As a buyer can I change estate agents?

reggie_lampert

Hello there,
I'm interested in buying a house that is for sale with 3 estate agents. I've viewed the house twice with one estate agent (we'll call him Mr Spiv). When I spoke to Mr Spiv this morning to arrange another viewing I was quite honest about my feeling that although I really like the house I'm concerned that it is overpriced (by about £50k) and wanted to know what offers the owner had already rejected. Mr Spiv got quite vocal/loud ( sounded quite *rsey) saying that if that's what I thought I shouldn't bother to view it again. When I mentioned that house prices are predicted to fall by another 11% this year he told me I shouldn't buy at all then.

This upset me a bit and I want to know whether I can choose not to proceed with Mr Spiv but go for another viewing with one of the other estate agents or is this unethical? I'm not time-wasting but I don't want to pay over the odds in this financial climate. Also in this area the houses aren't selling as the owners are really reluctant to drop their prices (we've heard this from several estate agents and locals).

Thanks!

Home_Swap_Advice

There is nothing to stop you putting an offer in with another agent.

However, the agent that introduces the buyer to the property will get paid. Therefore, the Vendor will end up paying "Mr Spiv" anyway.

Also, I don't think that an offer which is £50,000 below the asking price is going to be accepted, even if you do think that it is overpriced. It doesn't matter which agent you go to, it will not make a difference to the offer that the vendor will accept.

lil'H

Go to another agent, there is nothing stopping you. Oh in in reference to the first reply you had, I had an offer of 50k under accepted, on a property that wasn't overpriced (valuation even came in at the 50k more) so it's always worth a try.

princessamy86

Home Swap is right, there's nothing to stop you going to another agent but the vendor will have to pay twice. Mr Spiv may just have come across as a bit annoyed as he felt you were a timewaster, £50k is a lot to knock off a price, even if it was overpriced in the first place. At the end of the day, he's the one who will get the earache off the vendor if £50k less is way too low, he might well have had other offers around that amount which have been rejected. Why don't you just put an offer forward and see what gets said? Mr Spiv is required by law to inform the vendor. You'll probably have to harrass him for a few days to get a response, but he might come back with an indication of what the vendors will accept.

One_Day_Rodney

If I was the seller I would be careful, and would need to check all the contracts with the estate agents because I could get billed twice !

This is because, in addition to the estate agent who eventually sells it, Mr Spiv may also want to bill me because he introduced you to the property.

Sonofa

The above replies I assume are all on the basis that the house is actually up with other estate agents at the same time?

Otherwise are you actually asking if you could get another EA to approach the owner on your behalf?

"I'm interested in buying a house that is for sale with 3 estate agents"

Okay so I'm blind or thick!!

reggie_lampert

Re: the overprice £50k - the owners bought it at the peak in 2007 and have not made any major improvements and yet the house is on for nearly 50% more than they originally paid.

Another estate agent remarked to my friend that it was overpriced without knowing we were interested.

princessamy86

reggie_lampert wrote: »

Re: the overprice £50k - the owners bought it at the peak in 2007 and have not made any major improvements and yet the house is on for nearly 50% more than they originally paid.

Another estate agent remarked to my friend that it was overpriced without knowing we were interested.

Fair enough, but the vendors won't necessarily accept your much lower offer. Some people are very stubborn and the EA may well have advised a reduction and been ignored, can't think of any other reason they would say it was overpriced! After all, it's their job to get the best price possible, this indicates that they think it's an impossible price to get, just put your offer forward and hope for the best!

brightonman123

see what similar houses are going for in the same street- use this as backup when making any offer.

Darth_Marty

First off the vendor wont have to pay twice at all, a precedent was set which basically means that the agent who gets the offer and sells the property is the one who gets paid, simple as that. So yes, you can and should change agents if he got arsey with you.

That said you may have to rethink your logic a little too, telling people predicted falls mean you are going to offer 50k less than asking isnt the best way to get a deal secured. If its on with 3 different agents at a similar (exactly the same?) price means that the 3 valuations werent a million miles apart.

Robbie_Duck

We had a similar sort of issue when we bought our house in December that was up with two agents. Went through one estate agent for the first couple of visits. Found them to be rude, unhelpful and generally not very nice.

Refused to do business with them but loved the house. Went to the second one, explained our issues and that we were serious in our intent. They explained that we really should be dealing with the other agents because they had introduced us to the house, but rather than lose the sale for the vendors they would deal with us. Never heard anything else from it, didnt consider it our problem to be honest!

We did register our intrest under a different name though, used the Mrs' surname rather than mine when dealing with the second EA. Let them fight it out between themselves. Prefferably to the death!