How many times have you driven down the street to see for sale signs? The answer is probably often, even in these tough times for the property market people are still managing to sell their properties, albeit often after a long wait.

These for sale signs are of course great advertising for the local estate agents, many of who are desperate to make sales in what is a very slow market for them.  With lower revenues many estate agents are also getting ever more creative on their advertising trying to increase exposure at a lower cost. 

So what is the canny estate agent doing now? Well we have received many reports of “fly boarding”, this is where the estate agent places their for sale board outside (typically) a block of flats.  Well, who in the flats would know?  In some cases we have reports of 10 or more estate agent boards placed outside a large block of flats. 

Many flat residents are getting wise to the “fly boarding” as they speak to others in the block and managing agents.  Maybe the best solution is for managing agents to impose a rule, any for sale board has to be placed with their approval, that way it should be easier to control some of the more “eager” estate agents … but we do love them, don’t we?

If you are a victim of fly boarding then you can also report the estate agent to your local trading standards who will often be willing to take up prosecutions against the offenders.