Offering on a house - Suspicious of Estate Agent

FishyFlipFlop

I've been offering on a house and am a little suspicious of what the Vendors estate agent has been telling me.

Originally we did offer fairly low and were told that the vendor had received other offers around this level but as we were in a good situation (buyer line dup for our flat, small chain etc) that he would consider our offer.

As we are offering around the stamp duty threshold, he came back and asked us to make another offer if he paid the stamp duty. We upped our offer with this in mind and got a rejection.

Throughout we tried to get some form of negotiation going with the Estate Agent and vendor but he wouldn't give us an idea of the price he wanted us to meet.

A week passed and we decided to up our offer significantly. He considered for a couple of days and we were then told... he already had an offer from a couple of people in a similar situation to ourselves at around the same level to our latest offer (within £50 of each other) and an offer above the asking price from someone who had not yet sold their property...

The estate agent said that as the vendor is not particularly in a rush he will probably accept the higher offer and we left it at that.

I have no idea whether the Estate Agent is telling the truth or a bunch of porkies to get us to up our offer. We probably could go a bit higher but don't really want to and don't really know if we should stick tight at our current offer.

Any thoughts would be appreciated, particularly around whether you think the Estate Agent has been honest and it would be good if I could get some advice around what action to take next.

sonastin

Wait and see. If the agent is bluffing, he'll be calling you back in a few days with some story about why the vendor decided that even though he could get more money elsewhere, he'd rather deal with you because you are such great people.

If the agent isn't bluffing and there really are other geniune offers, you will lose the house. But as you've said, you don't really want to pay any more for it. All bidding wars have to stop somewhere. Don't get pushed into overpaying just because someone else is willing to. There are other houses out there and they often turn out to be better than the one that got away.

hazyjo

Grrrr... bloomin' EAs. Fed up of hearing about 'loads of other offers', or a better one sitting on the table. Utter rubbish, IMO. Would've upped the offer to what I felt comfortable with, then stuck. Definitely wouldn't be paying just over any stamp duty thresholds, even if they paid my stamp duty. I bet the stamp duty is way under what you'll be taking a hit for. IMO, you're buying into negative equity as there aren't many who'd pay over that threshold.

Jx

FishyFlipFlop

Thanks Sonastin, you are probably right and I know we should wait it's just that we do like the place and also don't want to lose the buyer on our flat cause we're taking too long to find somewhere ourselves.

Another thing I meant to ask was whether it is worthwhile trying to contact/negotiate with the vendor directly as to date we have only been communicating through the Estate Agent (other than our viewings)?

Caroline73_2

I have always written to the vendor with my offer as well. I tell the estate agent what I'm doing just so that everyone is in the picture.

kingstreet

Offer what you're prepared to pay.

If not accepted go find somewhere else.

This works for you if the estate agents are lying through their teeth or telling the truth.

Plenty more property out there!