Bullying tactics from Estate Agents

David2710

leanne_flan said:

Hi there,
My partner and I are first time buyers and ended up being in a bidding war with another buyer which we feel was really provoked by the Estate Agent (Mayhews)...

We put in two offers on a house and was told by the EA that there is another buyer who has made a higher offer. The EA then told us that the vendor said the house was ours if we increase our offer by £5k, we tried to negotiate first to which he heavily sighed and said "there are times you negotiate and times you don't. The vendor is being very fair to you and doing this because they liked you". The EA got back to us 10 mins later saying they declined the price we tried to negotiate and we immediately said we will go the £5k more and meet their proposal. He got back to us and then told us we were too late, shouldn't have negotiated and the vendor is going with the other buyer!! He then called us back and asked us for our final offer (which was more than the £5k increase) and told us later that they have accepted the other buyer's offer!! We were so gutted as he told us initially that we could have it by increasing our offer by £5k to which we agreed within minutes. We think he played us off against the other buyer and used this as a horible tactic to make us go higher, so he could then tell the other buyer we had incressed our offer. Every time he spoke to us, he was so cocky and would speak down to us. He really built our hopes up and then just crushed them.

Just wondering if anyone else has had a similar experience with Estate Agents?

You dodged a bullet by the sound of it. No doubt they'll be contacting you shortly saying the buyer has pulled out and do you want to proceed at the agreed price. Total cowboys and yes it's the oldest trick in the book. If they think you're desperate to buy there's no knowing where the price will end up. Just walk away and wait to see what happens to prices when furlough ends. 

leanne_flan

Thanks again for all the comments, it's really helpful to hear other people's perspectives and advice. Appreciate it.

NameUnavailable

leanne_flan said:

Thanks everyone for your help and tips. We will definitely take this as a learning experience. Was just crazy this all happened within a matter of minutes, we literally agreed £5k more within minutes of him first telling us this. When he first told us, he actually said "the house is guaranteed to be yours" for £5k more.

There will be more houses...  

But you said you offered something less initially after being told by the agent he didn't think it was a good idea to try to negotiate it.

The vendor accepted the other parties offer instead and you then tried to gazump them by raising your offer.

Who is the bully here?

niceguyed

NameUnavailable said:

leanne_flan said:

Thanks everyone for your help and tips. We will definitely take this as a learning experience. Was just crazy this all happened within a matter of minutes, we literally agreed £5k more within minutes of him first telling us this. When he first told us, he actually said "the house is guaranteed to be yours" for £5k more.

There will be more houses...  

But you said you offered something less initially after being told by the agent he didn't think it was a good idea to try to negotiate it.

The vendor accepted the other parties offer instead and you then tried to gazump them by raising your offer.

Who is the bully here?

None of the parties involved. Purely business and negotiation.

leanne_flan

NameUnavailable said:

leanne_flan said:

Thanks everyone for your help and tips. We will definitely take this as a learning experience. Was just crazy this all happened within a matter of minutes, we literally agreed £5k more within minutes of him first telling us this. When he first told us, he actually said "the house is guaranteed to be yours" for £5k more.

There will be more houses...  

But you said you offered something less initially after being told by the agent he didn't think it was a good idea to try to negotiate it.

The vendor accepted the other parties offer instead and you then tried to gazump them by raising your offer.

Who is the bully here?

Hardly...he said he was asking both buyers for final offers.

AlexMac

Salemicus said: 

Congratulations all, and especially to OP, who I hope finds another house they love even more.

That's the way to look at it.  Every time we've tried  to buy a house, something has got in the way; but then, in each case, fate has intervened...

... and we've ended up stumbling on, and buying, an even better house...

.. sometimes after being beaten in an offer race, sometimes after we'd given up in despair and stopped looking (once getting a prospectus in the mail months after we'd told all the agents to stop listing us in the pre-internet days; then buying it that weekend), ...

Seeing an Auction sign and getting it cheap and having to buy within the 28-day completion deadline despite not even having funding in place, it being over the Christmas period and (wait for it) three weeks before our wedding.. 

... once (the current gaff) driving down a little mews road we didn't know existed to a party we didn't even want to attend, and seeing a couple of For Sale signs from two Agents (Desperate?)  in an area we hadn't even searched in and which we thought was outside our budget...  Turned out to be a brilliant buy.  Probably carry me out in a box?


So the message is... Kharma rules...  you'll get there 

princeofpounds

Damn those Estate Agents, working hard to secure the best deal for their client (who is the seller BTW) and to raise their own commission payment.

Not all bidding wars are fake by the way, but you'll never really know. So make offers you think are sensible from your own perspective and know where you want to draw the line.

leanne_flan

AlexMac said:

Salemicus said: 

Congratulations all, and especially to OP, who I hope finds another house they love even more.

That's the way to look at it.  Every time we've tried  to buy a house, something has got in the way; but then, in each case, fate has intervened...

... and we've ended up stumbling on, and buying, an even better house...

.. sometimes after being beaten in an offer race, sometimes after we'd given up in despair and stopped looking (once getting a prospectus in the mail months after we'd told all the agents to stop listing us in the pre-internet days; then buying it that weekend), ...

Seeing an Auction sign and getting it cheap and having to buy within the 28-day completion deadline despite not even having funding in place, it being over the Christmas period and (wait for it) three weeks before our wedding.. 

... once (the current gaff) driving down a little mews road we didn't know existed to a party we didn't even want to attend, and seeing a couple of For Sale signs from two Agents (Desperate?)  in an area we hadn't even searched in and which we thought was outside our budget...  Turned out to be a brilliant buy.  Probably carry me out in a box?


So the message is... Kharma rules...  you'll get there 

You are right and that's brilliant, sometimes things happen when we least expect it. That's given me a lot of hope, thanks for sharing!

Irishpearce26

Bullying? No! Hindsight? Yes! 

You had an opportunity to meet the offer, you didn't and someone else did and you lost it.

Learn from it and keep looking, look for the best deal for you but with an open mind and some extra space in your pockets just in case.

Good luck hope you get what you're looking for.

Pepod

So it's not a secret that EA's have been known to occasionally employ some shady tactics, but try not to get too sucked in to thinking everything is 'against' you. I had a similar situation as a vendor - I had an offer from a nice couple for 5k under asking price which I declined because I wanted no less than asking and had good interest. I then got an offer for asking price from a different couple who were a bit more tied up in a chain, so I asked the EA to let the first couple know if they could do asking price then I would accept that from them, but if not then to accept the asking price offer from the second couple. The first couple tried to meet half way so the second couples asking price offer was accepted on the spot. Now in my case, that was the end of it, but if the first couple had have come back even 5 minutes later saying they would offer more, I wouldn't have accepted out of principle of already agreeing with the other couple.

If you see it from the vendors point of view as I saw it above, would you not agree that was very fair? Could you also not see how an EA might have made a remark about negotiating since they knew what the result was going to be?

All I can say is hard luck, you made the wrong choice this time but it could have been the right thing to do in a different scenario.

Naturally the caveat to all this is that EA's do sometimes employ shady tactics!