Need advice - am I being duped?

Hackers88

Hello, I'm looking for advice on the following..my other half and I are currently house hunting. We went to view a house that has been on the market for over 3 months, and really liked it. We called to make a second viewing. At this point we get a call to say someone has made an offer on the property. We agreed to do a second viewing the next day, but after some consideration thought we would go in with an offer to test the water. We make an offer which the agent advises will probably be rejected (as we expected) but he'll let us know. We do the 2nd viewing with a different colleague from the estate agents, all fine, still like it.

I receive a call this morning to ask if with want to make an offer...to which I reply, well we already did but we've not hear back from you. Estate agent says 'yes but I advised your husband it was too low and you should come back with something else'. Well this is news to me. At this point I say 'ok, we're willing to go to XXX'. He replies 'ok, so you're out then'. He then advises that he has been instructed to reject any offers below a certain amount. But if we want to come back higher, give him a call. But bear in mind we are competing with this other mystical high offer. At this point I was too stunned to really question anything.

So I have left it for now, as we're on a tight budget and can't go too high. But I am questioning;

1. Are estate agents allowed to screen offers? I thought they had to pass all offers to vendors, but maybe there is a caveat to this?

2. Are they liable to make up mystical higher offers? (Seems astonishing to have all this activity after it hasn't shifted for 3 months).

3. Any thoughts on how we might best proceed from her (I'm inclined to leave it and see if they suddenly get in touch when this other offer disappears? but I wonder if I'm missing a trick)

With thanks in advance!

amateur_house

I'm no expert, but it sounds to me that maybe the other offer (if it exists) was also too low. It's possible the vendors have said they aren't interested in offers below a certain amount.

I've been househunting for a while now, and have seen some properties on the market for over a year with no reduction in price, but then eventually sell for the asking price. If the vendor is in no rush to move they might be happy to sit and wait as long as it takes to get the price they want.

It's definitely worth waiting to see if they come back to you, but I would carry on looking for other houses in case they don't.

Hackers88

Thanks amateur house - I forgot to mention that the estate agent said the vendors had found another property that they're keen to make a move on, so I'm under the impression that they're motivated to get a sale and move

Cakeguts

You can't tell because they may have had a lot of offers over the time the house has been on the market but turned them all down so it may not be that it has suddenly just started to have offers on it. It could be that you just happen to have offered at the same time as someone else by coincidence.

The estate agent is being paid by the vendor and if the vendor has instructed the agent that they won't accept any offer under a certain amount and don't want the agent to pass those offers on then the agents will follow that instruction.

What some people do is they find a house that they like and then have to sell theirs for a certain amount in order to be able to afford the new house. The fact that there is no one who is going to want to pay them for their house at this certain amount doesn't mean that they will accept a lower offer even though it is obvious to everyone that they will never get what they want for the house. If the house you are looking at falls into this category it isn't worth spending any more of your time on it because what will happen eventually is it will get taken off the market.

G_M

Hackers88 wrote: »

. But I am questioning;

1. Are estate agents allowed to screen offers? I thought they had to pass all offers to vendors, but maybe there is a caveat to this?
they have to pass on all offers subject tto any instructions they've received from the seller (who may have told them to ignore all offers below £X)

2. Are they [STRIKE]liable[/STRIKE]allowed? to make up mystical higher offers? (Seems astonishing to have all this activity after it hasn't shifted for 3 months).
No

3. Any thoughts on how we might best proceed from her (I'm inclined to leave it and see if they suddenly get in touch when this other offer disappears? but I wonder if I'm missing a trick)

With thanks in advance!

Either

* increase your offer
* leave yur offer on the table, start looking elsewhere, and see if the seller comes back to you, or
* walk awa

Depends how much you want this property, and how many other suitable properties are out there.