Giving Feedback to Estate Agents - Do or Don't do?

Nardge

Dear Forumites,

I recently placed an offer on a House. This hasn't yet been forwarded to the Vendor by the Estate Agent, as they're keen to know whether I've any more feedback to return to the vendor first.

"Thank you for your email detailing your offer this will be put forward to our vendor. I know you find the property... and..., is there anything more you wish to say about what has made you make an offer on the property so we can let the vendor know your thorough feedback."

I've since confirmed with the Estate Agent that feedback isn't obligatory. 

To me it almost feels as though they're making the former contingent on the latter, which I don't like. The purchase/sale of a property is in my eyes a business matter, a dispassionate handover of money in a formal transaction between two people. The Vendor will get their money, I will never meet them, so whilst my feedback may make everything feel more homely and amicably soft for the Vendor and Estate Agent as it were, it won't alter any outcomes, bar possibly trigger efforts to make me offer more money. 

If I handover a list of reasons why I like the property, why it's suitable for me, my reasons for choosing it etc, my concern is the Vendor might think along the lines of "Well, if they like the house that much, let's aim to push up what they're offering on the property"! 

What are people's experiences of this? Is it commonplace for Estate Agents to request feedback as part of the offering process? Has this led to Vendors pushing for higher offers as a result?

Based on people's deliberations, I may reconsider.

Thanking you in advance for your responses,

With Kind Regards.   

kazwookie

I would be pushing your status, ie cash buyer, ready to move etc, at the end of the day you are buying a building, not all their furntiure etc.

Martico

A bit of flattery in an email can go a long way as the vendors have invested time and life into the place - Saying how you love how homely the place feels, you like how they've done the XXX, you can see you and your family being happy there, it has a lovely feel / aspect etc. While it may be purely transactional to you, they may have emotional ties to the place and feel they want their legacy with the place to be respected  

user1977

I'd hope this process is reciprocal, so you can find out how desperate they are to sell etc...

eddddy

The estate agent wants your offer to be accepted, so that they get their commission asap.

So they probably want some fluffy stories to make the sellers like you, and to help persuade the sellers to accept your offer.

For example...

• "You really like what the owners have done with the garden - they must have worked so hard on it"

• "The kitchen they had installed is lovely"

• "Your children really love the wonderful garden"

Generally, with a lot of people, if you tell them how lovely their house is and how excited you would be to live in it, they will find it harder to turn down your offer.

But that's not the case with everyone, especially developers, investors etc.

mebu60

As @kazwookie says, just sell your position. Also say if you are flexible on timescale. EA possibly feels they need a little more to increase the likelihood of the seller accepting your offer. The EA probably only gets paid on the sale completing. 

BlueVeranda

When we sold our house, we were more interested in the feedback from people who didn't want to offer to get a feel for whether it just wasn't the right fit or if there was a pattern we might want to act on. Unfortunately for us, those people often didn't want to leave any comments after their viewings either.

This EA might be in a similar situation to ours and hoping that as you aren't ghosting them you'll open up and talk specifics. But all they really need to know is you like it enough to consider offering £X for it.

You could also use it as an opportunity to pre-empt them countering with a much higher amount, if you couch any feedback you do give in vaguely negative terms. "Well, we can see that it needs some work to get it where we want it, but we're prepared to look past that at the right price" type language (obviously, pick something that works with the property in question).

Do have a think about potential conversation trees and strategies before the EA phones you back though as it's always harder to negotiate on the fly.

theartfullodger

Have a look first at Google reviews of them.  I find the bad ones most helpful.

njkmr

You have made an offer.
You simply want to know if it's accepted by seller. Simple as that.
Tell the agent to put the offer to the seller.

Hoenir

How did you communicate your offer to the estate agent?  

youth_leader

When I was selling I ended up telling the EA I didn't want any feedback, some of it was ridiculous.  I said I only wanted to be told of an offer.