Light reading - 'We thought the agent was bluffing'

jetski

HOUSE HUNTER Estate agents speak the truth, as we discovered after a game of hardball over our dream house, writes DON MORGAN .
‘IF YOU have a higher offer, take it with both hands. We won’t go any higher.” My wife was playing hardball on the phone with an estate agent. I, like all good cowards, was hiding behind the couch.
We’ve never played hardball before and you could cut the atmosphere with pretty much anything, no knives required.
The tiny voice on the phone responded without emotion: “That’s all I needed to know.” Click.
What did that mean? What’s all he needed to know? Did we have the house or not? So while our friend at the estate agency was doing his best impression of the Riddler, we had a weekend of living in limbo – we could go higher, but how could we justify it?
Especially having researched what it would cost to put the house right, with new windows, insulation, heating, the works.
We were sticking to our initial offer. It was still the guts of €500,000. It was the first offer we’d made that wasn’t laughed at outright. Until we viewed this particular house, we’d felt pretty intimidated by either the house or the angry looking, pin-striped men who greeted us.
We work in Monkstown. We want a house that’s preferably within an ass’s roar of our employer.
This house was in Blackrock, Monkstown’s louder Siamese twin.
It’s also the first house we loved and lost, entwined forever in “our story” as my romantic missus would put it. “The Dream House”, to be pronounced as if possessed by Bill Cullen ossified on absinthe, was a wreck: a shabby chic semi-d, busy road out front, no electricity, gas or heating.
Windows held together with rust and pixie dust. Cables streaming out of the chimney like the tentacles of the Cracken consuming a ship.
Yet our alternative lifestyle was clear to see. You could walk to work, take the Dart places or rock up after a few scoops in O’Rourkes with all the other golf sweaters.
To live, perchance to talk utter rubbish watching the Masters. Bliss!
It had gorgeous period quirks as well, not because of some design über-dude, but because of the last, aged occupant: the mad wooden bench in a ground floor alcove looked like Gaudi had whittled something with a spare bit of two-by-four.
We practically moved into it after one viewing. After a long day at work, having forgotten we had booked ourselves in for the viewing, it was love at first sight.
We knew where we were going to put things, who would come visit, the colour of the bathroom and where our as yet non-existent children would go to school. It was also the first time we really had fun on a viewing.
Reality, however, has this annoying tendency to intervene. We got it wrong, big time and were inconsolable. As real as it had felt, there was the small detail of buying the damned house.
When we made our offer, we thought the agent was bluffing: there couldn’t be another offer, surely. Who the hell would have money in this day and age?
There was indeed another offer, pure and simple. We were just too mistrusting and nervous as hell to realise that, so didn’t get it. Hardball game over.
Another estate agent summed it up best for us at a later viewing elsewhere: buying a house is one of the three most emotional things you’ll ever do in life, which we appreciate now.
We didn’t expect it then to have the impact on us that it did. After all, aren’t you just buying a house? We were nonetheless upset for the life we saw.
Potentially seeing our humdrum existence, possibly cycling to work, our children’s speculative first day at school or their hypothetical first trip to Wes on a Friday night and the inevitable trip to Vincent’s afterwards.
We also made the rookie mistake of having our heads filled to the brim with tales of tricky estate agents looking to squeeze a few extra shekels out of gullible buyers, regardless of inconveniences like telling the truth.
You end up parsing each phrase with more care than a diplomat in the Middle East. Well, that one we misread. Estate agents are honest. Damn.
This article appears in the print edition of the Irish Times


http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/property/2009/0507/1224246047211.html

I read this earlier alright, sounds like a blatant attempt to stop the recent trend of "buyer confidence" and put them right back in their place, to stop them haggling!

Maybe I'm reading into it too harshly but, with a line "Estate agents are honest", it's not exactly subtle in its aims.

meditraitor

Deleted User wrote: »

I read this earlier alright, sounds like a blatant attempt to stop the recent trend of "buyer confidence" and put them right back in their place, to stop them haggling!

Maybe I'm reading into it too harshly but, with a line "Estate agents are honest", it's not exactly subtle in its aims.

This one gave me a giggle.

ntlbell

This is why people shouldn't have a dream "house"

they should have a heap of dream house'S and not get emotionally attached.

if the buyer doesn't want to do business move on quickly and forget about it.

EKRIUQ

Personally I think that happened a lot more in the boom and people gazzumping it's their own fault they didn't get the house. The estate agent was trying to get more out of them i.e. his job, most estate agents just want to sell anything these days and if they have a concrete offer they'll go with that.

They'll have to live and learn

Duckjob

I'm utterly confused by what the message of this article is supposed to be?
The brave go-getting buyers get stuck in with aggressively high offers to get the property they want, while the cowardly underbidders skulk behind their sofa. Uh-huh.

Does the author still consider he and his wife made a mistake by sticking to their original well considered offer?

If anything as NTL pointed out it would appear to highlight the folly of becoming attaching to one house in a market with so much buyer choice.

So they didn't get the house. If they had upped their offer, regardless of another bids they would no doubt have been played like a fiddle by the EA.

As it happened they will no doubt find other houses they like even more, and at the right price.

All assuming of course that the whole story isn't a work of fiction on the authors part :pac:

bugler

I'm utterly confused by what the message of this article is supposed to be?

The message I'm taking from it is that if you must read the IT do it online. Do not pay for the rag.

Taltos

I too lost out on our Dream House around 6 months ago.

we set a limit we were not willing to go over - once more a lot of work was needed. I already thought the property was overpriced for what it was - but it was as I said our dream house.

So the offers came in - we hit the ceiling with one other buyer and then walked away.

Looking thru Daft yesterday - first time in a while - surprised to see it in there.
They are now looking for 25k more than where we left off. So estate agents / greedy sellers - don't care anymore - just know that this was not meant to be, not at those crazy prices...

homme d'affaire

I'd question the authenticity of that article, it just sounds like a pathetic attempt to talk up the housing market.

ntlbell

Taltos wrote: »

surprised to see it in there.

lol, why would you be surprised?

go back to them with the original offer see if they had a change of heart yet.

if not they will soon enough.

Sleipnir

Oh my God! There's a story in The Times about an honest estate agent! Read all about it!

For that one story, there are thousands of others which show estate agents' complete lack of morals.

When I bought my house, I was bidding against another buyer which ended up increasing the cost by about 20k.
Still, I have absolutely no verifiable means to know that I wasn't bidding against a phantom buyer. I simply have to blindly hope that the estate agent was an honest one because a paper-trail would be just, well, silly really wouldn't it? I have to trust someone I've only ever spoken to on the phone and who wants my money!!!

"Hey everyone, all that stuff about estate agents you've heard? Not true. Estate agents are all honest. I know this because my wife met one once."

The article just plain stinks and if I had to go right now, I'd go out, buy that paper and then wee on it.

Victor

Actually, it merely happens that the estate agent was telling the truth that one time. A coincidence really.

What it points to is for the need for a transparent bid system. The current system, as shown in the example, shows that neither the author, nor the vendor was well served, only the actual purchaser.

irlrobins

BTW, Don is Dermot Morgan's son. I think the article is a light hearted account of his experience in the property market. Not to be taken seriously, not an analysis, not a factual piece. :rolleyes:

confuzed

I will take it as a separate incidence. Just another sale out of 100s in dublin where one party outbid another.
No less no more.

Personal experience- I went to see a house last year. It was OKish for me. I put an offer and I was told a higher bidder after one hour. I said ok sell it. That house stayed on daft for another 6 months with asking price even less than what I offered (I don't know selling price). To my surprise EA never tried to call me back to know if I am still interested or not. ****ers !

johnnyskeleton

Duckjob wrote: »

All assuming of course that the whole story isn't a work of fiction on the authors part :pac:

This is part II of this guy's attempt to become a hack journalist buy a property closer to Dublin. See here. Last week he was (by inferrence) in negative equity in Carlow and said:

Did we have any cash? Er, not as such. How would we possibly get anything more than scornful ridicule?


We had to hatch a plan. If we had that, we’d just need to keep our nerve in the bank manager’s office, filled with a mix of awe and blind terror – like dealing with a cross between Nelson Mandela and an axe-wielding maniac.
It seemed like the fool’s errand to beat all fool’s errands. My wife looked at me before our first meeting. “Leave it to me,” she said calmly. I had to be stretchered out. Yes, we were a safe bet, having secure-ish jobs. Yes, we’d get a mortgage. We just didn’t have a clue what our price range was.
We started making offers on houses anyway. We looked at anything we came across, wildly guessing what we could afford and taking a chance.

This week, he is bidding €500k on a run down house in Blackrock or somewhere (I stopped reading half way through). So even if his bid was accepted, it was:


1) a "wild guess" at the price he could pay,
2) unsure whether he would get a mortgage or not,

3) based on a deposit he didn't have saved, and
4) before considering how he shifts his NE Carlow property.


So in short, person unable to afford a property bids on it and is rejected. That's the story.

johnnyskeleton

Taltos wrote: »

They are now looking for 25k more than where we left off. So estate agents / greedy sellers - don't care anymore - just know that this was not meant to be, not at those crazy prices...

I'd go back to them and ask them what happened to the other sale. They will no doubt say that the other buyers pulled out for some reason (lost their job, decided to move to Australia, their cat died etc). To which you put in an offer significantly lower than what you were offering before and really make them squirm.

the_syco

johnnyskeleton wrote: »

I'd go back to them and ask them what happened to the other sale. They will no doubt say that the other buyers pulled out for some reason (lost their job, decided to move to Australia, their cat died etc). To which you put in an offer significantly lower than what you were offering before and really make them squirm.

Agreed. Give an offer of 60% of what your last offer was, saying the lowered bid is due to a cut in your pay.

Or find out who the original owners are (try asking the neighbours), and tell them how much you are willing to spend. Me thinks the owners may not have heard from the EA about any bids.