Dodgy Estate Agent

emmaprkr

Hi Everybody,

Approx 4-5 weeks ago, we offered a price for the house that we had made up our minds about. But the estate agent kinnda pressurized us to offer a higher price , he even told us that somebody else had also offered a price which is higher than ours but since we are first time buyers, he would like to prefer us over the other guy. We did raise our offer but still slightly lower than what he had asked for. He declined the offer after 5-10 mins and did not call us for almost 4 weeks. When i phoned him last week , he said that house has been sold but surprisingly it still does not say under offer or sold/subject to contract etc.(I have been checking daily for past week or so)
Infact he even lowered the price after declining the offer. I suspect that there is no other buyer he just wants to avoid me now coz if he does accept the offer , i will eventually get in touch with the actual seller and i might tell him the stories that he has been telling me about the other buyer and stuff.
Is there a way of getting in touch with seller directly? Can estate agent actually do such things? Will appreciate advice from you guys.

Jorgan_2

Is the property occupied by the owner? If so, put a note through the letter box. If the property is empty its going to be very difficult to contact the owner.

Get a friend to try & make a viewing on the property & see what reply they get.

Can an agent do such things? Unfortunately a few agents do break the rules, which give the rest of us a bad name. You don't actually know the agent has done anything wrong at this stage. It is possible there was another offer, that buyer may have got cold feet due to the press coverage surrounding the housing market over the last couple of weeks. A good agent would have come straight back to you to see if you were still interested.

emmaprkr

Its vacant presently. I did ask one of my colleagues to call this person and find out about this property. He was put on hold for 5 mins then he was told that it has gone under offer. The estate agent did not even ask my colleague's name/number or whether he was registered with them. He just hung up on him. The thing is that i had phoned him about that house that very day only in the morning, so he might have gotten suspicious. The house has been there on the market for months now but it still does not say under offer/sold etc and they have reduced the price as well but agent has not phoned me back.
So i am kindda clueless about the whole thing.

Jorgan_2

Is the property a repossession? These usually have to be left on the market until exchange of contracts has taken place so they still show as for sale on web sites & boards. The agent is risking it if he is saying verbally that its under offer. Repos are usually easy to spot on viewings, they have tape over the sinks and W.C.'s saying 'Do not use-system drained down'

emmaprkr

No, its not a repossession property. The tenants moved out last month and the agent had confirmed that it was not a repossession property.

TheKeyMaker

Please take under consideration that usually more than one Estate Agent advertises properties for sale or for rent. If this estate agent seemed dodgy to you, it could have made the same impression to the property owner and he might just stop dealing with him; happened to a friend of mine. My friend then had to search further and found the same property advertised by other estate agency; didn’t bought it because the current circumstances, but ended up renting it by mutual agreement with a view of buying it in the future.
So, worth to take a look at other advertisements for the same property…

poppy10_2

Do you have a link for the property?