Love a house that is SSTC, what would you do?

eve824

Hi
I just want to start with, this is not a thread about gazumping, before anyone gets wound up  

So we put our house on the market last Friday and have 6 proceedable viewings today / tomorrow. We are hoping an offer will come in as a result of those.
We saw a house we really loved a few weeks back that was the final catalyst for putting ours on the market (amongst a few other things). It went SSTC 2 weeks ago, whilst we were sorting out valuations and choosing EA's. Gutted.
Now, in the anticipation that we will perhaps sell in the next week or so, I am wondering what to do about this other house.
We have ours on the market with the same estate agent the other one sold through. He has said he will let me know if anything happened with the sale.....he also told us how much it went for and well within our budget, annoyingly (it was OIEO so I had no idea what it would have gone for)
Now, when we sold our last house we had two sets of buyers bidding at the last minute (both FTB). We preferred one set but sadly they were outbid by the other guy by quite a bit. Our buyer started to be difficult a couple of weeks in (he turned out to be an utter moron, see my other threads..!). We then received a direct message from the other couple saying they regret not putting in a higher offer and if the other buyer pulls out they would be interested. By that time our buyer had irritated me so much I actually responded and told them if they could match his offer they could have it, as we were considering pulling out anyway due to his behavior. They couldn't, so we proceeded with the other buyer (& regretted it).
My thinking is, should I send the vendors a direct message once we become proceedable, saying we are very interested and if they are having issues with their buyers, we could match their offer etc? Much like we experienced with our last house - it would have given us the confidence to dump our awful buyer. Or is that too akin to gazumping (which I don't want to do..)? 
Should I ask the EA to tell them we are very interested should the sale fall through?

There's not much else on the market comparable (we are quite particular with what we want) so I am concerned we might not find anything we like as much, within the timescales.

Any opinions welcome.

Grumpy_chap

If you ask the EA for advice, and they have any morals, then the EA will simply advise you that they'll let you know if the property become available.

If you submit an offer to the EA (in writing for avoiding doubt), the EA is legally obliged to pass the offer to the vendor.

eve824

Thanks. Yes, that's what the EA has said to me. What he hasn't done is told the vendor how interested we are. 
I don't want to put an offer in and gazump the other buyers, as I really dislike the practice. I would just like to be 'first in line' if you like, should the vendors have any issues with the current buyers. The problem is the vendors don't know we exist at the moment.

eidand

keep the house saved on your list, sometimes they do come back to the market.
Mention to the EA that if the sale falls through you are next in line. That's all you can do. I wouldn't hold my breath though so I'd keep looking.

OldMusicGuy

eve824 said:

Thanks. Yes, that's what the EA has said to me. What he hasn't done is told the vendor how interested we are. 
I don't want to put an offer in and gazump the other buyers, as I really dislike the practice. I would just like to be 'first in line' if you like, should the vendors have any issues with the current buyers. The problem is the vendors don't know we exist at the moment.

The vendors don't care that you exist and won't be interested unless their sale falls through. So don't bother them. Work with their EA, let them know you are interested if the current buyer falls through and stay in touch with the EA when your sale progresses. 

numbercruncher8

eve824 said:

Thanks. Yes, that's what the EA has said to me. What he hasn't done is told the vendor how interested we are. 
I don't want to put an offer in and gazump the other buyers, as I really dislike the practice. I would just like to be 'first in line' if you like, should the vendors have any issues with the current buyers. The problem is the vendors don't know we exist at the moment.

I don't think it's in the EA interest to do that though.
They want their fees, they aren't going to tell the vendor anything not necessary that might cause the current deal to be delayed, or fall apart.

If you want the attention, either bid same price so that they are aware, or write the owners a letter.

orangecrush

I mean, it sounds a bit like fishing to gazump... It's a tricky line to toe. 

Firstly, how would you direct message the vendors?  A note through the door I presume?  Any other way I'd wonder how you legally got their contact details.  Surely if you're both with the same estate agent your agent can pass the message on for you? 

Secondly, your estate agent should have a moral compass and just tell you he'll keep you posted as the other buyers submitted an offer and it was accepted and that should be that.  The estate agent should be working to progress the sale now.

Thirdly, if a prospective buyer messaged us to that effect I'd probably just think they were fishing and ignore it; fishers are often flakey.

Fourthly, your buyer may have been annoying but you have no idea whether the other buyer would have been any better.  We bought our house from what was seemingly a lovely couple but they were a complete nightmare to deal with.  So, its usually a case of better the devil you know.

Every day is a new day on Rightmove, something else will come along, it always does. 

eve824

Thanks all for your opinions.

It is kind of in the EA's interest as we are selling our house through same agent, and other buyers aren't, so 2 x guaranteed commissions (potentially 3 as a few of the proceedable potential buyers viewing ours are same agent too).... Saying that they are being very professional which is good as they are selling our house too!

Saying the vendors don't care that we exist, I am not too sure as in our experience on the other side of the coin we were very much interested and it would have given us the extra confidence to dump our awful buyer knowing we had proceedable buyers sat there waiting to snap the house up. It's just a shame they couldn't stump up the extra funds as we'd have much preferred to sell to them. I agree not everyone is the same though. Yes our 2nd buyers could have been worse but that would have been an incredible feat if they had been...…….

I am not sure something quite as good will come up on Right Move, that fits our criteria so well and within our budget, but here's hoping! I am checking daily at the moment.

orangecrush

Only you know how desperate you are, and whether you're willing to go full on property buying menace by gazumping but you need to bear in mind that a vendor may not accept your offer anyway. 

Glad the estate agent is being professional.  TBH I would not be chuffed if mine did anything to entertain what you're suggesting. 

And honestly, the vendors probably don't care.  You only think they will care because of your experience.  Not everyone has that experience.  The estate agent knows and that's all that matters. 

If it's that important to you to live in that area, why not ask the estate agent to flyer other houses in the same street?  A few people have done that around here and it worked for them. 

hazyjo

Had you actually physically viewed the property?

eve824

No, not prepared to all out gazump even though we could and would have offered more. Just kind of hoping (in a nice way) the sale falls though. It's really a do-er upper on a large plot so my fear is a developer has bought it to make a quick bucki (especially as the plot is plenty big enough to split up). For us, it would be our family home for (hopefully) the rest of our lives.

Each to their own, in my experience having two house sales fall though it would have brought me some real comfort on some distressing days knowing we had tangible other interest in our house. 

Hazyjo - no, we haven't. However it's a total do-er upper and we would be predominantly buying for the plot, with the view of extending and refurbishing the existing house. It's the plot and location that we love, and we've seen that. The house is a bit grotty, to be honest - but that doesn't bother us as we are looking long term.