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Question about Estate Agent

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  • 23-02-2010 3:42pm
    #1
    Stacksey
    Registered Users Posts: 498 ✭✭


    So yesterday i talked to an estate agent about going to view a house, its up for sale for €255,000 and she told me that an offer had already been put in for €200,000, she said she wanted to give me the lo down, do you reckons she's playing mind games?


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    #2
    spoonface
    Registered Users Posts: 339 ✭✭spoonface


    Stacksey wrote: »
    So yesterday i talked to an estate agent about going to view a house, its up for sale for €255,000 and she told me that an offer had already been put in for €200,000, she said she wanted to give me the lo down, do you reckons she's playing mind games?

    Quite possibly games. Why not disregard it and make an offer you want e.g. 180K. Or say ok get back to me in a month if it fell through.


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    #3
    shoegirl
    Registered Users Posts: 2,018 ✭✭✭shoegirl


    This is - sadly - the problem with bids not having to be in writing.
    If they were then you could just ask to see the bid.


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    #4
    MrsMiaWallace
    Closed Accounts Posts: 30 ✭MrsMiaWallace


    As an estate agent for 8 yrs i would say she is simply informing you that an offer has already been put in which was rejected and so giving you an idea of what you shouldnt be offering in order to get your offer accepted!
    What would you have said if you had put in an offer and waited a few days for her to get back to you with the news your offer had been rejected and then proceeded to tell you that someone had made a higher offer which was rejected? i think you'd be pretty anoyed and would have thought she could have saved you a whole lot of sweat!
    She has to tell you what offers have been put in otherwise how would you know what to offer!
    Also i doubt very much someone is going to reduce by tens of thousands just bear that in mind :)


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    #5
    Senna
    Registered Users Posts: 8,800 ✭✭✭Senna


    MrsMiaWallace wrote: »
    otherwise how would you know what to offer!

    The cynical among us would say you hit the nail on the head with that statement.;)


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    #6
    TwoShedsJackson
    Closed Accounts Posts: 9,438 ✭✭✭TwoShedsJackson


    Stacksey wrote: »
    So yesterday i talked to an estate agent about going to view a house, its up for sale for €255,000 and she told me that an offer had already been put in for €200,000, she said she wanted to give me the lo down, do you reckons she's playing mind games?

    The estate agent is acting for the seller and it's their job to get as much as they can out of you for a given property, as such you can treat anything she tells you as being an attempt to do so, and not an attempt to help you in any way.


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    #7
    wyndham
    Registered Users Posts: 2,284 ✭✭✭wyndham


    I would take her at her word in this instance. If she were to say there was an offer of €245,000 or €250,000, that would be a different story, but the offer is well below the asking. In any case, if you are interested, it should not influence your decision to put in an offer or not or the amount of your offer.


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    #8
    MrsMiaWallace
    Closed Accounts Posts: 30 ✭MrsMiaWallace


    TwoShedsJackson wrote: »
    The estate agent is acting for the seller and it's their job to get as much as they can out of you for a given property, as such you can treat anything she tells you as being an attempt to do so, and not an attempt to help you in any way.

    Come on estate agents act as a service for sellers and buyers, if they were that ruthless they would have a bad reputation and would be out of business.
    As an ex estate agent i find this quote quite unbelievable, a house is only worth what the buyer will pay for it, an agent cannot twist anyones arm! we are talking about buying a house here agents wont show you houses you cannot afford.If your looking at a house then you have the cash to buy the agent is just going to be helping you buy it as they will get a sale/commission. A few thousand in the way of offers is not going to make much difference to the agents fee's based on percentage :rolleyes: The aim is to SELL the property whatever it sells for isnt the agents concern unless your talking self employed agents selling houses at a million plus .:cool:
    Aslong as seller and buyer are happy the agent has achieved what they set out to do.


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    #9
    TwoShedsJackson
    Closed Accounts Posts: 9,438 ✭✭✭TwoShedsJackson


    MrsMiaWallace wrote: »
    Come on estate agents act as a service for sellers and buyers, if they were that ruthless they would have a bad reputation and would be out of business.
    As an ex estate agent i find this quote quite unbelievable, a house is only worth what the buyer will pay for it, an agent cannot twist anyones arm! we are talking about buying a house here agents wont show you houses you cannot afford.If your looking at a house then you have the cash to buy the agent is just going to be helping you buy it as they will get a sale/commission. A few thousand in the way of offers is not going to make much difference to the agents fee's based on percentage :rolleyes: The aim is to SELL the property whatever it sells for isnt the agents concern unless your talking self employed agents selling houses at a million plus .:cool:
    Aslong as seller and buyer are happy the agent has achieved what they set out to do.

    I could name three estate agents/firms I've had dealings with, buying and selling, who have a bad reputation for underhandedness, arrogance, lies, and yet they are still in business. Are you seriously going to try and tell me that an estate agent cannot remain in business after engaging in under-handed practices of one type or another?

    A house is indeed worth what the buyer will pay for it, and there are ways of making the buyer pay more, which is what the agent is being employed to do. Don't be taking this personally, I'm not saying all estate agents are crooked, what I am saying is that it is their job to get the best price for their client, if they are not doing that, they are not fulfilling the job they were employed for.

    If they're doing their job they get what they can for the house not just for a few hundred on comission but to get positive word-of-mouth going so that when the seller may be asked in the future 'what agent did you use?', do you think the agent would prefer him to say 'oh use agent X he got me a great price', or 'use agent Y, he got the place sold but he didn't put that much effort in?'


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    #10
    D3PO
    Registered Users Posts: 7,879 ✭✭✭D3PO


    MrsMiaWallace wrote: »
    Come on estate agents act as a service for sellers and buyers, if they were that ruthless they would have a bad reputation and would be out of business.
    As an ex estate agent i find this quote quite unbelievable, a house is only worth what the buyer will pay for it, an agent cannot twist anyones arm! we are talking about buying a house here agents wont show you houses you cannot afford.If your looking at a house then you have the cash to buy the agent is just going to be helping you buy it as they will get a sale/commission. A few thousand in the way of offers is not going to make much difference to the agents fee's based on percentage :rolleyes: The aim is to SELL the property whatever it sells for isnt the agents concern unless your talking self employed agents selling houses at a million plus .:cool:
    Aslong as seller and buyer are happy the agent has achieved what they set out to do.

    Mrs Wallace Im sorry but the thruth hurts. Perhaps you were one of the rare breeds who were honest but estate agents regularly lie to drum up sale prices. EA's have no reason to help the buyer and they dont.

    2 prime examples

    1. A well know EA in south dublin was on Prime Time & Pat Kenny's radio show a few years back afte rbeing caught out lying and making "phantom bids" up to drum up the sale price. Hardly in the buyers interest was it ? I wont name names but Im sure many people on here know who Im talkng a about

    2. As an experiment I viewed a friends house as a prospective buyer when they were selling before. The EA came up witthe usual we have an offer of X on the property and this couple are very keen to buy etc etc. When I called him out and told him he was a lier and how I knew he was lying he went bright purple before trying to backtrack his story. He meant they were going to make this offer and they were really keane and he got his words mixed up.

    BullS**t EA's get commision on the house sale price therfore there vested interests, therfore they couldn't give a rats arse about the buyer except to squeeze every penny they can out of them


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    #11
    the_syco
    Registered Users Posts: 37,295 ✭✭✭✭the_syco


    MrsMiaWallace wrote: »
    Come on estate agents act as a service for sellers and buyers, if they were that ruthless they would have a bad reputation and would be out of business.
    But they do have a bad rep.


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    #12
    testicle
    Closed Accounts Posts: 5,430 ✭✭✭testicle


    the_syco wrote: »
    But they do have a bad rep.

    And they are going out of business...


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    #13
    antiskeptic
    Registered Users Posts: 9,555 ✭✭✭antiskeptic


    TwoShedsJackson wrote: »
    The estate agent is acting for the seller...

    This isn't quite so. The estate agent may or may not be acting for the seller. It is perfectly feasible (and wouldn't be something restricted to just estate agents) that the estate agent is acting for themselves in the first instance.
    ...and it's their job to get as much as they can out of you for a given property, as such you can treat anything she tells you as being an attempt to do so, and not an attempt to help you in any way.

    It makes no real material difference to the estate agents earnings whether or not the max price is reached. Compare the risk to ones commission if holding out for the top price on a house vs. the lowered risk to ones commission if the house is sold off as a relative bargain.

    Which would you do as an estate agent:

    1) Hold out for the commission on a hard-to-achieve £300,000?

    2) Take the near-same commission and run .. on a far easier to obtain £270,000?


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