Estate Agent is keeping me waiting

Swipe

They've got two agents, play them off against each other. Ring the other agent, have a viewing (assuming they won't be home) and then offer £140k. This may hit home that your original offer wasn't that unreasonable.

QTPie

Swipe wrote: »

They've got two agents, play them off against each other. Ring the other agent, have a viewing (assuming they won't be home) and then offer £140k. This may hit home that your original offer wasn't that unreasonable.

I don't think it will - if you read back through the thread - the buyer will suddenly think that there is MORE interest in the property (a couple of serious buyers) and will be LESS interested in doing a good deal...

QT

puddy

Swipe wrote: »

They've got two agents, play them off against each other. Ring the other agent, have a viewing (assuming they won't be home) and then offer £140k. This may hit home that your original offer wasn't that unreasonable.

i must admit, even though i would never do this, i am so tempted to get a friend of mine to go and view it and do the same thing. the sellerrs are pensioners and rarely out so i couldnt go and view it. its immoral but also it would look highly suspect that after a year of no offers, suddenly 2 come along within a week of each other!!

puddy

SavingSteve wrote: »

Interest has been shown by placing the offer though? In this market there can't be loads of people making offers?

in a year, they have had no offers

SavingSteve

Well then don't play their games, they are being unrealistic if not willing to negotiate. To be honest if they haven't lowered their value in a year they are not serious about selling, they are just sitting there waiting for some mug to pay their inflated price. Please do not be that mug.

Let me give you an example. Around a year ago I needed to sell my car, but had 3 months until my new car was going to be ready. I knew it was only worth £7k, but as I had the benifit of time I put it in the Loot (free advertising!) for £10k, to see if someone would be silly enough. Got no viewings for a good few weeks, and then a young city type came to see the car, fell in love with it and I ended up selling it for £9,500!

To me the sellers are me in the above scenario, and you are the city-type fella. Like me they will be laughing for years if they manage to pull this one off.

puddy

no, we wont be paying anywhere near asking price, a because we cant afford to and b because its not worth it but i will be making another offer, probably our final, for a few grand more, havent decided exactly how much yet

puddy

Doozergirl was right

gawd, it gets worse. we made our final offer today for 152. i said to the agent, can you tell me if that is around what they are hoping for. all he said was '170'.

i said, 'oh', i thought they wanted to sell, theres no way that we would consider a price like that. i told him that according to the landregistry prices, sold prices for semi detached for that post code have gone down in the last year 24%. i said, its a shame because i thought they wanted to sell.
he didnt say anything to any of that but said he would put the offer to the vendor and get back to me.

so thats that i think, i cant honestly believe they expect a price like that. they have had it on the market for a year and a month at the same price 185 (or 175 -195 with another agent).

even if you were really generous and said that the property was 'worth' 195 when they put it on and took off only 20% instead of 24%, you're looking at around 156, they must be mad to think they are going to get 170 or even near that.

then, just got in and got an alert from right move, the original cottage that we fell in love with has just come back on the market,,,,woopee i thought, so i rang the EA to find out why and whehter we can see it again and he said its fallen through because its not mortgagable, its a flying freehold.

oh,,, just spoke to the EA again, and he called me 'my love', getting a bit fresh innit. anyway, apparently vendor has not got back to him about our final offer.

i am not hopeful. feel really cheesed off. this is not going to plan.

SavingSteve

You're persisting in a lost cause.

I would say the EA realises that these sellers are being unrealistic, so is resigned to the fact it is a lost cause.

toshkininny

I think the estate agent needs to advise the vendors to take your offer. As another poster has said, they are obviously not in a rush to leave.

If they have no mortgage and all money will be theirs, they are most probably hoping for as much money as possible to bump up their pension!

QTPie

SavingSteve wrote: »

You're persisting in a lost cause.

I would say the EA realises that these sellers are being unrealistic, so is resigned to the fact it is a lost cause.

I think SavingSteve is right... you could leave the offer on the table (or not) and walk away. Don't think you have much choice.

Start looking for something EVEN better, but with motivated sellers...

QT