Should I tell estate agents how much we have?

emmetfahy

We want to buy a house. We have x amount. Should we tell estate agents what our upper limit is?
Ideally, we want them to get property owners interested in reducing their price to our level rather than looking at places set at or below what we have.

Thanks, any advice appreciated.

blindside88

I'm not speaking from experience but in this kind of situation I would always tell them a little under my max as they will always come in with that great property just over your max

questionmark?

OP the estate agents job is to get the maximum price for the vendor. Don't show your cards. You know what your limit is and that's enough.

Slydice

No, don't tell the estate agents anything about your money. It's a really important piece of information that they can screw you with. They've been known to go to lengths such as having a "partner" firm offering mortgages just to find out how much money they can get out of buyers.

You are in a market.
- You are buying. You want to spend as little as possible.
- Others are selling. They want you to spend as much as possible.
- Estate Agents are in the middle and make more money if they get you to spend more money so they are on the sellers side.

Looks at property in the neighbourhood of where you are thinking of buying.
Go on to daft.ie and see how much similar places "asking" prices are.
Go on to propertypriceregister.ie and see how places ACTUAL selling prices were
Make an offer you think is fair or just under fair if you want to try negogiating with the Estate Agent (as you could then up your offer to what you think is fair).
Don't believe anything the Estate Agent tells you. They get more money if they can get you to spend more money. I can't repeat this enough. It's a DUH thing.

Finally, don't get stuck on any one property. Be willing to walk away. Remember, you can always find another place. There are hundreds of thousands of em.

If you just plain can't unstick yourself from somewhere. Try your best not to let either the estate agent or seller know.

Woodville56

We are in a similar position to OP in this regard. We have identified (from DAFT/MyHome) properties in our area which interest us, and have shortlisted a number that we would consider placing a bid on. These properties are offered by a combination of 2 local EA's and our plan is to approach both auctioneers, outlining our criteria for properties we would consider e.g. no of bedrooms, size , garden, parking spaces, maturity of estate etc.
We propose to ask the EA's regarding properties on their books matching our criteria, without actually naming the properties we have identified on DAFT etc.. Like the OP, we are in a quandary as to how we can get the EA's to seriously discuss our interest in their properties without disclosing, at least in broad terms, what our budget is ??. We don't wish to be wasting the EA's time (or ours for that matter) in discussing or viewing properties that are significantly in excess of our budget. How do we get each EA to treat us as serious buyers if we are too vague in our discussions with them regarding our budget and also, should we disclose that we are having similar discussions with competing EA's regarding other properties in the area ?
Comments/advice welcome please ?

emmetfahy

Woodville56 wrote: »

We are in a similar position to OP in this regard. We have identified (from DAFT/MyHome) properties in our area which interest us, and have shortlisted a number that we would consider placing a bid on. These properties are offered by a combination of 2 local EA's and our plan is to approach both auctioneers, outlining our criteria for properties we would consider e.g. no of bedrooms, size , garden, parking spaces, maturity of estate etc.
We propose to ask the EA's regarding properties on their books matching our criteria, without actually naming the properties we have identified on DAFT etc.. Like the OP, we are in a quandary as to how we can get the EA's to seriously discuss our interest in their properties without disclosing, at least in broad terms, what our budget is ??. We don't wish to be wasting the EA's time (or ours for that matter) in discussing or viewing properties that are significantly in excess of our budget. How do we get each EA to treat us as serious buyers if we are too vague in our discussions with them regarding our budget and also, should we disclose that we are having similar discussions with competing EA's regarding other properties in the area ?
Comments/advice welcome please ?

That's the issue isn't it. I think we'll try and not say exactly how much we have and perhaps, if forced, say that we have say 20k less than we actually do.

mel.b

I can't remember exactly when i was looking, i think one agent might have asked me about my budget. I was just vauge and said that the house was more important at the moment and if he suggested a house that was way out of my budget i just said it didn't suit because of location/size etc so i didn't have to give away too much. Then again, i also wasn't looking at houses that were way outside of my budget anyway.

Snakeblood

Woodville56 wrote: »

We are in a similar position to OP in this regard. We have identified (from DAFT/MyHome) properties in our area which interest us, and have shortlisted a number that we would consider placing a bid on. These properties are offered by a combination of 2 local EA's and our plan is to approach both auctioneers, outlining our criteria for properties we would consider e.g. no of bedrooms, size , garden, parking spaces, maturity of estate etc.
We propose to ask the EA's regarding properties on their books matching our criteria, without actually naming the properties we have identified on DAFT etc.. Like the OP, we are in a quandary as to how we can get the EA's to seriously discuss our interest in their properties without disclosing, at least in broad terms, what our budget is ??. We don't wish to be wasting the EA's time (or ours for that matter) in discussing or viewing properties that are significantly in excess of our budget. How do we get each EA to treat us as serious buyers if we are too vague in our discussions with them regarding our budget and also, should we disclose that we are having similar discussions with competing EA's regarding other properties in the area ?
Comments/advice welcome please ?

Serious buyers don't tell EAs their budget because serious buyers know EAs are trying to prise cash from them.

I just look at the properties and go to the ones I'm interested in. I've put in bids on things and if I am at my limit or I don't think the house is worth more, I tell them that that's as much as I'm interested in bidding for that house. That's all they need to know.