Help - offer rejected and we SSTC

sminty_2

Hi everyone

We live in a lovely semi in a village, but really want a detached. there are some new builds that have been up for about 18mths and not selling well (not in the best part of village)

We really like one that has been reduced from £185k to £175k so put our house on the market, 2 days later our house has sold. The agents did nothing but put a sign up and we haven't signed our agreement with them yet or had our property details through to us for approval - do we still have to pay full fee??? Hardly seems fair

Also the (only) house we are interested in , when we put an offer in today it was turned down initially for £158k the EA said they were looking for more near £165k to £170k. So I offered £164k to include carpets. The EA asked some questions about our situation and I said we are in a chain ready to proceed and have only just sold ouyr house. Well EA came back saying offer rejected and they won't budge on asking price WITHOUT carpets. !!!! I feel they are playing me cos before they realised how keen/desperarate we were they were prepared to accept less (so EA says)

I told them "no thanks" and have since been sat shaking, not sure what to do really. Trouble is we put our house on market expecting to get our new one cheaper and now we can't afford the asking price we may have to withdraw. But I can't help feeling the developers of our new house are just being stubborn and would accept our top offer if they were sure it was our final offer. We can't go any higher

I don't know what to do.

Guy_Montag

You can always rent for a few months, hopefully the equity will go a long way to cover the rent. Then you'll be chain free & able to complete quickly when you do find somewhere.

Why did you tell the EA anything about your circumstances, they don't work for you, they work for the vendor.

sminty_2

I know I feel a right ding-bat for saying anything to them.

REnting not an option, if we don't get the house we want we are staying put - that is literally the only house we would consider moving for.

Going to try the final offer tomorrow I think and stress that we s=can't go any higher

Rachman_2

sminty wrote:

Also the (only) house we are interested in , when we put an offer in today it was turned down initially for £158k the EA said they were looking for more near £165k to £170k. So I offered £164k to include carpets. The EA asked some questions about our situation and I said we are in a chain ready to proceed and have only just sold ouyr house. Well EA came back saying offer rejected and they won't budge on asking price WITHOUT carpets. !!!! I feel they are playing me cos before they realised how keen/desperarate we were they were prepared to accept less (so EA says)

You are being played - carpets don't cost that much and most of the time they don't fit anywhere else - people would usually buy new ones and they coudl be old. Let them stew - the EA knows you are in a 'tight spot' and will turn the screw if they can..... - at that it's £11K for carpets - dream on...

icklejulez

REgister with EA over the phone in your maiden name and refuse to explain your situation or just say your house sale is going through. Leave it a week or so and the vendors may come back to you anyway. Alternatively what about arranging for a friend to view and offer even less? Crafty I know!

dougk_2

From experience all I can say is there is always another house! You may feel at the moment its the only house you want, but another will come along and you will probably like it more than this one! The big problem you have is that if you have a buyer you are silly to lose them as you don't know when another one will come along.

A guy I used to work with always plays a game with the EA's. He would get his mates to phone up, view the house he wanted and thenthey would offer 10-15k less than his offer. After a maximum couple of weeks he always seem to get a call back accepting his offer as it was the best one they got > I guess with several people all offering a lot less the vendor would start to doubt the houses true value.

mr.broderick

dougk wrote:

From experience all I can say is there is always another house! You may feel at the moment its the only house you want, but another will come along and you will probably like it more than this one! The big problem you have is that if you have a buyer you are silly to lose them as you don't know when another one will come along.

A guy I used to work with always plays a game with the EA's. He would get his mates to phone up, view the house he wanted and thenthey would offer 10-15k less than his offer. After a maximum couple of weeks he always seem to get a call back accepting his offer as it was the best one they got > I guess with several people all offering a lot less the vendor would start to doubt the houses true value.

good grief, this is peoples lives your playing with.

loujay_2

In our long long quest to find a house we found 'dream house' which we were told was open to offers. We offered 5k less than AP and were refused being told vendor now wanted full AP or near as. New to the game and thinking we wouldnt find anything else we offered £950 under as we really couldnt afford a penny more. Bearing in mind this house needed thousands spending on it. Stupid I know. Anyway offer was refused, we couldnt believe it! We thought they'd come back to us but they didnt.
6 weeks later we have had an offer accepted on another house in a similar condition but 35k less than the other house. Boy I am glad they refused our offer on 'dream house'
Everyone has said 'if its meant to be it will happen' and at first I laughed but it really is true.
If its what you really want then I'd go the extra £1k and call it a day at that, I cant imagine it being much fun moving into your new house with no money to spend on it. Thats the position we would have been in, the Vendor did us a big favour by refusing our offer.
Good luck

Rachman_2

mr.broderick wrote:

good grief, this is peoples lives your playing with.

They are usually transparent - one person views, makes offer, looks obvious - it's a favourite trick of Asian people (particularly Pakistani IME) - try selling a Honda or a Toyota too - gets on your nerves - along with the same games of trying to cut the buy price on exchange day - wearisome and fairly pathetic when it's obvious they are playing games.

I got so tired of it, if I am selling in that town now, the agent is instructed that he will continue to market the property or obtain a non-refundable deposit if the buyer is Pakistani - soon sorts out that crap (you may call it's racist, I call it experience....).

mjfusent

It always amazes me that people seem to expect to get top dollar when they're selling & yet get a rock-bottom price when they are buying. Then get frustrated if someone won't accept their low offers...

In terms of your sale EA, yes if you sell to these people you do have to pay them, you asked them to provide a service and it sounds like they did an OK job. If you don't they will sue you based on a verbal contract with them I would have thought.

For the purchase side of things no-one is obliged to accept any offer you make, they are trying to achive the best price possible for their property and quite understandable too. You simply make it clear you won't/can't improve your offer and they decide if they want to accept, you can leave the offer "on the table" while you look elsewhere and who knows, they may change their minds.

Lots of people are now saying the market set to continue the up for some time (I have no idea and am not really too concerned as I'm now in the house I want to be in) but vendors may feel less inclined to compromise on price as the market may come to them.

dougk_2

mr.broderick wrote:

good grief, this is peoples lives your playing with.

Its the same the other way round with vendors trying to get as much as possible off the buyer (especially with EA's involved).

Anyhow the board is about moneysaving so thats the aim!