editorial or featured listing opportunities, no suggestion of staging an unfurnished property to improve photographs, no proactive marketing strategy of any kind. When I asked about the wider network they claimed would reach London buyers, I received no substantive information about how it operated or any evidence of its reach.
The energy performance certificate took over a month to appear on the listing portals. I have no record of ever receiving a copy directly or seeing an invoice for it, despite requesting both. When I raised this, I was told it had been available all along. The EPC that eventually appeared contained errors that needed correcting. This is basic compliance, not subjective interpretation.
Forest Marble suggested the asking price themselves. It sat in the middle of several independent valuations I had obtained. When enquiries failed to materialise, they declared the price too high without providing comparable evidence or suggesting alternative approaches to generate interest. A professional agent presents options. Forest Marble simply waited.
I expected initiative, creativity and a genuine effort to market the property. What I experienced was an agent who posted listings on the main portals and did nothing further. The property in question is distinctive, but these failures would undermine the sale of any home.
Forest Marble had four months to demonstrate their expertise. They wasted every one of them. I do not know if this represents their standard service or whether my property simply did not interest them enough to try. Either way, the result was the same: minimal effort, missed opportunities and a lost season for selling.
Choose an agent who will actually work for you. Forest Marble did not work for me.
11 October 2025
Unprompted review