Ignored by an estate agent

alexnznz

evoke wrote: »

Usually it's after the survey where the real negotiations begin. Anyone offering a lot lower than the seller's sell point is having a laugh and the EA is likely to be embarrassed to convey the offer to the seller. Legally the EA has to convey the offer. The seller is going to get mightily p1ssed off with the EA if a ridiculously low offer is put forward, particularly from an FTB.

Put yourself in the seller's shoes for a minute. You've laid down the ground rules to the EA. An FTB puts in an offer well below your minimum price. The EA communicates this offer to you. What are you going to think of the EA? It's an utter waste of time and energy all round.

If you truly want the property then you'll put in an offer that will secure the property, assuming you have the budget to do so.

The offer was not ridiculously low. The asking price is £380k, the offer made was £340k, which is just 10.5% below the asking price…

Also, unless EAs convey all offers, no matter how low, how would seller be able to find out that his/her property is not priced to the current market?

evoke

Erm...when the seller gets no buyers at his minimum price I think he'll realise that the price is too high.

DVardysShadow

blanche wrote: »

The point of 3 days deadline was that we had not been responded on our first offer until we phoned to the agency ourselves. Plus there is another house we are interested in and the vendor is pushing us with the offer.

The reason I started this tread was that I don’t understand the EA's attitude, why they didn't bother to call us nor on our first nor on our second offer? Thank you for your comments Doozegirl, I understand that putting the 3 days limit was not a great idea, but what was wrong with our first offer? Even if it was quite lower their expectation the EA could contact us to decline it at least. We have been given deadlines to make an offer or walk away in almost every second viewing, the estate agents were bluffing that they had another offer on the table (I assume they were bluffing as those houses are still on the market and some prices have been dropped since).

Well. news that you have another house in mind. The 3 day deadline is still not the way to play it - basically you have let yourself be rushed by taking the EA's bluff at face value. At this point in the market cycle, it is far more likely to be a bluff, so you should just ignore the agents' deadlines and make contact some while later to ask if offers will still be accepted. Agent is then in the bind of having to lay down his bluff to hear an offer. Quite likely he will hear your offer and then tell you there is another offer just to maintain his bluff position. As soon as he indicates there is another offer, withdraw, unless you really do want to bid up.

With your present situation, you should have gone in slightly below best and final and said there is not much more to be squeezed from us and left the agent to put the offer forward. You can then ring back after several days and ask if there is no response. As soon as other offers are mentioned, just tell them to put your offer on the backburner because you have other properties you could bid on.

Your problem is that you have been sized up as naive and your 3 day offer has confirmed the impression.

BFM

i don't think doozer was commenting on the value of the bid at all. just the tone. i think she's right insofar as being decent around the whole process is a good idea, unless you are able to just pay cash and then it soesn't make much difference and I suspect you can be as much of a tool as you like. but I'd certainly rather go through the process of selling or buying a house with someone who had the ability to show a bit of respect - especially as if you cant manage that at the beginning, its unlikely to get any better later in the process.

and the OP said themselves if they could do it again they wouldn't put the time ultimatem on the bid so i think most of the folks int eh thread are kind of agreeing violently here.

the key thing is having an idea on what the house is worth to you - nothing wrong with offering under this amount, but nothing wrong with the sellers politely rejecting the offer either...