Already got a viewing and not yet on Market!!!

westv

EmilyQ wrote: »

You're implying that we would get special treatment and that any purchaser should be wary of said relationship? Your implication is wrong.

I was saying that we are lucky to know our estate agent, so we know they won't pull a fast one on us. Hence the whole subject of the thread and the kind warnings of others.

Are you saying that I should go with another estate agent to hold stronger morals and values? Pray, tell me, what do you think one should do? :T

So you don't think any purchaser should know that there's a close relationship between the EA and seller?

maria6259

EmilyQ wrote: »

Literally went to the estate agents this morning to ask to put our house on the Market and we have our first viewing tomorrow!!?

Apparently she's a lady who nearly bought exactly the same type of property as ours on the same popular housing estate but the seller pulled out at the last minute.

I'm not getting my hopes up but isn't that funny! Anyway, we've been working like mad in the garden and house, getting everything really presentable and clean. Suppose no matter what happens it's kicked us into action and gets all this hard work out of the way.

I am in the same situation. I instructed an EA about a week ago, he came to take photos on Wednesday and I have just had the brochure to check through.

Meanwhile, I had a viewing yesterday from a couple who have accepted an offer on their house and who seemed to like it, but I am not getting my hopes up either!

Thank goodness I cut the grass Friday night because they said the garden was lovely.

I forgot to tell them a few things too, such as alarm, built in appliances etc. All good experience for future viewings (if any).

Good luck with selling yours, keep us posted.

EmilyQ

westv wrote: »

So you don't think any purchaser should know that there's a close relationship between the EA and seller?

No. Because our estate agent is professional and isn't giving us any special treatment.

It's a matter of trust as someone was warning us to sign something first. You're implying that our agent would act unprofessionally.

The whole point is that we live on a very popular housing estate where someone tried to buy the exact house type but it fell through. The woman has sold her own home and is keen to move. The reason why she's viewing our house is because of her situation, not because of our relationship with the agent.

An agent - irrespective of circumstances - will try to do a good job for both parties. They'll want to sell our home and find something for their customer. We still have to pay the same costs as everyone else.

Thanks for wishing us luck anyway. It's nice to know there's so many positive people in the world. :rotfl:

EmilyQ

maria6259 wrote: »

I am in the same situation. I instructed an EA about a week ago, he came to take photos on Wednesday and I have just had the brochure to check through.

Meanwhile, I had a viewing yesterday from a couple who have accepted an offer on their house and who seemed to like it, but I am not getting my hopes up either!

Thank goodness I cut the grass Friday night because they said the garden was lovely.

I forgot to tell them a few things too, such as alarm, built in appliances etc. All good experience for future viewings (if any).

Good luck with selling yours, keep us posted.

That's great news! At least you're getting viewings. It might be that this woman comes round today and hates our home and then we don't get another viewing for 12 months.

Either way, we'll be fine. And I'm very grateful for the roof over my head. I'd better get going and finish off the house cleaning.

Good luck and tell me what happened if anything :T

Greymarl

I don't know that I would care if the estate agents were friends or relatives of the seller particularly (though I expect there are rules about it being declared); the agent is supposed to act on behalf of the vendor as they are paying their fees and the contract is with them anyway.

How did you get on? The exact same thing happened to me last week - I had an offer of almost the asking within 24 hours from the first people who viewed and I hadn't yet been in with the signed paperwork (we had agreed fees at that point though and they were in the agreement). The couple had viewed similar properties in the same area.

anselld

westv wrote: »

So you don't think any purchaser should know that there's a close relationship between the EA and seller?

Why should they? The EA acts entirely for the seller anyway so purchasers should have no expectation.

Davesnave

I'm sorry if people think the agent works for the vendor, as it's fairly obvious that they work for themselves. More often than not, the vendor's interests and the agent's coincide, but I could give examples where they have diverged, or where there seemed to be a conflict of interest.

In the case of our house, the agent tried hard to sell it to someone else. I can't be sure why they did that, so I won't speculate, but it took a very determined seller to resist them.

By the way, what was the point of this thread?

sonastin

EAs do have to declare some relationships with vendors but I don't think "friends of the family" is one of them. Its more like "close relative of one of our employees" I believe.

I viewed one house which belonged to employees of the EA. I was ever so grateful that it was missing a key feature so that I had a good reason to give when I didn't want to buy it. "Just didn't like it enough to want to live there" is bad enough feedback to give to the EA, but when its going straight to the vendor with no filtering its even worse.

LandyAndy

I was on the other side of this. We had been looking for a while and walked into the EA to check on anything new and he said 'Take a look at this, I went out to take instructions this morning.' It was a house about 100yds from where we were renting. We bought it.