Repossessed Property Buying: Quick Briefing Discussion

kiddy_guy

You've answered your own question. If they are on the verge of exchange, would they consider adding an extra 2 months on the chain, to accomodate your offer? How much higher is your offer? I bought a repo myself and I actually was on the other side of the fence - I got to 2 days from exchange and got nobbled, so I finished my paperwork and then submitted a new offer to match the new bidder. This got agreed and I then exchanged within 30 mins so that new bidder could not come back in.

The EA could well be not presenting your offer as they want their commission and if it keeps going offer, new offer, counter offer, they'll wait months, if not longer.

I'd bear in mind that the process is stressful and you may end up in the other parties position. Make sure if you're going to do it, you've got some money to spare.

tenuissent

I am buying a repossession - our surveyor told me that the estate agents dealing with it probably get a flat fee whatever the selling price (instead of a percentage of the selling price, giving them an incentive to sell high), so they may not put a lot of extra effort into the admin caused by the offer of a higher price at the last minute. They are, however, legally obliged to keep advertising it.......that's not to say they will necessarily respond instantly to a new offer, as KG says.

As I said in an earlier reply, when I suspected our agents were not passing our offer on to the seller, and would not tell me who the seller was, I looked them up in the Land Registry (small fee) and made the offer direct - and heard back the same day.

kingoranks

Whats going on with repos? Are the EAs hiding them lol

tenuissent

Maybe, at a flat rate, they are not very rewarding for estate agents to deal with, plus we are having to accept some hard conditions. Nevertheless, we are expecting to exchange contracts tomorrow, and several people in the business think this house is a good deal including the surveyor (hideous damp problems though there are). So far we have not been gazumped. Is this worrying or reassuring?

tenuissent

Just to update: we bought the house with no problems whatsoever and my son and his wife moved in yesterday.

This is a 3 bedroom house with large kitchen and tiny back yard in Hastings. £92,500, and we have scaffolding up and a very trusted builder doing about £5,000 of repairs to damp rendering and painting whole house. Hope other buyers of repossessions are equally lucky. There is nothing else available in our area for such a price.

kiddy_guy

Congrats!

It's reassuring when it's all gone through and it's finally yours!

No more worrying whether a phone call from the EA means you've been outbid...

tawnyowls

[FONT=&quot]Would be grateful for opinions and advice, please!

OK, so we've seen a nice flat we want to buy, which is v. cheap, and therefore likely repo. This is confirmed by the estate agent, and he tells me there is an offer on it, but being a repo, it's still open to offers, so I made a booking to see it this afternoon. About 30 mins later, the EA (don't think it was the actual same person) rings back to say it's under offer and so we won't be seeing it. I pointed out that as a repo, the bank should have an obligation to get the best price, and therefore, until exchange of contracts, other offers should be possible. He umms and ahs, clearly taken aback by the fact that I know this, and suddenly the appointment's still on. Excuse me?

Now this is not, by a long, long chalk, the first time this has happened to us.Every property that's at the low end of the market mysteriously appears to be under offer, even if it's been on the market for months and is still on all the property websites weeks or even months later. It leads me to the inescapable conclusion that, as other people above have said, these EAs are not passing on these offers. Indeed, I wouldn't be at all surprised if some of these EAs are actually creaming off these plum properties for themselves, colleagues, or other contacts (one EA we visited in a different area tried to get us to buy his own property, and he had a large portfolio, so I’m quite sure there are many EAs in the actual property-owning business). I'm assuming that it's actually illegal for an EA to act in this manner, but unless they actually get caught, who's to know? I would think it's particularly easy to get away with this if it's a repo, because the bank won't really care. It's certainly made us determined that when we sell our own house, we'll be using an online agent and taking all the calls ourselves, so that the EA can’t just fob us off – even if they’re getting a percentage, I can well imagine that some think they just can’t be bothered to do the work to get an extra £100 or so.

Anyhow, having let off steam - to get to the point. Does anyone know how can I find out who the lender is on any particular property (preferably not without having to pay £3 to the Land Registry every time), so I can check what the offer is and if the EA has put our offer (if we make one) to them? My understanding from what’s been said above is that the EA should not be able to refuse a request to say what the current offer is, but they do! And it is also my understanding that the bank is supposed to advertise all offers until the sale goes through, but it doesn't seem that this needs to include the main property websites (which IMO, it should do, but I suspect that a notice in some obscure local paper is deemed sufficient) - of about 7 or 8 properties that are still on the sites, but were supposedly 'under offer' when I rang up, only 1 has a notice saying that there's been an offer of £X put forward, and if anyone wants to put in a higher offer, etc.

TIA!

[/FONT]

daorc

Hi, just a quick one - the link to RICS is broken

Kirsty1898

I bought a repossessed property which was a nightmare as it eventually went to sealed bids. Also the previous owner had gutted the property. Be aware - my mortgage had a stipulation that there had to be a kitchen sink in the property for it to be mortgable.
Luckily the downstairs toilet and sink were the only things left but the mortgage company accepted it.

bishop112345

hi just wondering if anyone could help me
i am interested in buying repossessed property/auction can anyone recommend where does one buy this from or who is the best agent/website/company to deal with ?????

as i have searched in Google search engine for repossessed property and it comes up with thousands websites and agents bit confused which is the real deaL.............THANKS
MATT