Backhanders - & Estate Agents!

googler

itmakessense wrote: »

....... they are all liars so you will never know.

Offer to use their recommended lawyer then change to your own as soon as offer is accepted, they get paid by the lawyer they use you see.

First you accuse all EAs of being liars, then you actively propose that a buyer deliberately misleads the EA about their proposed course of action.

Hmm?

roseland69

Funny hearing about "we have another offer" lines from agents...

So far we've looked at a few properties. In each and every case the agent showing us around has said in serious tones that "we have already had an offer but the people haven't sold their place yet"... and pretty much intimating that the place is as good as sold, that they are showing us around as a formality and that we better put an offer in too if we want to jump the queue.

its all horseshit really isn't it. There is no other "mystery" offerer (is that a word?!) and they just want to put some fear into those looking about to try to force their hand.

All of the properties we've looked at that have had these kind of half arsed offers in are still unsold. One agent rang me back after a viewing (not the same person as did the viewing though) with a whiny desperate tone "so, what did you think of the house...". I said I liked it but hey, its as good as sold... isn't it? He then went on about how "those people haven't sold yet" and we have so we are the important ones.

It seems they use the tactics they used during the boom and some have failed to realise its a BUYERS MARKET. They can try and drum up interest by making it look like somewhere has loads of offers to get you anxious. But let's face it, most houses take a while to sell and have to drop in price these days.

Estate Agents are their own worst enemy. I really loathe dealing with them. The system is so flawed that you have to trust them as a "go between" between you and the vendor. No wonder some of them go ballistic when you contact the vendor direct. Because its blown their cover.

Pssst

Read the first few posts. I agree,many EAs are bent. The best thing to do if you make an offer on a house is to drop a letter through gthe letter box of the vendor confirming who you are and the offer you have made. If the EA is concealing it from the vendor or doing his own deals,he will get found out.

queenieplum

I too think that putting the note through the door is the best option - not sure how that EA sleeps at night. You could go to the papers about him, or Watchdog!

confused31_2

I seen a house week ago last friday and i noticed the price had been dropped from 189,000 to 170,000 on the friday, when i phoned the estate agent they said it had sold ages ago, when i questioned the estate agent about the price reduction on friday she began to stutter and make up some excuse that she would get back to me( guess what no response)

Now i dont trust any estate agents and ive seen from my own experiance how bent 99% of them are, anyway i went round and knocked on the door, but no one was in but when i went down the drive i did noticed the house needed a load of work and it looked like someone had jemmied the door open.

I may try again, i just want to find out that they are lying so i can go in the shop and give them what for.

I think a lot of the times estate agents are given back handers, ive even phoned up about reposession and they have come out with, weve already had a offer accepted and its a lot higher than the list price, surely it would be better for them to have a load of offer, unless if course they are getting back handers.

confused31_2

googler wrote: »

"I can see I touched a nerve here. Not wanting to gazump but f I was the buyer I would have wanted the estate agent to get as many offers in as possible and the estate agent knew we were interested. They must be interested in selling the houes for as much as possible and should have notified us that several offers were made and asked if we wanted to make an offer as well. After all we viewed the property the day before.

I'm from another western european country ........"

No, I'm not flaming you, just asking what you were expecting.

You do mean "if I was the seller" ....?

I am surprised the agent didn't see if you were going to put an offer in once they had four on the table, but with four already on the table, maybe the seller thought that was all they'd get and thought they had enough to make a decision.

you are a estate agent, ive seen you having a go at online estate agents, estate agents are a waste of space, im going to go straight to the vendor and see what they say, i bet you they know nothing about the bent antics of estate agents.

I cought mine out when he sent a pretend viewer to view my house, caught him out a treat, he wouldnt even speak to me, let me leave after 6 weeks of a sole agency and he couldnt even face me to answer my accusations

franklee

Does anyone thinking the other offer was a con keep a note of the address and look at https://www.houseprices.co.uk to see if the property did sell in the end and if so what were the results?

marleyd

I just saw this thread and had to comment... We have been trying to buy a house for a while, and have had nothing but bad experiences with EAs. In my opinion they are all taking backhanders (well at least all of them in this area). Our neighbour's house was repossessed, and she told us that she owed £110K on it, and that she knew for a fact that that is all the bank actually wanted.
We went in to see the acting estate agent straight away who tried to fob us off with every excuse possible..."we haven't got the details on the property yet...." - that excuse carried on for about a week, then we were told that it was going to be at least £240K, but we still couldn't view it becuase they hadn't got all the details on it yet, then all of a sudden it was sold... How much did it sell for? £110k (oviously we didn't find the price out until some time after when looking at Zoopla.
Hmmmmm something very suspect about that I reckon. Oh and the young couple who live there look very much like esate agents (!).
That is just one instance..... Stuff like this has been happening with the last 4-5 properties we've enquired about, and all different estate agents too.
I think it's discusting that they can get away with this type of thing.....:mad: it makes me MAD!!

silvercar

Oh and the young couple who live there look very much like esate agents (!).

Please elaborate.

I think there are honest EAs and dishonest EAs, same as in most walks of life.

If you get to know an area, you soon get a feel for which are honest, which are not and which can be played to your advantage.

FraudBuster

Some reading.

69/09 15 June 2009
The OFT has today launched an online version of its public register listing estate agents who have been given warnings or been banned from estate agency work.

http://www.oft.gov.uk/news/press/2009/69-09