Could Estate Agent be lying about passing offers to vendor and/or playing silly games?

molenpad

Yesterday we looked at a property that has been on the market for 9 months. It is empty and sold with no onward chain, and requires a lot of modernsisation. It has recently (3 weeks ago, been reduced) and doesn't seem to have attracted a huge amount of interest. In fact, the agent which showed us round admitted never having done a viewing on the property before and didn't know much about it. It was on the market originally for £430,000, and has been steadily dropped over time to its now price of £380,000. 

I cheekily had a look at the title for the property buying it from Land Registry, and see that is owned by a couple who live quite far away. They took ownership in 2021, but it has no record of ever being sold, so I'm thinking inheritence from a deceased relative.

We loved the house, and the location is absolutely spot on. We are up for doing the work to bring it up to standard. These things take time, and we can easily overlook a lot of the work in the knowledge of the house it "could" be in the next couple of years.

We went in with an admittedly cheeky offer of £355,000, which the estate agent said was probably going to be rejected, but since he wanted to pass all offers onto the vendor, he would do. He rang back 5 minutes later, to say that the vendor had rejected and wants much closer to asking price - fair enough. Our second offer we though was much fairer at £368,000. A similar house in a similar condition sold for this in November on the next street. He umms and ahhs, then says he'll ring the vendor. He rings back 10 minutes later and says no sorry, but the person selling the house is strapped for cash and needs asking price. Apparently its a young man who bought the house last year as in investment opportunity, but now doesn't plan to invest so wishes to sell. He needs asking price or nothing. He will let it sit for a while if he doesn't get asking price. I said, sure, I will speak to the Wife and we'll have a discussion on next steps, but I don't think I want to pay asking price so I'll have to move on. That's when the estate agent says, if it doesn't sell soon the vendor is going to put £50,000 into the property to update it and either rent it or sell it for more. Alarm bells started ringing then because I thought this vendor was strapped for cash?

Anyway, we rang back yesterday afternoon and said to us the house is pretty much perfect - location, location, location right - but we didn't want to pay asking price. But we want the house, so we'll pay asking price if it can be removed from the market. We are in rented at the moment, have been saving a long time, have a solicitor ready to instruct and a mortgage broker ready to push the button on our full application.

At this point the Estate Agent asks me for proof of funds and ID, and says it should just be a formality but he'll let me know when the offer is officially accepted by the vendor, and I say that is fine with us. We don't hear anything back. Just before closing time I rang the Estate Agent to ensure he had got our documentation, which he said he had, but he has been unable to contact the vendor as "they" are on a cruise. Hang on, I thought this was a single guy, strapped for cash, selling the house?

Have I been hoodwinked and too eager? I've a big suspicion that the EA never actually passed my original offers to the vendor to see how high he could get us, then when it was time to contact them to say "you've got an offer at asking" he genuinely couldn't contact them.

Seems odd that the first couple of calls the vendor was easy to get hold of, then suddenly impossible to reach.

Also seems odd that the profile of the vendor is different than official paperwork on the property shows.

mi-key

Really does it matter? They could well be making up stories or not passing on offers, but if you really want the house and are happy to pay the asking price then go for it.

You can always 'what if' and think you could have got it cheaper, but if it is a couple who have inherited, then they may not be desperate to sell at all, so won't consider lower offers anyway.

Or while you are trying to get money off, someone else who loves it and wants to pay the full price may snap it up or even offer over. You can always consider you are getting £50K off from what it would have cost if you had bought it when it was first listed...

An agents job is to get the best price they can for the seller, so I'm sure all sorts of dodgy things go on, but you know if the house is worth what you are spending, whatever price that ends up being.

diystarter7

Hi

Some EA's like

Ask them for copy of letter they sent and or email

At times people are gifted/inherit propery and desperate to get hands on cash and or were eager to sell but then change their minds

Every scenario is different, see how it goes but I dont trust EA's the ones I've dealt with

its in the EA's interest to sell as only then they get their money


Thnaks

diystarter7

Btw - IMO, EA's will favour chain free buyers that are serious and may ignore those with a chain IMO at times and from what I have felt by the way we were prioritised. However that is my experience and others will have different expereicnes

Good luck

propertyrental

Does not sound like game playing, and yes, I expect the offers were passed on.

Be patiant. Seller has waited 9 months so obviously not in a hurry. Seller has a price in mind -he's already dropped the asking price, so qute likely he'll only sel at asking price, and to someonewho has passed financial checks, which are standard.

eddddy

The EA may be playing games to some extent - but not the type of games you suggest.

The EA would have been happy if your offers of £355k or £368k had been accepted. That might have earned them potential fees of £3,550 or £3,680 - and allowed them to move on and concentrate on selling some other properties.

The EA will be frustrated that the owner is rejecting offers, and is difficult to contact.

molenpad

mi-key said:

Really does it matter? They could well be making up stories or not passing on offers, but if you really want the house and are happy to pay the asking price then go for it.

You can always 'what if' and think you could have got it cheaper, but if it is a couple who have inherited, then they may not be desperate to sell at all, so won't consider lower offers anyway.

Or while you are trying to get money off, someone else who loves it and wants to pay the full price may snap it up or even offer over. You can always consider you are getting £50K off from what it would have cost if you had bought it when it was first listed...

An agents job is to get the best price they can for the seller, so I'm sure all sorts of dodgy things go on, but you know if the house is worth what you are spending, whatever price that ends up being.

No, in the grand scheme of things it doesn't matter, except the house was grossly overvalued originally, and probably still is slightly optimistically valued. Having said that, we are willing to pay what they are asking for this house. Given the vendor is apparently desperate to sell (hence the constant reduction in price) I find it funny that they were instantly available for the initial offers, then suddenly completely unavailable once the offer went to asking price, despite the fact mere minutes had passed. 

I don't have much experience in working with EA's but also find it funny that they only asked for ID and an AIP when we got to asking price. We have offered on other houses in the past and always been asked for at least an AIP before offering even an initial opening offer. One of those times was with the same EA, albeit a different location. I'm loathe to chase again, so I guess we will wait and see.

SusieT

If the seller ia on a cruise it could be that they are in a different time zone and asleep, so did not get the call from the agent. 

theartfullodger

molenpad said:

..

Could Estate Agent be lying about passing offers to vendor and/or playing silly games?

You'll know the old "joke", considered in bad taste by some..

Q. How do you know when an estate agent is lying??
A.  When their lips move.......................

molenpad

Just as an update our offer was eventually accepted, which is great news for us. 

The vendor apparently needed to mull it over and in the words of the estate agent has "reluctantly accepted to let it go at the asking price"

Great news for us as I say. I am not sure that when the EA saw the value of our AIP and proof of deposit they may have seen an opportunity to squeeze a bit more out of us, but no matter now, the house is ours - excepting all the usual mortgage offer, survey and conveyancing woes

fackers_2

molenpad said:

Yesterday we looked at a property that has been on the market for 9 months. It is empty and sold with no onward chain, and requires a lot of modernsisation. It has recently (3 weeks ago, been reduced) and doesn't seem to have attracted a huge amount of interest. In fact, the agent which showed us round admitted never having done a viewing on the property before and didn't know much about it. It was on the market originally for £430,000, and has been steadily dropped over time to its now price of £380,000. 

I cheekily had a look at the title for the property buying it from Land Registry, and see that is owned by a couple who live quite far away. They took ownership in 2021, but it has no record of ever being sold, so I'm thinking inheritence from a deceased relative.

We loved the house, and the location is absolutely spot on. We are up for doing the work to bring it up to standard. These things take time, and we can easily overlook a lot of the work in the knowledge of the house it "could" be in the next couple of years.

We went in with an admittedly cheeky offer of £355,000, which the estate agent said was probably going to be rejected, but since he wanted to pass all offers onto the vendor, he would do. He rang back 5 minutes later, to say that the vendor had rejected and wants much closer to asking price - fair enough. Our second offer we though was much fairer at £368,000. A similar house in a similar condition sold for this in November on the next street. He umms and ahhs, then says he'll ring the vendor. He rings back 10 minutes later and says no sorry, but the person selling the house is strapped for cash and needs asking price. Apparently its a young man who bought the house last year as in investment opportunity, but now doesn't plan to invest so wishes to sell. He needs asking price or nothing. He will let it sit for a while if he doesn't get asking price. I said, sure, I will speak to the Wife and we'll have a discussion on next steps, but I don't think I want to pay asking price so I'll have to move on. That's when the estate agent says, if it doesn't sell soon the vendor is going to put £50,000 into the property to update it and either rent it or sell it for more. Alarm bells started ringing then because I thought this vendor was strapped for cash?

Anyway, we rang back yesterday afternoon and said to us the house is pretty much perfect - location, location, location right - but we didn't want to pay asking price. But we want the house, so we'll pay asking price if it can be removed from the market. We are in rented at the moment, have been saving a long time, have a solicitor ready to instruct and a mortgage broker ready to push the button on our full application.

At this point the Estate Agent asks me for proof of funds and ID, and says it should just be a formality but he'll let me know when the offer is officially accepted by the vendor, and I say that is fine with us. We don't hear anything back. Just before closing time I rang the Estate Agent to ensure he had got our documentation, which he said he had, but he has been unable to contact the vendor as "they" are on a cruise. Hang on, I thought this was a single guy, strapped for cash, selling the house?

Have I been hoodwinked and too eager? I've a big suspicion that the EA never actually passed my original offers to the vendor to see how high he could get us, then when it was time to contact them to say "you've got an offer at asking" he genuinely couldn't contact them.

Seems odd that the first couple of calls the vendor was easy to get hold of, then suddenly impossible to reach.

Also seems odd that the profile of the vendor is different than official paperwork on the property shows.

Some EA like to take matter into their own hands and sometimes it doesn’t work. Recently we made an offer on a property at £450k it was listed at £500k for last 12 months. Conveniently the day we put in our offer apparently the seller received an asking price offer and the EA asked if we wanted to reconsider our offer - lol. Now after 3 weeks, why would they not accept that full asking price offer?! No other offers received neither. 

Also, a couple of years ago, I put an offer on a house that needed a full gut and modernisation, they wanted £170k and I offered £141k - my offer was £5k below recent sold prices. They rejected it despite me being a FTB and proceedable with money to go. It was also vacant. 11 months later, they sold the house for… £141k. So after all that, they lost out more due to covering the ongoing costs. 

Only offer what you’re comfortable paying! Walk away if it’s not agreed. Only then will you feel happy. But don’t get carried away with the EA guff! They talk up the market and make phantom offers.