still a buyers market?

jenhug

just thought i'd throw this out there for people to discuss, based on my outside looking in experiences of house buying recently.

A friend is house hunting. Fell in love with a house which had been on market for a year, on with 3 agents. Offered £115k on a £130k house, with a large deposit and no chain. Same day someone offered near asking with another agent and house sells.

House 2 on for £135k, needs work, offers £125k, seller turns down. Few weeks later seller reduces to £130k but still won't accept offers.

House 3, again, been on market a while, originally for £160k not many viewings and no offers, house is reduced to £150k, they desperate for a quick complete. Friend offers £145k, (house needs new boiler, so friend says will replace instead of vendor due to time constraints and having relatives in the trade) and a 4 week complete. in the same day 3 people in total offered, and one was for over the £150k, which obviously, was accepted!

They don't seem to be having much luck with offering in the area. This is Medway in kent.

They plan on offering on another house tomorrow but are not holding their hopes up!

Is it like this everywhere or just here?

Pupnik

A house on the market for a long time and not shifting suddenly getting 3 offers on the same day your friend put his offer in sounds VERY dodgy to me and I would suspect the EA of fabricating offers to try and create a false bidding war. Could this possibly be happening here?

jenhug

no, sadly, as I knew the lady that owns the house, its most definitely sold. We did suspect this of the first house, until we found out the offer had been made through a different agent.

jenhug

they put offer forward today, EA is now playing the "we can't put your offer forward until you have seen our in house mortgage team" card. I told her to put a note through vendors door saying you've attempted to offer but estate agent is obstructing you. They are also pushing to get her to use their solicitor, which she has refused.

Salz

I think it depends where you are - I went into a Countrywide EA last week and asked to see their mortgage advisor (I know, I know, so shoot me ) Firstly, she was free so we could see her straight away. Secondly, we were in there for an hour over lunchtime. No-one else came into the branch in that time, and the phone rang once and that was a wrong number. So I am figuring that it is definitely a buyers market here at the moment!

FATBALLZ

None of the other 11 places I viewed have sold yet and a few have dropped the price so I'm going to say yes it is still a buyers market.

airmark

It's not a buyers' market in London, that's for sure.

eddddy

Going back to the OP's friend's experience - I wonder if this is just a sign of buyers prevaricating, because the housing market is so uncertain at the moment. For example:

"It's a really nice house, but is now a really good time to buy?"....
"It's a really nice house, but if we wait a few months perhaps the price will come down"...
etc

Then, as soon as somebody actually makes an offer, the EA phones round everyone else saying "if you don't make an offer now, you'll lose it", and suddenly everyone is spurred into action.

I think there's also an element of the herd instinct which says "if nobody else wants the house, perhaps it not very good", but when the EA says that other people have made offers it changes to "if other people have made offers, it must be good, maybe I should make an offer as well"

satchmeister

jenhug wrote: »

they put offer forward today, EA is now playing the "we can't put your offer forward until you have seen our in house mortgage team" card. I told her to put a note through vendors door saying you've attempted to offer but estate agent is obstructing you. They are also pushing to get her to use their solicitor, which she has refused.

it is illegal for the EA to refuse to put forward the offer. Strictly speaking even of you offered just £100 for the property they still have to put the offer forward.

jenhug

they worded it that they needed to do it to prove to the vendor they were in a position to buy the house. They said they could put the offer forward but the house was likely to remain on the market until completion, which i thought was pretty standard anyway.

They also asked if this offer was turned down were they likely to increase their offer! Thats a classic I think!

Pupnik

jenhug wrote: »

they put offer forward today, EA is now playing the "we can't put your offer forward until you have seen our in house mortgage team" card. I told her to put a note through vendors door saying you've attempted to offer but estate agent is obstructing you. They are also pushing to get her to use their solicitor, which she has refused.

Since you are in the South East (as I am) I can only assume that the EA are a well known beginning with W, right? We are trying to buy a flat through the same EA and they have rejected our first offer and told us to increase it and that the seller only wants to sell to people using her same solicitors [different branch but same partnership] as she is not comfortable dealing with others- and that the reason the previous offer from another seller did not go through was because of this issue. Funny, because when I spoke to the vendor the other day she did not mention this at all and said it was because the other buyer did not have enough deposit to get a mortgage for it. I did not mind the idea of using her solicitors as we hadn't selected ours yet, but then I find out that her solicitor happens to be the one that works with the EA! We have put in a final offer and (perhaps stupidly?) agreed to use their solicitors but I am feeling railroaded right now and if they come back and want more money I will say no thanks and not use that EA again. We are good FTBs with a hefty deposit and mortgage in principle so I think something will come up in future, but it is a shame as I really do love the property and the vendor has been very friendly and helpful.

Edit- oh and of course we also had to speak to their mortgage advisor before we could even view anything! I am worried that he has passed on how much we can afford, but just because we can afford a certain amount does NOT mean we want to pay it! We want to pay our mortgage off within 15 years not 30 years paying back a ridiculous amount of interest.