is the estate agent trying to trick me?

lolypopcorn

I found a house on rightmove over the weekend, after a bit of digging discovered it has been for sale since Jan 2012, it is offered with no chain and is not lived in.

I rang the estate agent on monday (a 'national' company) to arrange a viewing and they said the vendor is doing the viewings so would get back to me. I also visited the bank on monday and got a mortgage in principal.

I have rang the estate agent throughout the week about arranging a viewing to be told today that the seller is currently on holiday but would get back to me asap. They also mentioned that someone else was interested in viewing the property.

I have just discovered that the house has now been taken off rightmove but I can access it through google and it says 'under offer'.

Is it likely the estate agent is trying to scare me into making a higher offer than I would have? Considering they told me today they cannot contact the seller as they are away yet it has suddenly gone under offer despite being on the market for 10 months.

EDITED to say that I have driven past the house a few times since the weekend and the house does not have a board up outside advertising it for sale etc.

Debt_Free_Chick

If you post the property link from Rightmove, those of us with property bee may be able to give you more information.

lolypopcorn

Debt_Free_Chick wrote: »

If you post the property link from Rightmove, those of us with property bee may be able to give you more information.

Thanks, I have already got property bee and no changes have been made since 28/10/12 which was just an update of the estate agents address.

hcb42

i would say it is unlikely, I am about to sell, exchanging any day, there is NO WAY I would allow an agent to take my house off the market, even for one day, just to play games, not in this environment

krlyr

Why not pop your contact details through the letterbox? Maybe a note to say you'd had no success arranging a viewing with the estate agent and if they were interested in arranging one could they please call you on xxx.

ash28

Perhaps the house didn't have a for sale board in the first place? It was only for the sale of our last house that we had a for sale sign up - previous houses have been sold through an EA without a board - although we let them put a sold sign up once the houses were sold.

I find it odd that the house has been taken off Rightmove - normally you can see under offer/STC on there by electing to include them in the search criteria.

Is it still on the EAs website.

Is it up with more than one EA?

They could probably contact the vendors in the case of an offer - we were on holiday in the US last year when we had an offer on our house - the EA let us know by text. We accepted by text - I wouldn't have been amused if he had bothered me with anything else including arranging viewings - we just left a key with the EA to do the viewings.

I would have thought it highly unlikely the EA is trying to get you to put in a higher offer - I would imagine the vendor would have a fit if they thought the EA was playing games in this market.

Once we had accepted the offer on our house we used the internet to find out if had gone STC on Rightmove and that took a couple of days - though on the EAs website it happened on the same day.

Davesnave

I too think the agent wouldn't be playing games here.

Could it be that he/she was stalling because there was a good offer from someone highly proceedable already in the pipeline? This happened to us once. The agent just went silent, saying the owners were re-locating to France & he couldn't reach them, then by the weekend everything was done & dusted.

cramg

We had a similar thing happen to us 7 years ago with the house we are now living in.
Found it on rightmove advertised with agent 'X'. I phoned the agent and they didn't really give much information and were very cagey about the whole thing.
We drove past the house that day and seen it was empty with a for sale board up outside so we went straight into the estate agent to ask about it.
The agents comment was 'unfortunately i cannot divulge any information about the property or let you have a viewing, however, i suggest you monitor this weeks local paper closely'!
That week, the house had been transferred to another agent and was being sold as a repossession.....
Maybe the house you have found could be going down the same route - but someone has already offered on it? If this is the case, their offer will be published in the local paper and you will have the chance to offer more - just a thought.

kingstreet

If the agent wanted to spark a bidding war, it would be more likely to want you to view.

The actions so far indicate an acceptable offer has been made and the vendor has taken the property off the market and said "no more viewings."

ITtim

I agree with the posts above, sounds to me as though it was a delaying tactic to see if an already interested party was going to proceed.

lolypopcorn

Thanks for all the replies. I spoke to the estate agent again this morning (who was supposed to ring me last night but never) and he said he still hadn't been able to get hold of the seller, however there was a note on the file to say the seller had spoke to another agent yesterday and they could be contacted today after midday.

I mentioned that the house had been taken off the internet and was showing on their website as under offer. He went off to investigate by speaking with a colleague. He said the seller might be selling it privately but he would ring him after 12 and get back to me (still no call).

I drove past the house this morning (I was passing the road anyway) and saw someone coming out of the house and locking the front door, I presume he was the seller but I don't know. It all seems to be very secretive! I suppose I will just have to wait and see what the estate agent says.