Weve put in an offer...its been rejected!

evening_all

Hi guys
we put an offer in at £94k for a £106k house...(We did this because we can stretch to £100k but wanted to give ourselves room to meet that figure)

However we are first time buyers and have been dealing with a countrywide mortgage advisor, and we are sceptical about why he is helping us for free...but at the mo he has been good with us and found us the best mortgage, better than what we had....so we have been dealing with him.

However he said to put our offer through him...(First off is this normal???)
So we did this morning, at £94k and he sounded a little surprised...he said he'd put the offer in and let us know (This was 12pm) It got to 5pm and we handn't heard so we rang him back and he said it had been rejected....

This is were our worry is....
a) Why didnt he ring us back?
b) Did he actually put the offer in to the seller?

He knows we can go to 100k and he told us when we rang him back that our offer had been rejected to just go straight in at 100k! See the thing is we dont want to do this as we might get it a bit cheaper than that 98k say...

Is this fishy? Should we just be speaking to the estate agents ourselves to put the offer in and cut out the middle man? As it seems to us him and agents are obv talking between themselves to get 100k out of us straightaway!!

Would it be as underhand as all this????

Helpppp
:mad:

evening_all

Oh, I also forgot to add, How long would you usually leave it between offers? We obv dont want to seem to eager....as our broker knows we can get to 100k, were thinking of changing our story and saying we can only make 98k now, to leave him hanging.

Cannon_Fodder

Yes it could be underhand. Cut him out. Nothing to do with him.

Unfortunately, he may already have let the cat out of the bag to the EAs.

Wait 24 hours. Try £97k. Then wait 72 hours.

jonewer

Its definitely fishy. Is the mortgage advisor working with the estate agent? Did the agents recommend you speak to their advisor?

evening_all

What it was we originally seen a house with an EA and before we could proceed to view the house we had to sit down with a Mortgage Advisor based in their office to basically ask us a few questions to see if we we're eligible to be able to afford a house etc. We sat down with him, no problems and went to view the house.

We didn't like it, however the Mortgage Advisor was very good with us giving us a lot of advice and said if and when we see another house even if it's not with the EA where he's based, get in contact with him and he'll arrange viewings and if we're really serious about going in with an offer he'd go through a credit check and get us a mortgage in principle which we've done.

Now we've seen the said house, he's nothing to do with this EA but we do know their on good terms as he told us so and it's only down the road (50 yards) from where he's based so I'd imagine he's got a lot of dealings with that EA anyway from past and present deals. I just don't like the thought that the MA knows our budget and has basically informed the other EA of our position.

tootsmyboots

To give another perspective, it doesnt matter that he knows what your top budget is because there could be any number of reasons why you dont want/need to spend up to that full amount.

Our EA knew that we were looking at houses a great deal higher priced than the one we ended up buying. But we made a lower than asking offer on this house becasue we will need to spend a lot on to do it up and it was accepted. In this case the EA knew we had more money than this, but they knew we would not go over what we had offered as we explained why - i.e complete renovation project to bring it up to standard.

evening_all

Ok cheers for your help.

Another question, do the EA have to notify the vendor of an offer whether it be a silly low offer or not?

Running_Horse

That's a good opening offer, but nearly all opening offers are rejected, so no surprise there.

It is doubtful he is going to want to lose his commission and the EA commission for the sake of a couple of grand.

But, personally, I would put the next offer through the estate agent rather than the mortgage broker. Put it in writing as a final offer if it makes you feel better. Then be prepared to walk away rather than pay more than you are happy with.

RX-78

That does sound fishy. Why does mortgage broker want to get involved in negotiating a price for the house - unless he think you are in danger of not being able to buy the house at max lending.

We put our first offer at 15% lower than asking price knowing very well it would be rejected. It was rejected straight away and when I called to put a second offer with lengthy explanation of why I want to put in a low bid yet again, the EA said "Sir, I think we understand each other well, just say the price for me". And it was accepted! Did have to spend a nerve racking week waiting for an answer though!

gem599

We had no problems with our Country wide advisor... she offered to advise us on a suitable offer when we'd found a house we liked but she seemed completely genuine in her motives. She didn't actually offer to make the call to the EA though... as said previously that's not their job.
Are you sure your advisor wasn't trying to be helpful? He's possibly over stepped the mark though and I would cut him out of future negotiations.

P.S. From experience I would say it's the insurance packages where they really make their money and is why they do everything else for free. These are about twice the price of the high street so only use them for sorting the mortgage!

Fire_Fox

evening_all wrote: »

Oh, I also forgot to add, How long would you usually leave it between offers? We obv dont want to seem to eager....as our broker knows we can get to 100k, were thinking of changing our story and saying we can only make 98k now, to leave him hanging.

By ringing back at 5pm you have already shown your hand, they know you are keen. I would not have put the offer through the broker as you say he knows your top figure, you should submit your offer in writing stating your strong position as a buyer.