Estate agent not allowing revised offers

jjlandlord

An estate agent in my area seems to work by closing deals very quickly and not getting back to interested buyers in order to have their offers raised.
Seems that one need to make an offer very fast and be right first time.

And I'm not talking about very low offers: Happened with an offer for the asking price and no chain less than one week after a property hit the market. They just got back to me the next day with a "accepted another offer. Tough".
Happened several times.

Is it common?
It does not seem a very good way to achieve maximum sale value. Other agents in my area seems more keen to have buyers bid against each others.

KateLiana27

If they have genuinely accepted another offer, I think this is actually surprisingly ethical behaviour for an estate agent.

We called an EA about a property that was still listed on Rightmove for "Offers Over x" to try to arrange a viewing, and was told they had a sale agreed and the buyer was arranging their survey, but they would let me know if anything happened to the sale. I was impressed by that.

As a buyer, if the EA called me after a sale was agreed saying there was another interested party and tried to start a bidding war, I'd be furious and pull out faster than they could blink.

Edit: from what you've written, it doesn't sound as thought they won't allow revised offers - just that they won't put forward offers once a sale has been agreed - right?

jjlandlord

Thanks for your reply.

KateLiana27 wrote: »

As a buyer, if the EA called me after a sale was agreed saying their was another interested party and tried to start a bidding war, I'd be furious and pull out faster than they could blink.

I'm not talking about an offer received after the sale is agreed. I'm talking about having several offers (first offers) on the table an picking one without first trying to extract the very best offer from each bidder.

It's difficult to imagine that everyone's first offer will be their best offer, isn't it?

KateLiana27 wrote: »

Edit: from what you've written, it doesn't sound as thought they won't allow revised offers - just that they won't put forward offers once a sale has been agreed - right?

I did mean that they wouldn't allow revised offers. Sorry if that wasn't clear. I would understand that they stop accepting offers once the sale is agreed.

dippy

jjlandlord, in your first post, you say that the vendor has "accepted another offer".

In my book, that's "sale agreed". Why are you so keen on gazumping that other buyer? :mad:

jjlandlord

dippy wrote: »

jjlandlord, in your first post, you say that the vendor has "accepted another offer".

Let's make it clearer once more time:

2 or more interested buyers make their first offer. Then they just pick one of them.
At that point, obviously the agent will call the others saying that the sale has been accepted based on first offers without allowing offers to be revised.

dippy wrote: »

Why are you so keen on gazumping that other buyer? :mad:

I am not keen on gazumping anyone.

WelshNic

jjlandlord wrote: »

Let's make it clearer once more time:

2 or more interested buyers make their first offer. Then they just pick one of them.
At that point, obviously the agent will call the others saying that the sale has been accepted based on first offers without allowing offers to be revised.



I am not keen on gazumping anyone.

I'm with dippy on this, if you really want a property then offer what you think it's worth. How do you know what the other offers were? Maybe they were at asking? Maybe they recognised how attractive that property was - and let's face it, to have more than one offer on the table that may well be the case.

In your example of offer at asking price then someone got there before you. Kudos to the EA for not allowing bidding wars.

jjlandlord

WelshNic wrote: »

Kudos to the EA for not allowing bidding wars.

Is this supposed to be a business or what? It is the EA's job to allow bidding wars when there are several offers on the table, or at least to try to get revised offers. Isn't the EA supposed to get the best deal for the seller?

So you say you're supposed to walk in and make your very best offer straight? This cannot be serious.


My original question stands: How common it is for an EA to refuse negotiation? (seems to be a bad deal for the seller)

RedwoodBrook

Maybe the other offer was just too good for refuse? Cash buyer, for example?

I'm just about to complete on a house, after being gazumped I might add. I was a cash buyer, no chain and pretty desperate to get things going! Other party had yet to sell their house. They made a higher offer than we did, but the vendor saw sense and opted for us.

jjlandlord

RedwoodBrook wrote: »

Maybe the other offer was just too good for refuse? Cash buyer, for example?

That's a possibility. Though I thought that an opening offer at asking price when we made clear that we had no chain and the mortgage in place whereas the seller has still to find a new place to buy seemed pretty good. Certainly good enough to get a shot at a revised offer in any case.

What prompted my question is that this behaviour seems to be standard with this particular agent.

G_M

What everyone seems to be ignoring is that the EA is....just an 'agent'. He just works on behalf of the seller. If the seller accepts an offer (which may/may not be the first, the highest, the best,....) and tells the EA to withdraw the property from the market, then that's what the EA must do.

It is the seller's strategy that you seem to be querying, not the EA's.

RedwoodBrook

jjlandlord wrote: »

That's a possibility. Though I thought that an opening offer at asking price when we made clear that we had no chain and the mortgage in place whereas the seller has still to find a new place to buy seemed pretty good. Certainly good enough to get a shot at a revised offer in any case.

What prompted my question is that this behaviour seems to be standard with this particular agent.

Well, the agent advertising the house we bought had no problem putting offers forward even (weeks) after the vendor had accepted ours....They also didn't mind telling lots of porkies!