A house being listed twice under 2 estate agents with this reason given....

JustAnotherSaver

Talking to people at work & they instantly knee-jerk towards the house being a repo, but i'm wondering what you guys think...

We went to view a house which has been listed for a few week under 2 estate agents. One of them was listing at £5,050 lower than the other. After a few week, the more expensive one lowered to £950 lower than the previous lowest. A few days later they became a match on the new price.

I enquired with the EA that we viewed through & they gave this response:

* The property is joint agency & the 2 EAs are acting on behalf of a corporate company.
* The EA i asked didn't know why there was a difference in price but only had a guess at there being a delay in changing it over from "their" system which happens to all EAs every now & then.

As we're new to the game ... can any of you have a guess at what's going on here based on the info given?

GDVS

JustAnotherSaver wrote: »

the 2 EAs are acting on behalf of a corporate company.

I think that's a repo.

googler

It's a repo, and the co. selling it are either giving the EAs updates at different times, or the EAs are taking different lengths of time to update the price.

JustAnotherSaver

Well as we're new at this, that information (assuming you guys are correct) would instantly signal positivity to me - it's a repo so they'll be wanting to shift the house quick. They wont take sod all for it, but they are likely to sell it for much much less than it's worth?

However, as nothing is so plain sailing, i get a feeling we should be more cautious because it's a repo. Is my gut feeling correct? If so, then why?


Having a look on Zoopla, the house was bought for about £180k in 2008. It was originally listed at £165k a month or so ago as well as £159,950. The first recently changed down to £159k & then the other dropped theirs to match the £159k.

Obviously you guys don't know the area & value etc, but i'm wondering just how cheeky we're likely to be able to be .... & get away with it.

£130k-£135k sounds very nice to me. My guess is they probably wouldn't even entertain replying to that though. lol.

G_M

Many people either start with 2 + agents, or start with one and then go multi.

Usually vendors market at the same price with each, but
a) one agent might pressurise the vendor for a lower price to try to get buyers going via them
b) the vendormight (rather stupidly) believe they'll get different buyers coming if they use different prices
c) the vendor might change the price and forget to tell both agents
d) vendor might change the price but one agent is faster than the other to respond
e) ......

Noneof the above matters though. As a buyer, you offer what you think it is worth...

JustAnotherSaver

G_M wrote: »

As a buyer, you offer what you think it is worth...

Very true.

It is probably worth the £159k to be honest. It was bought at £180k, others in the area have gone for similar or more, so it is by & large worth £159k.

However we wouldn't pay that for it.

We viewed it last weekend & we were told by the person who showed us around that the family left the house earlier that week (if memory serves - it'd been up for sale about 2-4 weeks previous).

cattie

During my search for a new property last year I noticed a few houses listed with more than one ea with different prices. They were not repo's & being sold by the owners.

It seems that say ea no.1 will suggest lowering the price when the house hasn't sold after a few weeks, whilst the other ea will be trying to suggest the house can still achieve a higher price. Then when a bit more time goes by & still no sale & perhaps no new viewers, ea no.2 is made to see that the lower price is the more realistic after all so will put the price down to match what the other ea has listed at in hopes of achieving a sale.

JustAnotherSaver

So in the end, this house isn't necessarily a repo then?

motherofstudents

The obvious thing would be to ask the EA. they will tell you and if it is it will depend on how much interest there is in the house as to whether they will accept a lower offer. If it is a repo, you need to move quickly with your finance.