Effective offer letter

MissMotivation

Hoof_Hearted wrote: »

Perhaps the property is a bit of a bargain and the agent has it lined up for one of his mates at a low price as there have been no offers.....

Most agents would polish a turd and sell it as diamond if they thought they would get their commission. Therefore, I am not sure why he/she is reluctant to pass the offer on in this case. First offers are usually a basis for negotiation anyway.

Yes, it's a well-known fact that all EA's have 100's of mates with bucket loads of cash to spend on properties that they are marketing.

They only ever sell to their mates.

dodger1

suljka wrote: »

Hi all,

Looking for a template for an effective and professional sounding way to put our offer on a property in writing. The EA is playing games a bit and we feel that he's not taking us or our offer seriously so would really like to put that offer through to them in writing, hoping it would help.

What games are the EA playing? Are they refusing to pass your offer on to the vendor?

DVardysShadow

dodger1 wrote: »

What games are the EA playing? Are they refusing to pass your offer on to the vendor?

OP ain't telling us.

dodger1

DVardysShadow wrote: »

OP ain't telling us.

Which begs the question why?

steve1980

dodger1 wrote: »

Which begs the question why?

A term commonly used in the 12 years of estate agency that I was privvy to was WOFT.

I'll let you work that one out!

suki1001

newhome4us wrote: »

Gosh - there's really no need for that is there? You are now being plain rude IMHO! :mad:
The OP doesn't feel the need to explain why they might think the EA isn't putting their offer forward, they are not having great deal of trust in the EA and are wanting to ensure that their offer is brought to the vendor nonetheless.
They are not asking for a 'killer' letter, just a letter. They are not asking for an advice on what the EA might be thinking, as the only person who knows is the EA.

BUT because you never had the need to put your offer in writing, because you were lucky enough never to encounter an a** EA (you must be first man in the Universe!!!:eek:) you decide the best thing is to tell the OP to ask for help elsewhere?! What a lovely spirit you have!
What gives you the right?! I see from your other posts you fancy yourself as a bit of an expert on variety of issues, only you don't seem to be able to handle it so well when you get a dose of your own medicine.

God help those who dare not to agree with your 'know it all' opinions.
Think before you speak man!

I was a little taken aback by this post, I cannot see where the op has been rude, I thought he was asking perfectly valid questions.

Equally I do think most people make verbal offers, the official bit comes from the EA themselves. Ours had offer, date and time on. You may take the belt and braces approach to offering, but it is unusual.

newhome4us

suki1001 wrote: »

I was a little taken aback by this post, I cannot see where the op has been rude, I thought he was asking perfectly valid questions.

Suki1001 my post didn’t refer to this single post by the DVardysShadow, but to his continuous insistence and his almost bullish approach towards OP, suljka from the very beginning of their thread.
Whereas DVardys questions might have been valid, it is questionable in the context of the original post by suljak if the answers to those questions are indeed necessary or essential in order to provide help that the OP has asked of us.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but if someone is asking for some hints on how to write an effective offer letter, do we really need to know their whole history in order to provide those helpful hints, as in providing an effective template offer letter. If they are asking for a template, by definition a more generic type of a letter, which is more useful to others as well as everyone can adjust it to suit their own needs and circumstances.
All those property TV programmes suggest that putting an offer in writing is a good idea and may give you a bit more clout with both the EA and the vendor, many other posts on this forum suggest the same, yet when OP asks all of us for some constructive help his post gets more less hijacked by DVardys and his need to be well, simply put, nosy. DVardys insistence that OP is not telling us the whole story and therefore they must be hiding something, therefore they need telling off, therefore they really don’t deserve our help is frankly uncalled for, because we simply do not need to know the whole story in order to provide the template letter the OP is asking for, do we?!

suki1001 wrote: »

Equally I do think most people make verbal offers, the official bit comes from the EA themselves. Ours had offer, date and time on. You may take the belt and braces approach to offering, but it is unusual.

Yes, normally you’d only need to put in your offer verbally and yes EA response should be more formal one as you suggest it was in your case. As much as I am happy that you have obviously dealt with a decent EA who has conducted business in a professional manner, not everyone is that lucky, myself included. Yes in the ideal world verbal offers are the way to go; in the ideal worlds all EA do their job following the rules and you get your offer confirmed in writing; in the ideal worlds EA passes your offer to the seller as you have asked them to. In the world I live in my offers were not passed on to the seller, they were not even recorded by the EA correctly, they were never confirmed in writing and the result is one botched sale, one complaint to the EA and one complaint to Property ombudsman as a result… and everything being so much more difficult to prove because things were done verbally, as it were, putting trust in EA.
I have learned a hard way and therefore I speak from experience when I say that written offer are a way to go and all my offers in future will be conducted in writing, be it via email or snail mail.

Anyways, rather than digressing even further from the post that started this thread it might be good to remind everyone what is it that the OP has actually asked for.

Here it goes

suljka wrote: »

Looking for a template for an effective and professional sounding way to put our offer on a property in writing. The EA is playing games a bit and we feel that he's not taking us or our offer seriously so would really like to put that offer through to them in writing, hoping it would help.

We're in very good position, first time buyers, so nothing to sell, no chain to worry about, have mortgage offer on the table (can provide paperwork if needed), solicitor on the stand by, 20% deposit and are very keen to get things moving, so would be very proactive to get the ball rolling.

Property needs some work, but our offer is not miles off, and it would be subject to the usual, contract, survey and information given by the EA being trutful...
We feel it would be also be useful to gently nudge the EA, remind them of their obligation to pass our offer on to the seller, and to confirm it in writing as per best codes of practice etc, etc. - of course all should be done in a very diplomatic way

If you have put your offer in writing and it worked, or if you have used a good template, or if you are just good at doing this sort of thing than please we'd really appreciate your help.

Many thanks in advance

I for one would love to see people post their successful (or not so successful) experiences, I know it would help me a great deal to put my offer forward when the right property comes by.

PS. I’m not knocking down that mostly the negotiations will be done verbally, but I have learned a hard way that “the word is only worth the paper it is written on”

Here’s hoping

Hoof_Hearted

newhome4us wrote: »

....in the ideal worlds all EA do their job following the rules...

Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha........

dodger1

If the EA is ignoring OPs verbal offer I'd guess they'd do the same with a written offer, a bad EA is bad EA. All I'd do is go and see the vendor and say I've offered £x to the EA but they are not giving any feedback. The vendor will then know that the EA isn't doing their job properly and can then do whatever is necessary to fix the problem. The vendor may well grab OPs hand and say "deal".

We are assuming of course that the EA is not forwarding the offer because we don't actually know. OP may be refering to something quite different when saying EA is playing games, but no matter what the games are a personal word with the vendor may get things moving unless of course the games are the vendors own doing.

Wobblydeb

MissMotivation wrote: »

Yes, it's a well-known fact that all EA's have 100's of mates with bucket loads of cash to spend on properties that they are marketing.

They only ever sell to their mates.

Maybe not 100's but they certainly have developer mates who get them to keep an eye open for the good stuff. My ex was an EA, and I know that there were "perks" for finding that untouched property some old dear was selling, getting it signed up at a low price and quickly offloaded to a happy developer mate.

The fact this house needs work rings alarm bells for me.

OP - You should have received confirmation of your offer (even if rejected) in writing from the EA. If that has not happened, I would actually email (so that you have a record) to ask the EA whether the vendor has considered your offer of £X and what the outcome was.