unscruplous estate agent

Greentea

just wanted to tell you my story of how a local (North Down) estate treated me .... was bidding on a house. I was told the house was a repossession so the formalities followed where slightly different. The house was bid up to a point when the estate agent informed me that the price reached was "acceptable to the party acting for the vendor and would now go to press" The house was advertised in local press and for a further 5 days further bids would be taken. I had put an offer in before the house was advertised and was the highest offer. The 5 days passed and when I telephoned the agent, I was told they were waiting to hear from the party acting for the vendor. The next day, 6 days after the house had been advertised the estate agent rang me and asked was my price my "last and final offer". She told me I would not be able to make any offer after this time. When I questioned her why she was coming back asking me to increase my bid, she said the party acting for the vendor had requested this. I did not increase my bid and was later told they had went with another party!!!!!!!!!

In effect the estate agent encouraged my bid to be gazumped. I dont think there is anything I can do or complain to since the industry is unregulated and this estate agent doesnt belong to any professional body.

leftieM

I don't understand exactly were the crime was committed. Do you know what was happening behind the scenes? I assume there was an offer that was higher than yours so the vendor went with that. Is it that it went to the 6th day?
Sometimes it's the unscrupulous vendor you have to worry about! We had a very generous offer on our house yesterday which we decided to turn down as we had told other bidders that we would close tomorrow and we didn't want to be unfair. Some vendors use these offers of 'we'll give you x to take the house off the market' to squeeze more money out of other bidders. So wrong!!!

Tallymanjohn

Probably not - in my opinion, when the revolution comes Estate Agents will be one of the first against the wall.....

Greentea

Yes im angry that they went to the 6th day when they told me 5 days after the advertisement there would be no further bids. Plus the agent would not tell me what the other bidder bid.

leftieM

I'd say the vendor had a big part to play in this. There's a good chance your bid was matched by a cash buyer and that's why you were asked for more money. If you had put a higher offer in the vendor would have been more inclined to go with you.
I say this because investors are everywhere! They are the biggest hurdle you have to overcome, not the EAs.

Edit: I'm not saying that the EAs will necesarily behave in a noble fashion either.

Greentea

No it wasnt an investor, I was told it was a FTB, and I would have been in a stronger position.

Because the Vendor was probably a financial institution as this was a repossession i would imagine they would go with the Estate Agents advise.

The EA think I can go higher because I have looked at more expensive properties. The FTB was probably at their limit.

mr.roboto

From my experience, this is all in a day's "work" for estate agents here. They have had it so easy for so long, they are now a law unto themselves. I can't begin to express my contempt for them, having dealt with 5 different agencies during a sale/rent/buying process in the course of the last year, and it was impossible to tell the difference between them; their concept of "customer service" is laughable. If they were in any other sector they would go bust within weeks, - unreturned calls , mis-management of information and unscrupulous activity are their business standards. Think of the % increases in house prices here in the last few years - EA's profits will be going up by the same ratio for ZERO effort on their part.

One of the few bonuses of a housing market crash would be to see some of the wee parasites going out of business.

There, I feel better now.

Sorry to hear of your experience. Brace yourself for more of the same.

Greentea

Good rant mr.roboto i can relate to the poor service, I find the only way to get a house is to be on their backs day in day out.

I know they have been making plenty but there are some in my area with only one or two properties for sale these days which must be affecting their cash flow.

scandarahar

There definitely needs to be a regulatory body for estate agents -

Bought our house 2 years ago and price had been agreed with vendors. Lo and behold next day another bidder appeared, according to the estate agent, and pushed our price up by £6000. I had no way of knowing if it was a scam or not (would an estate agent do that?!) , but we did want the house.

Even if there was a genuine last minute interested party (house had been on market 6 months and vendor told us that we were only viewers), a regulatory body would have been able to oversee and verify such circumstances, and I would know I wasn't 'screwed-over'.

And probably wouldn't have just as much loathing for EAs...

leftieM

Some EAs lie, no doubt about it.

Colin_Kee

I have dealt with EA's in England & Northern Ireland and I have to say over here they do seem to be a significantly less professional. I couldn't believe it when we first were looking for our house that they were closed on Saturdays. It beggers belief, surley this should be potentially their bussiest day. As both my wife and I work, we found it hard organising viewings as they all had to be done at nights and if they could be done on Saturdays, usually it was the house owner showed us around. (Makes you wander what exactly they do for their commission, put up a sign and stick a picture on a web site!!)
When we first were looking for our house, we did hear through the grapevine of certain EA's in the area who were a bit "dodgy " for want of a better word. I don't mean illegal but just some of the practices that they used were a bit unethical to say the least. It's true what they say. EA's are proably the least trusted people on the plant (Yip even more than politicians)