Estate agent........not sure I believe him!

liberty_lily

Hi folks - apologies in advance for the long post........hopefully you will bear with me to the end as I'm looking for some opinions please

We recently had our house valued by three different estate agents - there was some disparity in their valuations as our house has no comparables at all in the surrounding area, being totally unique in character, age and size. We decided to go for the agent with the middle valuation partly 'cos we'd used them briefly when we tried selling our house three years ago and he does, on the face of it at least, seem a likeable guy.

The house was valued at £10k+ less than we paid in 2007, but even though we have spent around £50k on good quality renovations (handbuilt kitchen, two bathrooms, electrics, landscaping garden etc), we know we will have to take a hit to get a reasonably quick sale in order to relocate to be closer to ageing relatives and for work reasons.

However, we are mortgage-free and want to remain that way, but as we are relocating from East Anglia to the South coast, we are going to need every penny from our sale to buy something in a good area there that is even half the size and with a smidgeon of the character of what we have now.

Unfortunately it is around the dreaded stamp duty threshold of £250,000 - price paid in 2007 £285,000.

The agent said he couldn't budge on their fee of 1.25% but was prepared to settle for a fixed fee of £2800 + vat.

We put the house on the market just over a week ago and two days later the agent said he had booked a viewing. Despite the agent previously assuring us he would only allow viewings by prospective purchasers who were on the market/under offer, this viewing was by a couple who had yet to put their house up for sale..........having viewed our house they said they were going to get the agent round to value theirs.

On Monday (the viewing was last Friday) the agent called and said he had valued their house and it was going to be marketed at £245,000 although he thought they would have to accept an offer closer to £220,000. He said he believed they had additional funding from the sale of a second property and weren't totally reliant on their sale to buy ours.

That same day the couple arranged a second viewing of our house to which they brought a relative to gauge their opinion.

Next day (yesterday) we had a call from our agent saying he had received an offer from them of £240,000 - £30k less than our asking price. Despite not having agreed anything to that effect with him previously, he said he had declined the offer on our behalf......

We told our agent that we wouldn't accept their offer, but were prepared to pay their stamp duty (of around £8k) if they agreed to pay our asking price (£269,995). He put this to them but they declined.

Now call me a conspiracy theorist, but things now seem to be following a similar pattern to what happened three years ago when we briefly tried to sell our house. I hadn't thought of it before - or I wouldn't have gone with the same agent............

Spring 2008 we had house valued and before we had decided to sign on the dotted line the agent called to say they had an interested party who wished to view. Feeling flattered I s'pose we agreed to let them view and when they did they were full of enthusiasm. The agent later told us they weren't on the market and had no property to sell in order to buy as they had inherited some money. On the strength of this viewing the agent convinced us to sign on the dotted line and a few days later arranged for a second viewing with the same couple. Once again they were all enthusiastic and hinted that an offer was on the cards. Off they went and the agent later called to say they had told him they would be making an offer very soon. The weeks went by and despite about three other viewings (which came to nothing), no offer from the first couple materialised. The agent called regularly to say they would definitely be making an offer but they never did. After around three months we ourselves inherited some money and decided to do work to the house rather than sell up so removed it from the market.

Now I feel we are in a very similar situation again and wonder if this buyer is a 'put-up' job by the agent - produced conveniently within the new seven day 'cooling-off' period to ensure we didn't get cold feet and go elsewhere.

Furthermore I'm not so sure their fixed fee was such a good idea, but that's tough and us being stupid I s'pose......

Do you think I'm being paranoid here? I've even taken to stalking our 'buyers' on Rightmove to see if their house comes up for sale - their pics were being taken yesterday and our own house appeared online the very next day...........no sign of theirs yet though

Any thoughts would be most appreciated - especially as to whether estate agents really would do something as underhand as concoct a 'buyer' to get an instruction..............

Many thanks for reading this tragically long post!

LL x

Cissi

liberty_lily wrote: »

[...]

Any thoughts would be most appreciated - especially as to whether estate agents really would do something as underhand as concoct a 'buyer' to get an instruction.............. Yes, it's quite possible that they would, don't think you'll ever know for sure though... Personally I'd have gone with a different agent after your experience last time, but that's just me.

Many thanks for reading this tragically long post! Sorry to say I didn't, only skimmed over it. You'd probably get more replies if you left out most of the detail and skimmed it down to a couple of relevant sentences...

Comments in red.

hcb42

I read it all

Yes, some estate agents would concoct a buyer....

then again, a lot of people view a house twice and dont offer, so it's difficult to know for sure.

evoke

Get your EA to send you all offers in writing before you respond to any offers. And make sure you tell the EA to ensure that any potential buyers are proceedable.

Doozergirl

If I had a pound for every person that was planning an offer...

Seriously, it is very common indeed for people to view, like a house but not make an offer. There could have been another house, they could have changed their mind, they could have been out for a day trip and blatantly lied. The rule I work to is that if they haven't offered in two days, forget about them. People very rarely come back after that time. If they do, it's a bonus, but don't have sleepless nights over them or you will never sleep!

It won't be the first time you get a £250k offer that won't be raised, it's the nature of your asking price. Some people can't afford to go over but need to try. Some people in the same bracket will expect and accept £250k; the buyers have to find who they are.

An EA needs more than 7 days to prove their worth, if he's already got you in the form of a contract, why would he need to entrap you into using him.

There is no doubt that trying to sell a house is hard on the mind, but cut back on the paranoia! Make sure the ad looks good and when the right person comes, you will know.

Sometimes the first viewings are people the agent has had on their books for a while. And some of those people will never be able to make a decision.

ankspon

If your property is unique and incomparable i wouldn't accept the valuations

Jenniefour

Unlikely an agent would concoct a buyer - why would they? At the end of the day they don't get paid until they have a serious buyer who will proceed. When a property goes on the market most agents have at least one or two buyers on their books who might be looking for a similar property already.

If you get to an agreement with these buyers then, since they have a property to sell, you could agree to a conditional offer - the house stays on the market until they're in a position to proceed. Which these days, sadly, might not happen. One of the biggest reasons for chains collapsing and sales not proceeding is that the buyer can't sell, or their sale falls through because of mortgage squeeze.

Unfortunately, as you are aware, the price of your house is in what some agents call the 'dead zone' - 250 to 280 - so offering to pay stamp duty and having that on your listing is a good idea.

Early days - wait and see what happens over next couple of weeks.

liberty_lily

Thanks for all your comments

Just a quick update on this - two weeks after putting our house on the market we had a viewing from a very enthusiastic couple who made an offer the same day. It was again a little below what we were hoping for so we rejected it, but the next day they increased it to an amount we were happy with. They are SSTC and have a very short chain of two behind them, the last one who has nothing to sell. We are now awaiting their surveyor to do his stuff and if all goes according to plan they are hoping for an early completion date of mid May.

Only trouble (apart from the fear they will disappear - although unlikely as they seem extremely keen ) is that we now have to find somewhere ourselves.

We put an offer in on a deceased estate sale (probate due to be completed either this week or next) but I'm not over keen...........it's an ok house in a good road (but noisy), but is very small compared to what we have now and will need tons of work to make it anywhere near ideal. It's also in a town that I don't particularly like, although OH says I'll get used to it. On the plus side it's in close proximity to my parents (mother with Alzheimers) and does have potential to add value...........it doesn't have any 'wow' factor whatsoever though, and despite being seasoned house-renovators, I'm struggliing to see how it could ever be perfect. This was supposed to be the forever move, but it's looking less likely

On the other hand we've viewed a second property that is considerably further from my parents and is grade 2 listed with many potential pitfalls - but it is the right size in a beautiful village and could have bags of wow factor when all the current owners deviations from the listed building consent are rectified (artex ceilings etc)..........I fear that neither ticks all the boxes and am scared we'll end up with nothing. Moving into rented is not an option as we've sooooooooo much stuff and three cats. Neither could we stay with my parents as my mother's condition would endanger the safety of the cats - two of whom are indoors-only - as she would most likely let them out

So difficult decisions lie ahead - will update if any further developments occur.

Thanks again for your advice and comments,

LL x