Estate Agent under valued property? HELP!!

airhostess

davebelushi wrote: »

deal, i'll buy it for that

Lol, having finger trouble there!! I'll send you a PM if I get desperate...:D

Thanks so much for your replies there guys. The sold prices on Rightmove are just the same as those on nethousprices et al, you can search for 'sold properties' but they do have a section on actual land registry sold prices which is where I got the estimate of what my flat should be on for.

Anyway, the estate agent came back to me with *horrors* a further offer of £124,000 from the girl. I decided that I couldn't let it carry on without voicing my concerns & I had a good talk with the agent and explained that I really didn't have any confidence in their valuation. The outcome was that they didn't believe that they could market it for £134,995 even with me paying stamp duty, and good luck to me in marketing it myself and they would take it off the market.

5 mins later, the guy rings back and says that he has consulted with his manager, and everyone in the office agrees that they are shocked that my flat is acheiving offers of £124,000, and in the light of that they would be happy marketing it for me for £134,995 with me paying stamp duty and open to accepting offers over £130,000, which I agreed to. (Basically the guy's manager gave him hell for losing a customer and told him to get me back pronto!! I think.) He did complain about the predicament of 'explaining to everyone who has seen it on for £124,995 wondering why it has jumped 10k', but I said that that was his problem to explain and maybe the best thing to say was that they'd reconsidered their initial valuation. I don't know what they will say to the girl who was interested in the property. I feel so sorry for her, she's the reason that made me doubt the agent. Maybe she'll up her offer? Or maybe I'll be calling her back in a couple of months letting her know I'll take £124,000! Who knows?

The agents are ok with me tyring to market it myself, which I will. I feel strongly that the flat can acheive that amount given it's proximity to Stansted airport & the M11 etc. So the race is on to beat the agent and save myself the fee!!

devils_advocate

Imagine the scene. You tell the estate agent that you want to market the flat for £1m. Agent thinks that there's an infantessably small chance of finding a deluded buyer to pay such a silly amount of money for it. If so, his chances of making a commission are very very small.

On the other hand, you decide to market it with another agent for a realistic sale price, lets say for the sake of argument £125k. The chance of the first agent making any commission on this are nil. So what's better for the agent, the 100% chance of no commission or the small chance of some commission?

Moral of the story - be more self interested than the estate agents. And don't believe what hey say.

lush_walrus

An easy way for the EAs to get out of this situation is to tell people (perhaps potential buyer included) that they have made an error on their details and send out new details to their applicants correcting their 'error', then the EA gets the blaime for causing the problem, rather than the vendor so potential buyers won't be put off buying from you (if that makes sense!). The logic being that, no one minds blaiming the EAs for getting something wrong, but they do mind vendors who appear to be messing around (again, I am not saying this about you as you were rushed into the whole thing, but that is how some potential buyers see price changes etc) Thats how I would deal with it anyway! I am always happy to accept the blame for vendors (and teach all working for me to do the same), it defuses most situations between vendors/purchasers and potential purchasers!

MJMum

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