Selling - agent pushing for viewing before instructing them

ReadingTim

csgohan4 said:

Don't go with the highest valuation. Your house will be valued according to market forces, not a bunch of EA who are not RICS qualified

"market forces" aren't exactly RICS qualified either....

csgohan4

ReadingTim said:

csgohan4 said:

Don't go with the highest valuation. Your house will be valued according to market forces, not a bunch of EA who are not RICS qualified

"market forces" aren't exactly RICS qualified either....

But RICS will determine if your property will be overpriced for the lender though to protect their interests understandably and your bank balance. But Will not be linked always to what an EA think it's worth and on occasion the Vendor as well

Interestingly what I offered was what the Surveyor put it was worth

Falafels

When I put my house on the market a couple of years ago, I'd received a note from an estate agent saying they had a client looking for properties like mine. (Yeah, yeah!) As it happens, I chose them anyway.

They brought someone round to view it within a couple of hours of the listing going live. She wanted her mother to see it, too, so that meant a second viewing. Long story short - it was under offer within two days of going on the market, at a time when things weren't moving particularly quickly.

I did wonder if they were actually telling the truth in the first note!

AlexMac

esubbs said:

In this current climate I'd be inclined to believe the estate agent. I've been looking for a property for months now and there are far more people out to buy than there are selling.

There are only two estate agents in the town I am moving to and I ring them both weekly to see if anything suitable is coming up. 

I'm normally extremely cynical about EAs' integrity, but esubbs, above, might be right on this occasion.

When we last sold, the Agent (one of three we interviewed) asked if they could bring round a client the weekend after we invited him in; before he'd even drafted the particulars or we'd signed up and well before it hit the websites.  He sold to her at a brilliant price - 15% more than some other valuations - within a week or so.    It helped that we knew he was the best local agent, who we'd dealt with on previous local sales and purchases, and that he offered a 1% fee which was very competitive at that time.  It go even better in that he (or rather, his local company's neighbouring branch) flogged us our current home, which, because he'd got lucky on our sale, was off the top of the budget we'd thought we could afford

So you gotta ask yesself the Clint Eastwood question; Do you feel lucky?

clare19811

We had a similar thing happen with us. The guy was very pushy and wanted to send investors round the same day he did the valuation. He even then put up a for sale board on our house without us signing up with them or agreeing to anything. We didn't see the board for a few days (the house is empty) and by that point we'd signed up with another agent. We had to get the board off the house ourselves which wasn't easy! 

TripleH

With the talk of agents having clients on their books, I'm curious to know how that works from the buyer perspective.

Do it mean they email everyone on their books where the property meets their criteria or just everyone on their books?

Sadly not even an Estate Agent finds me attractive (either as a potential buyer or otherwise)...

Thrugelmir

Flugelhorn said:

they all tend to claim to have a "waiting list" of people for houses "just like yours"

I'd be rather concerned if an EA didn't have a list of people looking to buy a property. 

alreeve27

Thanks for the replies everyone. I suppose I was a little bit surprised to be contacted when we hadn’t agreed to go with the agent, but if it is true then great. I spoke with the EA this afternoon and they would require me to sign a zero week contract to get the one off viewing arranged. Sounds like the people are in a good position but the full fee would be payable to the EA apparently if a sale was achieved, which seems bizarre as it wouldn’t have even hit rightmove so marketing-wise pretty minimal!

alreeve27

Tokmon said:

alreeve27 said:

Hi, we’re in the process of speaking to a few estate agents about selling our house. Very pleased with the valuations and we have one more coming round before we decide who to go with. We have a preference so far, but the other agent got in touch the next day to say he has a client who lives around the corner (given the road name) who has SSTC to a first time buyer and would like to view this weekend.

At this stage we haven’t agreed to sell the house with anyone and my gut feeling is that this is a technique to pressure us into choosing them. If this person is real, they would see the house go up for sale regardless of who it’s with. And no doubt the agent would attempt to get me to sign something about a fee for introducing them?

I am confident we will have a lot of interest in the house, so don’t want to be bullied into a quick sale. Does anyone have any thoughts? Is this a common tactic?

Thanks

Your using very emotive language such a "pressure" and "bullied" but i don't see why your so concerned about their actions. 

You have told them your interested in selling your house and they have come back saying they have a potential buyer who would be interested. I can't see anything wrong with that because they are just showing you the benefits of going with them which any good salesperson would do when people show an interest in what they are offering.

I'm not sure why you think you will be "bullied into a quick sale" surely if you decide to sell you want it to happen at a good pace because the house selling process is so long anyway then anything that speeds it up is a good thing.

Thanks - sorry don’t think I explained that well. Totally happy with a speedy sale but we’re in no rush to accept the first offer that comes in, is what I meant.

Tokmon

alreeve27 said:

Thanks for the replies everyone. I suppose I was a little bit surprised to be contacted when we hadn’t agreed to go with the agent, but if it is true then great. I spoke with the EA this afternoon and they would require me to sign a zero week contract to get the one off viewing arranged. Sounds like the people are in a good position but the full fee would be payable to the EA apparently if a sale was achieved, which seems bizarre as it wouldn’t have even hit rightmove so marketing-wise pretty minimal!

You pay them their fee to find a buyer and sell your property so if the person does buy it then why wouldn't you expect to pay the full fee?

alreeve27 said:

Tokmon said:

alreeve27 said:

Hi, we’re in the process of speaking to a few estate agents about selling our house. Very pleased with the valuations and we have one more coming round before we decide who to go with. We have a preference so far, but the other agent got in touch the next day to say he has a client who lives around the corner (given the road name) who has SSTC to a first time buyer and would like to view this weekend.

At this stage we haven’t agreed to sell the house with anyone and my gut feeling is that this is a technique to pressure us into choosing them. If this person is real, they would see the house go up for sale regardless of who it’s with. And no doubt the agent would attempt to get me to sign something about a fee for introducing them?

I am confident we will have a lot of interest in the house, so don’t want to be bullied into a quick sale. Does anyone have any thoughts? Is this a common tactic?

Thanks

Your using very emotive language such a "pressure" and "bullied" but i don't see why your so concerned about their actions. 

You have told them your interested in selling your house and they have come back saying they have a potential buyer who would be interested. I can't see anything wrong with that because they are just showing you the benefits of going with them which any good salesperson would do when people show an interest in what they are offering.

I'm not sure why you think you will be "bullied into a quick sale" surely if you decide to sell you want it to happen at a good pace because the house selling process is so long anyway then anything that speeds it up is a good thing.

Thanks - sorry don’t think I explained that well. Totally happy with a speedy sale but we’re in no rush to accept the first offer that comes in, is what I meant.

Well if the first offer is what you want to achieve then you accept it and if it isn't then you don't unless your looking for a bidding war situation?