Pushy estate agent with first house buy - help please!!

jh2004

This is all new to myself,
however,

We saw a house through a certain estate agent, which we definately can afford, and know which mortgage provider we will be using.

when setting up the viewing the estate agent recommended us to see their financial advisor. But as we dont need advice we said no thanks

we viewed the house, they then said we would be in a better position for them to give an offer if we have seen their F. advisor.

we said no again,

today we decided to put in an offer, and they basically said that they would provisionally put the offer in - IF WE ARRANGED TO SEE THEIR ADVISOR!

we agreed for next monday, and they put the offer in - which was declined.

Is this standard practice??

Or are they trying to work out just how much we can afford and get the sale price up?


Please help if you can,

cheers
JH

Mumstheword

They are probably trying to get commission on selling you financial products. Don't get involved.
You could even go back to the house and discuss it with the vendors. Tell them that the estate agent refused to pass on your offer unless you agreed to see their financial advisor.
Do not turn up on Monday. You didnt want their advice, don't allow them to bully you!

mrcow

Agreed don't bother going to the appt. If you're already happy with your mortgage lender, the that's your business.

I'm concerned that they implied that they wouldn't put in the offer without an appointment. If I were the vendor, I'd be furious that they were putting such restrictions on offers.

Which EA company is it?

silvercar

They may be getting their "finance arm" to find out your true maximum price.

mrcow

silvercar wrote:

They may be getting their "finance arm" to find out your true maximum price.

But it's none of their business. Who says that the buyer wants to spend their "true maximum" on a house? And surely they couldn't then use this information to try and influence the sale! After all, the buyer has put in what they deem a fair offer. If they want to subsequently revise the offer, it's up to them, not the EA!

I doubt it's as sinister as this BTW, I'm sure that they are probably just trying to get a commission cut on a mortgage agreement.

AndrewSmith

There are two sides to this that must be considered.

1) They are doing the best job possible for their client, the seller, by making sure that you can afford the offer you are putting in. There are some vendors who actually ask the agents to Financially Qualify every offer. The last thing anyone wants is an offer accepted from someone who only pulls out later as they cannot obtain the mortgage (happens all the time).

2) Many large chains of Agencies have corperate dealings with lenders and have affiliations (or are owned by) insurers and surveyor firms.
It's all about reciprocal business you see. If the Agency parent company places x amount of lending with xyz lender, they will use their insurer to provide buildings insurance and ASU. SImilarly with surveys etc.

With many chains, the Financial Services side is, in the long run, as profitable if not more profitable than residential house sales, however one cannot exist without the other.

Back in the early 90's for example Royal SunAlliance bought approx 9 national chains of agencies purely to use them as a way of increasing insurance and mortgage business.

Andy

jh2004

thanks everyone, for all the advice,

It certainly makes me more determined not to go and see this financial advisor.

The company is Beresford Adams in Stockton Heath, Nr Warrington.

The estate Agent is not the only one in the area with properties to buy in the area we are looking, so ill send them packing, and go see someone less pushy - its just not worth the hassle.

I know that my mortgage provider will financially qualify our mortgage, and i certainly dont want every EA in the area knowing my finances!!

Thanks folks for all the advice, and if you have any more thoughts - let me know, all interesting to know!!!
JH

david29dpo

its typical hard sell. nothing really wrong or unusual there. however, it is perfectly reasonable for a vendor to make sure you have the means to buy the house before they consider your offer and take the house off the market. have a chat with the vendor about this, saying you suspect offers may-not be getting through if buyers do not use there other services. i would be furious if this was the case and sack the agent on the spot and tell the world about it!

stockmarket-diva

A. It is right that the Estate Agents are making sure that you can afford the property before they let their client start to incur expense etc. but an Agreement in Principle should be enough to satisfy those needs.

B. It is illegal not to put an offer forward within 24 hours of making it.

By the way, I'm one of those rare trustworthy agents.

Jorgan_2

The agent is clearly trying to cross sell their financial services, nothing wrong with that but they can not force you to use their services.

Of a bigger concern is the matter of provisionally putting the offer forward, subject to seeing their broker. This is illegal. All offers have to be submitted to the vendor as soon as possible and without bias, there is no actual time limit set out in the 1979 EA Act.

MortgageMamma

Tell them you already have a financial advisor who has qualified your borrowing amounts and present the estate agent with a copy of a mortgage promise/agreement in principle from your chosen lender. Tell them, frankly. that although you are serious about buying the property you do not appreciate the pressure you are being put under to see their inhouse financial advisor, and refuse to do so. It must make you wonder if their advisor is up to much if the sales staff have to go to the lengths of almost losing a sale to satisfy their requirement for the mrotgage business.