going into an estate agent

ieimimiai · 20 July 2010 at 9:26PM

hi, this will prob sound like a silly question but we have just been to see a mortgage broker today and know how much we can afford on a house which is up to £125k. so now we have the task of finding somewhere, what im wondering is, when we go into an estate agents do we tell them that we are looking for houses up to this price outright? hope that makes sense. also could someone confirm that its just the sellers that pay the estate agent any fees? i ask so i know if we can go into a few estate agents so have more scope for properties.

emma

p.s im very excited and just trying to make sure i dont make any mistakes due to it that will end up costing me more money!

DVardysShadow · 20 July 2010 at 9:37PM

It is part of the game. Never ask for houses which you can get for X. Because those houses are on for X+10%. But the Agent finds it ahrd to give you those, because he is telling you his vendors' bottom lines. Always ask for houses up to Y, where Y is your best possible offer plus a percentage. But don't tell the Agent your percentage margin or your best possible offer.

ieimimiai · 20 July 2010 at 9:44PM

hi thanks for helping, by 'plus a percentage' you mean? so should we kinda say we want to look at houses from £80k-£125k? £125k is our total max we could afford as dont want to stretch ourselves.

Procrastinator333 · 20 July 2010 at 9:48PM

Don't ever tell them you max. If I were you would look up to £140k.

Don't believe a word they say. They work for the seller and will tell you anythign to get a sale.

Use property bee:

http://www.property-bee.com/

and:

http://www.houseprices.co.uk/

use the second link along with rightmove and street view - you can usually work out the house number of the one you are buying and then look up sold prices on that street. Compare it to other similar properties that have sold on that street. What did they go for. Are prices higher or lower since then.

ieimimiai · 20 July 2010 at 9:55PM

ok will have a look at those tomorrow, so why look up to £140k? so they have less idea of what we're really looking for or is it possible to get prices down that much sometimes?

Procrastinator333 · 20 July 2010 at 10:02PM

Different sellers try different things. Some will price at or around their real price. Others will add on 20% to see if they get lucky.

There may be some on at £130k not worth looking at and some on at £140k worth looking at. The EA won't pass this on though.

E.g. Say you find house A at £130k.

You look on property bee and find the house was only put up for sale last week. You then look at the house prices and find a house next door that looks almost identical sold for £145k 18 months ago. Might still be worth a go, but this seller isn't likely to give more than a couple of £k.

Compare that to someone with an asking price of £140k, you look at property bee and see it has been on the market for 9 months, they have dropped their price from £155k to £150k to £140k.

You then look on house prices and see that the almost identical house next door sold for £120k 18 months ago.

I read somewhere the average discount of asking price is now about 7-8%. The average. So there will be some like house A where it is only a couple of %, or maybe nothing. Then some like B where they are still wildly overpriced (not definate on those numbers, but likely) and may end up taking a 15% off asking price.

Anyway, it is each to their own, but that is just my take n it.

Good luck!

ieimimiai · 20 July 2010 at 10:08PM

thanks, this is very useful info which i will look into greatly, my broker has said she is happy to put in cheeky offers for us so this should help to.

DVardysShadow · 20 July 2010 at 10:15PM

ieimimiai wrote: »

hi thanks for helping, by 'plus a percentage' you mean? so should we kinda say we want to look at houses from £80k-£125k? £125k is our total max we could afford as dont want to stretch ourselves.

The percentage goes on top of the 125.

So when you speak to the Agent

DON'T say we will look at houses we could buy with up to 125
DO say give we will look at houses with an asking price of up to 140

I don't want to patronize. But study the difference between the 2 formulations above. You might think the big difference is between 125 and 140. But the significant difference is actually the rest of it

DVardysShadow · 20 July 2010 at 10:23PM

ieimimiai wrote: »

thanks, this is very useful info which i will look into greatly, my broker has said she is happy to put in cheeky offers for us so this should help to.

In your position, I would suggest that you put in 1 or 2 absolute no hoper bids, to get a feel of how the system works. Go to another town first to avoid becoming known to the agents!

If your broker does the offering, it takes you out of the firing line, but important parts of messages from the Agent do tend to get lost. As there are 2 of you, if you negotiate direct with the broker, make sure that one or other of you makes themselves scarce during negotiations and just say 'thank you, I need to discuss with my partner, I will get back to you' and never decide on or commit to anything during the conversation in which it is offered.