Estate Agents 'Priority Lists'

Parlous

Hello all,

I was hoping someone would be able to clarify something for us. My partner and I are first time buyers currently looking for a property. We have left our details with about half a dozen estate agents in our area (West Sussex) for them to let us know if suitable properties come on the market.

However for two of them so far we have been told that in order to be on their priority list we'd have to see their financial advisor and make sure we can afford the property we want. We have done this and while the first time was useful, the meeting with the second one was a bit of a waste of time as we were going over the same stuff again. Now a third agent has told us that we would need to meet their financial advisor to be on their priority list...

Now my question is, is this worth doing or are wasting our time? We already know how much we can borrow, we spoke to a broker prior to starting our search already. We'd just like to view properties that come on the market without having to jump through hoops all the time

Lokolo

Just get an email from your broker saying "Based on the information the persons A and B can afford a property in the region of X" and pass that on.

HouseBuyer77

Does the priority list actually confer any advantage? Just seems like an excuse to attempt to sell you a mortgage. In a busy market I would have thought most vendors wouldn't accept an offer til the house had appeared on rightmove anyway. So getting told it's coming on the market a couple of days early may not help much.

theartfullodger

Ah, "Priority List".

Some years ago I learned a couple of useful phrases from a wise colleague to get out of things...

a) "It's now on my Priority List Mr Customer.." - Doesn;t say anything about where on the list it is, often in the section labelled "never do anything about these ones.." and..
b) "I'm sorry I'm in Europe that day...": well, UK is in Europe eh???

It's a con.

eddddy

It's just a game.

If you buy a house through an EA and use their mortgage broker - the EA gets 2 lots of fees... Sales commission plus Mortgage commission.

It's immoral - but that's why the EA will give you priority.

The EA will probably also try to persuade a vendor to accept your offer, rather than somebody else's, who isn't using their broker. (Even if your offer is lower than the other guy's, the EA will probably get more total commission, because of the mortgage.)

So if you want, you can play the game, talk to the mortgage advisor, sound interested, and suggest you will use them. Then change your mind once an offer is accepted.

The downside is that the EA gets to find out a lot about how much you can really afford, which might make offer negotiation more difficult for you.

itmakessense

Almost all Estate Agents are liars and greedy little gits whipping everyone into a frenzy to rush through the next commission. I thought everyone knew that? Brighton is one of the worst places for lying agents and the solicitors that pay clients money to the agents are just as bad. We now have agents who will refuse to show you a house unless you use the solicitors they are in cahoots with. Hey, Guess what, the solicitors (if they are qualified) they use are usually really poor at what they do. Always use your preferred solicitor and never be bullied by an agent or a new build developer either. The only reason for a new build developer to fear you using your preferred solicitor is if they have something they don't want you to find out. If selling, do you really want to put your property on the market with an agent that will refuse to sell it to someone just because they won't use their lawyer, look how much they are charging you anyway. Like I siad, greedy little scum bags. Soon, hopefully high street agents will be a thing of the past, can't come soon enough!

MartiMcfly

It is the biggest con going, I've rang up about a property with one Agent and got hounded about seeing their broker, blah blah blah...

Stick to your guns, tell them you have broker whose a family friend and you 'always use' , same thing with your solicitor, don't use them. A lot of new build developers tell you, you MUST use their people, tell them to do one.

I always shop around and find a lender, get my finances in place, shop around and get a solicitor and THEN look, if you get any queries I just give them my contacts like a scratched record -

kinger101

Priority list my @rse. Getting the best price involves marketing to as many people as possible.

McTaggus

Just get an agreement in principle in advance, or a maximum affordably commitment, and tell them you don't want to use their financial advisors - they're just trying to earn additional commission from you. We were FTB's too - the AIP sufficed for EA's more generally (even those who tried to assess our affordability against their own brokers).

Ignore it and stop wasting your time!

Hoploz

Yes you just have to play the game, look interested, try not to give all your cards away, and grin and bear it. Then continue with your own independent broker as planned.

Remember it's also a way not only of checking you can afford something, but also of checking how much you can afford to go up to .... Hence mkeep a few cards to your chest as far as possible

Parlous

HouseBuyer77 wrote: »

Does the priority list actually confer any advantage? Just seems like an excuse to attempt to sell you a mortgage. In a busy market I would have thought most vendors wouldn't accept an offer til the house had appeared on rightmove anyway. So getting told it's coming on the market a couple of days early may not help much.

Well apparently if we are on this list we are supposed to be notified before a property is put up on rightmove to potentially get earlier viewings but to be honest so far it hasn't made much difference to us even after going through the process with two estate agents. One has sent us nothing since and the other has sent us a couple of unsuitable properties!