Feel like the estate agent is playing games...

Victory7s

Evening all,

First time buyer here, living in rented accommodation with a AiP. Me and my partner have found what we believe to be the perfect home. Fantastic location, structurally sound & in need of a good modernisation.

We had a 2nd viewing of the property today (listed with a guide price of £180k - £200k) and after having a discussion between ourselves went to the EA and placed an offer on the property. Before placing the offer, we were aware that there had been 2 other bids significantly lower that the guide price that had been rejected and therefore put a bid at the guide price of £180k, not to insult / get off in the wrong foot with the vender.

It took about 3-hours to hear back from the EA that our offer was rejected. Fine. At this point, she mentioned that another offer had been made and therefore would we consider increasing our bid? Bizarrely, we asked (all be it a different) agent at the viewing in the morning whether there had been any additional offers and her answer was ‘no.’ Therefore in the space of time from the house to the office, roughly 20 minutes, there had been a bid that she’d didn’t bother to mention when we were making our own first bid. We had asked the estate agent when booking in the second viewing to notify us of any serious interest and bids to which she said she would comply.

We asked the EA if the vender had a price in mind so that we didn’t have to go through this back and forth process - she seemingly did us a favour by saying “between you and me, £190k”. Still on the phone, we agreed to increase our bid to £185k. This was at 3:30pm and the EA thanked us and said that she’d get straight back in touch once she had spoken to the vender.

5:30pm we receive a phone call from the EA to confirm that £185k was the highest that we were prepared to go, in light of their being this other bidder, giving the impression that she hadn’t contacted the vender in the two hours between this call and our raised bid. Again, seemed a little suspect.

Finally, 5:50pm we have a phone call to say that the vender had gone with the other bidder. We had an email confirming the rejection of the offer (just like the first bid we made) but with a line saying “should you wish to increase this offer please contact us at any time”. Their website hasn’t been updated to say ‘Sold STC’ although given this all happened at the close of business I realise this might not happen straight away.

Are me and my partner just being overly suspicious of this EA or does some of the things she’s done seem a little suspect? We’ve both agreed that we would like to put another bid in the morning (so long as the vender is still open to offers) somewhere between £187.5k - £190k; with £190k being our walk away point.

Update

We ended up putting an offer of £191,500 the following day and after some deliberation, the vender apparently wanted to stay with their current bidder. Fine. We took comfort knowing we offered what we could afford and want to pay and have walked away.

Funnily, a friend phoned today asking whether the property was still on the market - their answer was yes and said that they had received offers at the lower end of £190-£200k. Interesting. Not the story that they told us the day before.

Either way, we’ve booked viewings at other properties (including the estate agent the above property is listed with) so look forward to asking the agents how the sale is going when we see them next week!

Thanks everyone for your continued support & advice.

G_M

Nothing unusual.

If anything, the EA/seller have been proactive and fast.Someimes it takes days or even weeks for offers to be accepted/rejected.

Two different agents? Not unusual for one to be aware of another offer whilst the other is not. Especially if the agent oing the viewing was a junior (often the case - just a guy/girl with a key!).

So the seller has accepted an offer. The EA has left the door open to you - increase your offer unless buying at a higher price will leave you regretting you spent so much and kicking yourself for the next 5 years.

Or maybe in five years you'll be saying "thank goodness we upped our offer and have had this lovely home all this time......"

Victory7s

G_M wrote: »

Nothing unusual.

If anything, the EA/seller have been proactive and fast.Someimes it takes days or even weeks for offers to be accepted/rejected.

Two different agents? Not unusual for one to be aware of another offer whilst the other is not. Especially if the agent oing the viewing was a junior (often the case - just a guy/girl with a key!).

So the seller has accepted an offer. The EA has left the door open to you - increase your offer unless buying at a higher price will leave you regretting you spent so much and kicking yourself for the next 5 years.

Or maybe in five years you'll be saying "thank goodness we upped our offer and have had this lovely home all this time......"

I think that’s the difficult decision we face. We’re both 23 and this is a huge decision. Ultimately we can afford up to £200k, but we both feel that we wouldn’t want to spend that on a house than needs such a large amount of modernisation which is why we agree that we shouldn’t go beyond £190k.

The other frustrating factor is that the last house sold on the street back in August 2017, and only a handful between 2010 and 2016. On the one hand that’s great as it implies it’s a nice street to live on, but makes guessing what the actual value of the property is worth much harder. We don’t want to spend £200k on a house that after modernisation (and possibly extensions) is still only worth £200k in 7/8 years time.

Lisi299

Same thing happened to me I was gutted, however a week later a better house in a better area came on the market for not much more than I offered on the original price. I got straight in with an offer that was accepted.

This was 12 years ago still here and still love it!

Just keep saving and see what comes up is my advice, remember also EA are just after the commission for the quick sale lol

Victory7s

Lisi299 wrote: »

Same thing happened to me I was gutted, however a week later a better house in a better area came on the market for not much more than I offered on the original price. I got straight in with an offer that was accepted.

This was 12 years ago still here and still love it!

Just keep saving and see what comes up is my advice, remember also EA are just after the commission for the quick sale lol

Thank you for your reassurance. We’ve set our limit, and we’re going to stick to it. If we get it for £190k, fab. If not, like you said, there will be bigger and better houses on the market and we know that we’re in the best position ready to move and that’ll be the house we end up getting!

Lisi299

Deffo wait it out wish you the best of luck, not that you are going to need it

letitbe90

It isn't in the interest of the EA to mess the buyers around, the increase in commission for them for selling at 180k or 190k is negligible when factoring in the timescales of the house buying/selling process. It is almost certainly the seller who would be asking the agent to get more offer (if there were indeed no other actual bidders), not the agent - and there is nothing anyone can do about that.


It is very possible one of the staff received an offer but the other staff (who you was viewing with) weren't aware of. If the EA is busy, it is very common for even colleagues not to be aware of things for hours if not a day or two apart - so your example does not mean that an offer was made in the space of 20 minutes.


A property won't be taken off the market until the EA has received proof of deposit/AIP/confirmation buyers house is sold and is proceedable etc - not on acceptance of offer. This could be a day or it could be a week+ depending on how reciprocal the buyer is.

hb2

If you are prepared to pay £190k, then offer it, as your best and final, and see what the response is. Don't risk losing a property you want for the sake of £5k that you are prepared to spend anyway!

Albala

Some agents won't put even SSTC until exchange. I think it's wrong, because it wastes people's time and unrealistically gets up their hopes of making an offer and having it accepted. I know of one that has been under offer for four months, the delays all being at the seller's end for reasons beyond anyone's control, surveys etc. were done long ago, but the EA still won't put it up as SSTC.

Victory7s

We ended up putting an offer of £191,500 the following day and after some deliberation, the vender apparently wanted to stay with their current bidder. Fine. We took comfort knowing we offered what we could afford and want to pay and have walked away.

Funnily, a friend phoned today asking whether the property was still on the market - their answer was yes and said that they had received offers at the lower end of £190-£200k. Interesting. Not the story that they told us the day before.

Either way, we’ve booked viewings at other properties (including the estate agent the above property is listed with) so look forward to asking the agents how the sale is going when we see them next week!

Thanks everyone for your continued support & advice.

Albala

Thanks for the update, it's always useful for readers in the future to see how things went. And good luck with your search for a (hopefully even better) property!