Mortgage offer- advice with estate agents sneaky tactics

As a first time buyer I personally don't want to be duped into panick and raising my bid when there may be no other family

Don't even think about raising your bid until your offer is rejected. As others have said, the EA isn't the one waiting at this point (unless they actually haven't submitted your offer) it's the vendor who's waiting - perhaps on the advisement of the EA.

AmieR wrote: »

<<snip>>

They also told us that the seller was extremely genuine and if the right offer was put to them they would take it off the market straight away
<<snip>>

AmieR wrote: »

<<snip>>

Estate agents told me first full asking price offer it would be taken off market which has not happened
<<snip>>

These two things are not the same, ...

Also, you complain that "things changed" - well, things DO change.

The EA's job is to work for the seller. He/she doesn't have ESP, so can't KNOW what the seller is thinking.

12:00 p.m. Offer of asking price (say, £200k) received, EA says this is a good offer and very likely to be accepted (HIS/HER opinion, not the seller's). Offer transmitted to seller.

12:45 p.m. Another buyer says he/she will likely offer over asking, but just needs to do some sums, as it is close to their maximum. EA asks seller an seller says "Give them 24 hours".

Where in this scenario is the EA being "sneaky"?

I think you should take a deep breath and step back. It's very easy to get emotional about house-buying, and understandably so. But in the current situation, you risk losing the property if you don't look at it like a business transaction.

AmieR - I'm going to be the lone voice in the wilderness (EDIT: apart from ACG above whose post crossed with mine) and say I'm totally with you on this, and feel your pain.
Yes, I do get supply & demand and it's all very well that agents are employed to work on behalf of sellers and try to achieve as high a price as they can, but still it isn't very nice to be at the receiving end of having offered in good faith what is, after all being advertised as their asking price (not one the buyer has just plucked out of the air, nor even offers over); only to have vendor or agent suddenly turn round and imply that not only is the price that they themselves have calculated the property to be worth not enough, but additionally, they are going to keep you on tenterhooks and not even let you know what is going on.

The entire process seems to bring out the very worst in human nature (greed being the main one.)
Call me old fashioned but I believe in being honourable in business - which is probably why I'm not rich, but at least I don't act like some lite version of Delboy Trotter when I buy or sell a property.

We are currently in the process of buying a property in the area we wanted, where hardly anything ever comes up for sale in our price range. It had recently come on the market and had already gained a lot of interest. Granted it wasn't an open day, but we travelled around 100 miles to view it at short notice.
Everyone who had viewed it before us had made an offer, but all had been under asking price.
The vendor had hosted the viewing, we established a good rapport and put in a full asking price offer (very reasonably priced) on the spot, direct to the vendor, which they immediately accepted. We then put the offer formally to the agent on the condition it was taken off the market, which it was.
The vendor told us they needed the full asking price in order to afford the move, and were pleased that the house would be going to buyers who would appreciate and love their home as they had.
There had been more viewings booked after us, but they were cancelled after our offer was accepted.

There are still some sellers who are happy with their own asking price and prefer to deal in that way, although they're rare.
We've always refused to get involved in games, leaving them to those who have the inclination for them.

AmieR wrote: »

Completely understand that everything needs to be fair and that they are doing their job but in our eyes we are being told conflicting information which don't match up

My questions really were aimed more towards how long do estate agents chase people for offers do they give you a rough guide to when your offers need to be in by ?

Are they allowed to pretend there are other buyers (as I mentioned there collegue told us there was no other buyers interested from the open house) then 20 minutes later there was this mystery family

As a first time buyer I personally don't want to be duped into panick and raising my bid when there may be no other family

Have you never heard of EAs' reputations LOL?!

I bet the day went something like this when you offered:

- You offer... no other offers on the table.

- EA gets excited - it's all starting! Frantically rings round all other viewers that day saying 'it's proving so popular, we have an asking price offer on the table already and are having to rush in with final bids, so if you're interested, you need to get back to me within the next hour or so before the vendor accepts'.

- Human nature to want what others do - an offer on the table already makes the property more desirable. Even those who weren't going to offer will now be thinking hmm maybe we should think about this one again, it seems very popular and must be worth it and nice...

- EA rings you back saying one is interested (how they interpret 'interested' may be different to me and you, but that's not to say they're actually lying). They may not end up offering, they may not have a buyer, but the EA will do their best to use it against you to make you increase your bid.



Agree it's not about the commission, it's about their pride, instinct and they want their client to tell all their friends how fantastic they were and got an even higher offer out of their buyer.

Good luck!