Our Dealing with Estate agent so far on home purchase

Cool Rider

Hi,

Just want to start a thread on our dealing with Estate agent so far on home purchase and will add onto it as things will progress. Looking for comments and advise from everyone here:

1) On 24/09/12 we saw a house that we finally like and want to buy house was realistically priced at X so we offered the whole amount to the estate agent the very day.
2) On 26/9/12 agent calls me and said that they have received offer of X+1.5k on the house (which given the house is possible) and there are viewing again today. I didn't showed any emotions there on phone and repeated that our offer stands and re-iterating that we're loan approved and will make sure that everything goes smoothly and quickly. I then said that I'll think about this and will call him in next 2 days to speak and advised him to keep me in loop on any progress this.

Next steps to be followed.....

djimi

Im not Ive ever heard of anyone offer the asking price as their first offer before, realistically priced or not!

Cool Rider

You have now djimi, we've seen enough houses in the area in last year and know the rates the houses are going at in the vicinity. We offered the amount based on the house, just for comparison houses not as good as this one has sold for more money in last 2-3 months in the area and I know that how I have researched it well and can for sure say that this house is lowly priced, houses like this in vicinity are priced on avg. 15% above this house if that makes sense.
Thanks

godtabh

Cool Rider wrote: »

You have now djimi, we've seen enough houses in the area in last year and know the rates the houses are going at in the vicinity. We offered the amount based on the house, just for comparison houses not as good as this one has sold for more money in last 2-3 months in the area and I know that how I have researched it well and can for sure say that this house is lowly priced, houses like this in vicinity are priced on avg. 15% above this house if that makes sense.
Thanks

It doesnt with the lack of full stops!

Regardless of how much the house is valued at you should be offering less to give some room for you to wriggle.

If the cost was €100k offer say €95k even though you are willing to pay €100k. When the estate agent tries to wiggle a couple of extra thousand off you (which they have done) you can either leave it or increase your offer.

Now you will have to offer more to secure the house because of your initial high offer. Is the house worth say €103k when you might have got it for €93k (assuming you increase your offer by €3k)

Cool Rider

The house was priced at offers invited in excess of X, if this makes sense.

spockety

Cool Rider wrote: »

The house was priced at offers invited in excess of X, if this makes sense.

They can word their pricing however they like, doesn't make a difference to the market.

godtabh

Its only worth what some one is willing to pay for it. You offered them what they thought it was worth. It should be the other way around.

subway

negotiation 101. you have lost already I'm afraid.
up your bid or back off for 3-6 months.

Mellio

No matter what now at this point the agent is saying there is an offer on the table of the asking price plus 1.5K.

Everything else is irrelevant now.

You need to set yourself a limit(max your willing to pay) and stick to it, no point borrowing way more than you can afford and end up struggling for the next 25/30 years.

or

You can play hard ball and tell them that your offer still stands and that if the other offer falls through you are ready to do business straight away.

mathepac

Cool Rider wrote: »

... just for comparison houses not as good as this one has sold for more money in last 2-3 months in the area and I know that how I have researched it well ...

I'm with the others on this. Never offer what someone else values the house at. Get your own valuer in.

What research did you do? Did you ask buyers what they paid, because seller will lie and so will estate agents. Estate agents work for the seller to get as much money as possible for a house as their commission is based on what they get

djimi

Cool Rider wrote: »

You have now djimi, we've seen enough houses in the area in last year and know the rates the houses are going at in the vicinity. We offered the amount based on the house, just for comparison houses not as good as this one has sold for more money in last 2-3 months in the area and I know that how I have researched it well and can for sure say that this house is lowly priced, houses like this in vicinity are priced on avg. 15% above this house if that makes sense.
Thanks

Regardless of how low the price might have been, the owners priced it at X amount which is a figure that they would been looking for, therefore you offer them X - 10%/15% and start negotiations. If they dont want to accept your offer or better offers come in then so be it; you can always increase your bid. What you have done has left you no room for negotiations other than to offer more than the price they originally wanted.

Had you offered 10% less than the asking price and someone came back and offered a couple of grand more, you could have topped their offer and still be under/at the asking price.

It may well end up that the house winds up costing the same either way, but at least give yourself a fighting chance of getting the best price possible. Its not like you only get once chance to put in a bid...

bazwaldo

Rule #1 is work out how much you are willing and happy to pay for the house, and then never bid above that.

If you are outbid, if you want to put in a new bid, increment the other bid in as small an amount possible.

If you think your bid should acceptable and you feel the EA is making other bidders up, state this is your final bid, list the reasons you are a proferrable buyer (good to go etc) and give them a few days to think about it.

Last rule is be prepared to lose the house as there are always others that will be just as good as this but for other reasons.

killers1

Mellio wrote: »

You can play hard ball and tell them that your offer still stands and that if the other offer falls through you are ready to do business straight away.

Be careful with this approach unless you put a short term time-frame on your offer. You are basically saying 'take you time, try to get a higher bid than ours and worst case scenario you have our offer to fall back on'. Any EA worth their salt will continue to show the house in the hope of getting a higher price knowing they have a potential buyer waiting in the wings'

Tell them you are interested in a number of properties in the area and that your offer stands for a period of time... Arrange to view other properties the EA has on their books while your offer is being considered...

Cool Rider

So called EA and put an increased offer of (x+1.5)+1K, fingers crossed lets see what he comes back with at the end of the day.hmm

handlemaster

Better still. Drop your offer. That will get the EA off guard. Say you have done appraisal of works you want carried out and its higher than you expected / or have seen better house . You have reviewed your offer down. If the EA is bluffing about the other offer it will flush them out.

quaalude

Have you looked at the house price register to see how much other properties like it have actually sold for?

House price register search

Cool Rider

Had a call from EA again saying he is getting 1k more from 2nd bidder so I asked him to piss off, lets see whether thr was any bidder at 1st place or not.

I checked property register just now actually very handy information and price quoted seems to be in the ball range of what is selling in the area for last 6 months. That said seems like activity picked up after May I think due to MIR so might hold off till next summer to see MIR effect on prices.

the_syco

Cool Rider wrote: »

Had a call from EA again saying he is getting 1k more from 2nd bidder

HELLO PHANTOM BIDDER

Cool Rider wrote: »

so I asked him to piss off, lets see whether thr was any bidder at 1st place or not.

Good lad.

Maybe ring him back, and say in reference to the other bidder, your new bid is X, when X is 15% lower than the price of the house, and your offer is only valid for another 5 days.

Cool Rider

The house is gone sale agreed now with 2nd party. Gutted but take it as a learning experience.
Thanks for all your help...

djimi

Hopefully your learning experience includes not offering the asking price straight away the next time :P

P. Breathnach

Sorry that you missed out.

It's difficult to figure what you can learn from this. I wonder if you might be easier to push on price next time that you find a house that you would like to buy.

Sometimes the other bidder is real, and other times it is a phantom. I don't know how you can tell in a particular situation. Perhaps everybody trying to buy a house should engage a successful poker player to talk to the EA, because good card players can spot the "tells" of a bluffer.