Suspect Fake offers on a house? How can I check?

do_it_today!

Direct access to the vendor to verify - not likely to happen though is it

do_it_today!

because then we could deal direct!

Tyders

Wecanhelpu - You really seem to have an issue with EA's - please try to remember that your personal experience I guess(albeit this is no doubt where your opinion comes from) was no doubt bad, there are many happy people out there who would always use an EA through choice. There is no need to keep swearing and just generally making rash statements - this is a good discussion overall I feel.

I dont think anyone is on here with 'bleeding hearts'. We are just trying to make people realise that we are in the end middlemen thus we get the applause when it goes right but the slagg1ng off when it goes wrong (even if its the solicitors fault it goes wrong for example). But you are right, we are hated - however im proud to do teh job I do, as I do it well and although sometimes I upset people, i hope in the long run more are happy with what I do.

Also my colleague was telling me about the big housing crash and he actually had people begging him to sell their house - now im not saying this to big up estate agents but sometimes we really do see the worse points of peoples life, i.e. probate sales (where someone dies), breakups, reposessions etc. It really is not fun to deal with but we also get the great side of finding people new homes and in many cases make friends (especially when in a small town).

For estate agents I do not believe the game is up nor in my opnion will ever be up. When the market turns (and it will at some point), only the good agents will be left. Its a bit like a clear out of the rubbish. By good that means one thing - the successful ones. Now it really is up to the public to decide who is successful and who to give their business to.

One of the agents in my town actually didnt put forward/decided not to an offer from an applicant and it was higher than the one they had on file - the agent in question forgot people talk and word got around. What made it interesting is that the Vendor actually asked my agency for advice on what to do as they heard we were trustworthy. You see - on one hand that is a fantastic rep to have, but we didnt get the business in the 1st place. This is very common and at the end of the day I hope that agent loses business but they are cheap - so I will wait to see what happens.

judosteffer - I dont think there is much more you could have done. You had two choices. 1/ Make a higher bid if you thought the house was worth it or 2/ Play the hard game which is to walk away and see what happens.

The problem with point 2/ is that when you buy a house you normally do it because of a feel you get. You like that house for a reason and generally its the one for you. That is why point 2/ is so difficult. For me I would pay the extra to ahve teh perfect house for me at that time - obviously only to a certain level as you have to be financially careful.

If you really feel that you have been hard done by though I would say go and knock on the door of teh house. You know where it is obviously, and if the vendor is in im sure they would have no problem in setting the record straight - and if your agent is a good one they would hopefully have nothing to worry about.

Good luck with it though. Let us know what you do.

Tyders

Oh and we would rather the market came down to be honest. At the moment fee's (Percentages) are over half what they used to be in my area but house prices have increased thus we dont make much more now that we used to. If prices came down, more would sell = happy days again.

BrixMorta

Tyders wrote: »

If prices came down, more would sell = happy days again.

Tyders, I take your point over fees, but surely property prices come down because there are fewer sales taking place?

murrayd_2

TJ27 wrote: »

So when you stick in your offer to the EA, the people at offerrerister.co.uk will e-mail or post your offer to the seller at the property address?

What's to stop you just doing that yourself? Or is the point that all offers can be viewed online and it's all transparent?

You're right, there is nothing to stop you posting a note through the seller's door yourself, but lets be honest, how many of us would? And, if you end up making a few offers, are you going to keep posting notes through the seller's door? offerregister.co.uk makes the process of verifying what the estate agent is up to much easier and quicker for both a buyer and the seller, plus it provides a verifiable record of offers made that is independent of the estate agent's records.

Tyders

I think Prices come down when the market is flooded with houses or if they get to a crazy price/mortgages too high.

If there is a huge choice of housing available then buyers wont be pushed to buy on the first viewing or pay top dollar for each house. They will be able to pick and choose the house they want. Vendors will have to price their house better i.e. possibly reduce to achive a sale and beat the competition i.e. make theirs the one people would buy.

On the other hand if houses/mortgages get too silly then people either wont want to buy or wont be able to afford to buy thus prices lower to sell. There are always people that need to sell and likewise always people to buy but once this small % have bought the market will need to adjust. I just hope it adjusts smoothly and with very little damage - after all if teh whole market drops by say 10% its all relative - then again many people have mortgaged themselves to the hilt and it will hit them hard.

BrixMorta

Tyders, Two things, is there an error with your keyboard where the h & e are the wrong way round, perhaps they popped off when an angry customer hit you over the head with it and you put them back, back to front. Secondly, friday night 8.30pm, you should be out destressing!

Tyders

LOL - its a terrible keyboard mistype of mine. Just doing some matched betting from the gambling forum at the (spelt it right! lol) moment to fund my weekends festivities. Have a good one.

Altarf

murrayd wrote: »

It's nigh on impossible to prove (at least in timely manner) whether the other offer was genuine, but what you can do is register your own offers at :spam:

Five posts, five recommendations for your website. Give it rest will you. It's not even a good idea anyway.