Is the estate agent putting us off making a purchase?

Seege

Hi,

My wife and I have put an offer in on our first property. Having raised our bid once to keep in the running we have crossed paths with one agent who has seemed to be ecouraging us to give up and walk away ever since we first viewed the property.

Even after raising our bid, my wife called to see if there was any news, he answered the phone and told her that our bid was too low and we were not being considered. My wife freaked out and was put on to the lady she'd raised the bid with who said her colleague was just mistaken and that we were still being considered.

The same chap had told us that we were out of the game when my wife first called to raise the offer. She said she'd had to ask if the owner wouldn't want to hear of our higher bid as the agent seemed to not be interested in taking it from us.

We have a sneaking suspicion that the agent wants someone else to win the bid and we're worried that we're being sabotaged. We don't know if the other buyer is gonna give him a cash kick back under the table or if they just carry favour with the branch as we have used our own broker for the mortgage, when they have used the agents mortgage finder.

Any one had any similar experience or good advice?

eddddy

Submit your offer to the EA by email - and perhaps chase via email.

If there is an electronic paper trail, the EA is less able to ignore your offer.

If you have had any contact with the seller, you can also mention to them that you have offered x via the EA.

hazyjo

I had a similar thing with the house I'm now in. I was putting in low offers and they didn't want to accept, but it was getting ridiculous. They weren't putting them forward, and they were desperately trying any tactic to get me to up my offer. I remember one time I said I was still interested and was keen to get this all tied up as soon as poss, but they were saying things like 'look, the weather's bad, it's picking up so give it another few weeks then ring.'. I would ring again and they'd say how the prices were starting to rise and sooner or later I'd not be able to afford anything here and this was a bargain (yes, but nobody else seemed to want it so I wasn't about to start bidding against myself!). I had a buyer so time was of the essence, I wanted to move quickly and already had to play catch-up.

Long story short... I blocked their number and emailed saying I couldn't speak from work but £X was my offer and I wanted them to come back to me after speaking with the vendor. She (different agent thankfully) replied saying up a bit more and the'll accept - I think I added only another grand and they accepted.

That's not before I bawled my eyes out after one call (he was so nasty to me) and a lot of very unnecessary frustration. Oh, and he had tried to ring, despite me blocking the number.

So, basically (as above) - email! Worked for me.

Jx

G_M

Put your offer in writing and send a copy to the seller (at the property address, assuming seller lives there).

dc197

We had similar, the agent wanted another buyer, who was aslo selling their own house through them, to win.
That could be the case for you too.

Seege

Thanks for the advise so far guy's. Really appreciate it. We had met the seller on the open day and had a good chat with her. Would happily let her know what we've offered but have read another horror story that went...

Bidders bids weren't being put through, bidder told vendor, vendor got angry with estate agent, agent tells bidder "you've upset my client... I will never sell you a house and want not contact from you in the future"

...at which point, the vendor has to work with you to pull them up on it. Not everyone wants to fight back.

We will go down the email route. It seems to me that even though there are laws to protect people from EA dishonesty, there's no way of policing it....

Any other advice? Thanks again.

Seege

Thanks for the advise so far guy's. Really appreciate it. We had met the seller on the open day and had a good chat with her. Would happily let her know what we've offered but have read another horror story that went...

Bidders bids weren't being put through, bidder told vendor, vendor got angry with estate agent, agent tells bidder "you've upset my client... I will never sell you a house and want not contact from you in the future"

...at which point, the vendor has to work with you to pull them up on it. Not everyone wants to fight back.

We will go down the email route. It seems to me that even though there are laws to protect people from EA dishonesty, there's no way of policing it....

Any other advice? Thanks again.

Rain_Shadow

Seege wrote: »

Thanks for the advise so far guy's. Really appreciate it. We had met the seller on the open day and had a good chat with her. Would happily let her know what we've offered but have read another horror story that went...

Bidders bids weren't being put through, bidder told vendor, vendor got angry with estate agent, agent tells bidder "you've upset my client... I will never sell you a house and want not contact from you in the future"

...at which point, the vendor has to work with you to pull them up on it. Not everyone wants to fight back.

We will go down the email route. It seems to me that even though there are laws to protect people from EA dishonesty, there's no way of policing it....

Any other advice? Thanks again.

Seege wrote: »

Thanks for the advise so far guy's. Really appreciate it. We had met the seller on the open day and had a good chat with her. Would happily let her know what we've offered but have read another horror story that went...

Bidders bids weren't being put through, bidder told vendor, vendor got angry with estate agent, agent tells bidder "you've upset my client... I will never sell you a house and want not contact from you in the future"

...at which point, the vendor has to work with you to pull them up on it. Not everyone wants to fight back.

We will go down the email route. It seems to me that even though there are laws to protect people from EA dishonesty, there's no way of policing it....

Any other advice? Thanks again.

Delete one of your posts.;)

Brightspark87

We had a similar problem where the lady just didn't like us - agents said she was annoyed at our questions (mainly regarding a 20 year old boiler, flat roof and leaky guttering) therefore they told us not to bother increasing our offer as she wouldn't sell to us. An excuse they used is the other couple had a higher deposit. So I told them well let me know how much is needed and I will ask for more. He flat out said don't bother it isn't going to happen.....

However, we asked the same questions to the vendor at the property down the road we are now buying and guess what? He was happy to answer them, agent much more helpful and the house is £40k less. We are really happy the lady didn't like us enough to sell us her house!

cjm888

We had this recently. The other interested party were selling through the same agent and it was obvious they wanted the other party to get accepted so they could tie up two commissions.

In the end we put in a offer that was rejected but never go the option to negotiate. So we just walked away.
If the house was perfect I would have gone straight to the vendor..

ScorpiondeRooftrouser

Seege wrote: »

Thanks for the advise so far guy's. Really appreciate it. We had met the seller on the open day and had a good chat with her. Would happily let her know what we've offered but have read another horror story that went...

Bidders bids weren't being put through, bidder told vendor, vendor got angry with estate agent, agent tells bidder "you've upset my client... I will never sell you a house and want not contact from you in the future"

...at which point, the vendor has to work with you to pull them up on it. Not everyone wants to fight back.

We will go down the email route. It seems to me that even though there are laws to protect people from EA dishonesty, there's no way of policing it....

Any other advice? Thanks again.

Go straight to the vendor.

If the estate agent refuses in future to have anything to do with you, get that in writing if you can. Then if that agent advertises a house you like, approach that vendor directly. Depending on his contract you may be able to point out that dealing with you would save him an estate agent's commission.

Any nonsense about "Will not sell you a house" can be disregarded. Estate agents DO NOT SELL HOUSES. Estate Agents attempt to find buyers for people who have houses to sell.