How to handle estate agents when submitting an offer

Loopylou1979

In a rundown of the our current situation, my husband and I submitted our first offer on Saturday of £229k for a property currently on the market for £250k. The EA’s told us they would put that offer forward to the vendor, in the meantime, despite telling them we had an Agreement in Principle, they wanted us to meet with their mortgage broker to check our affordability (and I suspect to try and get us to sign up to one of their deals). This meeting is booked for this evening as we wanted to our offer to be taken seriously. Yesterday I receive written confirmation from the EA of our offer, our current situation (we have a property but any offers we submit are not dependant on us selling it, we have a deposit in place and are ready to go, however we will either be selling or renting it and due to have pictures taken on Friday) and finally stating we haven’t yet met with their mortgage broker. Therefore our offer was not acceptable to the vendor. That’s it. No explanation of what our options are or the opportunity to increase our offer.

We want this property but we have an upper limit of £245k. I called the EA after receiving this letter as I initially thought our offer wasn't acceptable because we hadn't met with the broker yet, but he informed me that they had received several other offers. During our conversation his attitude dramatically changed when I wouldn’t divulge what our upper limit would be. This is the first time I’ve had to deal with them as my current property was purchased with my sister and she dealt with the agents, but is this really what a prospective buyer does? Maybe I’m being completely naïve in thinking that you don’t, but I know that there are a number of other prospective buyers and other offers are coming in, why would I do that? I feel like we are being played off against each other. I know that ultimately that is what they do to get the commission and best price for the vendor, but I’m annoyed that there doesn’t seem a strong line of communication at all from them – setting up a first viewing took 3 days because of ‘a misunderstanding’, 2nd viewing was arranged and they left us standing on the doorstep for 15 minutes because of ‘a misunderstanding.’ All these misunderstandings are not making me confident that they are putting our offers forward in the best possible light. If I were the vendor I would be hacked off if I knew this was going on with my prospective buyers, but again, maybe that’s just me.

So I have had a calmer conversation this morning with them and I have submitted another offer of £238k which we were told would be put forward to the vendor. I’m assuming this was an acceptable offer at this stage as I wasn’t told otherwise. I know legally they have to submit all offers that come in to vendors, but are they obliged to tell me if what I have offered is lower than any other offers?

Without knowing the situation of the other offers, I feel we are in a strong position – deposit in place, mortgage is pretty much good to go for up to £340k if want it, no chain our end and we are happy to wait until the vendors have found another property. But I just don't feel we are being given the opportunity to express this, if another of the buyers are in a stronger position then so be it, what is irritating me is feeling like I am coming up against a brick wall with the agent and I feel l like I am handling them in completely the wrong way.

Any advice would be gratefully received!!

Thank you

charleyroo

OP sorry i can't really offer any advice but can imagine how frustrating it must be for you as a buyer in a good position, some of us sellers would be welcoming you with open arms

you've done right though, never tell them your upper limit though as that will just go straight back to the seller.

the only other advice i can offer is, i have got out of 'mortgage broker' conversations fairly easy when explaining that i'm porting my mortgage and will be taking the other mortgage with the same bank

Loopylou1979

Thank you charleyroo. Being new to this I was concerned I was playing it the wrong way, but that has made me feel slightly happier and you have confirmed what I thought would happen - I would feel happier if the agent was more transparent with me though!

Loopylou1979

Also, rather than what looks like a template letter, would you not expect a phonecall to say a higher offer had been received? Give us the opportuntiy to review ours?

drdpj

Is the agent countrywide or one of their subsidiaries? (Bridgfords etc)

Don't see their mortgage advisor, they won't be whole market, they will probably tell the estate agent what your upper limit is (the agent proudly informed us of this when we were looking for one to sell our house) the agent and the MA will also get a commission for referral.

They have to pass your offer on, I don't believe that the vendor won't entertain it without you seeing the EAs mortgage advisor, they're just thinking about their commissions...

d.

charleyroo

if an agent was moving a sale along, i would expect all phone calls to keep the situation fluid, with letters sent in the background (that's the experience i had when buying anyway)

jbainbridge

They only want you to see the in house financial advisor to get commission, I wouldn't bother.

They don't have to tell you about other offers. You may be being played ... but you'll just never know. All depends how much you _want_ the house.

If you are worried offers aren't getting to the vendor - put a polite note through the vendor's door.

Loopylou1979

Thanks for the input everyone.

I've just called for an update on our offer of £238k this morning, this is the conversation:

Them: "So how did you get on?"
Me: "Get on with what?"
Them: "Your next offer that you were going to agree with your husband?"
Me: "I did, thats what I gave you this morning when I said I wanted to increase my offer to £238k. You were supposed to be submitting it to the vendor and letting me know, you quite clearly haven't done that."
Them "Ok, let me check what the status is of a couple of 2nd viewings this morning and I'll get back to you. Good job I haven't been able to get hold of the vendor all day so you haven't lost out."

This surely warrants a note through the door of the vendor and a strongly worded letter of complaint to their head office?!?!

Oh, and its Haart.

HelenRachel

We're in a similar situation and under lots of pressure to use the in house mortgage advisor. I've politely refused every time by saying that we've already seem many of them and are happy with the one we have.

ash28

When we sold our last house the EA asked us if we wanted offers from proceedable buyers only....we said yes. We didn't want offers from buyers not in a position to proceed. So not every offer would necessarily have been passed on to us.

For us that meant if there was a house to sell it was under offer and a mortgage in principle was in place. If there was no house to sell then a mortgage in principle was in place.

Our own situation was that we didn't need a mortgage for the next purchase and were never asked to see a financial advisor. When we did offer on a house the EA for the vendor (we were in the office at the time) rang our EA and confirmed that our house was sold and that we were indeed cash buyers.

Then the EA rang the vendor with our offer (we were still in the office), told him we were in a position to proceed....offer was accepted.

The reason we were in the office at the time the offer was made was because we were buying a couple of hundred miles away from our old area and decided to call in and tell them we wanted to offer on the house - instead of waiting until we got home and ringing them the next day.

We didn't need a second viewing, we had made our minds up more or less on walking through the door. The second viewing came weeks later.

Our EA never mentioned what people could afford. Only if they could proceed or not.

The first offer we received from our eventual buyers we turned down - it was too low....we told the EA what our bottom line was and suggested that the buyers might meet us in the middle...which they did.

In the end we did know how much our buyers could afford because they told us....they could afford £100k more than the price they got for their own house.....I imagine the EA knew too (long before us) as they handled the sale of both properties, but they never suggested we pushed for more money and never told us how much our buyers could afford. And our buyers ended up spending a fair bit less than than their max.

Dan-Dan

Op , your getting played like a cheap fiddle