buying a house - EA looking for proof of mortgage

zenzen

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Has anyone heard of this before? The estate agent looking for proof of mortgage? The thing is that we don't have a mortgage, we want to buy in cash, we have a reasonable amount available but not the full asking prices that are out there. We would be putting in offers 20% to 30% lower depending on the property of course. What should be done in this situation? Should we say straight out that we are cash buyers? We can't provide any proof of mortgage but want to view houses!
 
Yes, it's common as there are an awful lot of timewasters out there.
Tell him you're a cash buyer - you've no other choice really.
 
The EA just wants to make sure that you can go ahead with any offer that you are / will make... Tell the EA that you are cash buyers ...

A bank account statement might be needed to verify that you have the funds in the event that the offer is accepted... BUT if you don't have the full asking price, then showing that statement to the EA prior to any acceptance is just showing him/her how much you have "to play with" so to speak...

Also, put the offer in writing if you are serious about it...

Good luck!
 
The estate agents should be biting your hand off if you are cash buyers.

It means that the deal can go ahead quickly without the mortgage lender raising all sorts of objections.

I doubt if they would want proof of that. But a letter from your solicitor saying that you are cash buyers without disclosing the amount should suffice.

You can use the fact positively in your negotiations. "That is all I can afford as I am not borrowing any money. If the offer is not acceptable, I will be making an offer on another property" The estate agent will work hard to try to get the seller to accept the offer. Cash is cash.

Being a cash buyer allows you to look at some houses which would never be approved for a mortgage e.g ones with a minor title problem.

Brendan
 
Is the EA demanding to see mortgage approval from you even before allowing you to view any properties? It seems rather over the top to me, is it really now common?

I can understand the EA asking for this before accepting offers, but just for viewing?
 
EA would be wasting time by showing properties to buyers who have no money to buy. So it makes sense if they do basic checks before hand IMO.
 
Has anyone heard of this before? The estate agent looking for proof of mortgage? The thing is that we don't have a mortgage, we want to buy in cash, we have a reasonable amount available but not the full asking prices that are out there. We would be putting in offers 20% to 30% lower depending on the property of course. What should be done in this situation? Should we say straight out that we are cash buyers? We can't provide any proof of mortgage but want to view houses!

I'll share my experience, I was over in Ireland during the summer and I had a look at a few places, although I have not found what I'm looking for yet. Anyway once I told the AE that it would be a cash transaction and that the cash could be transferred within 48 hours, they could not do enough to help me find a place, no questions asked :)

As regards the asking price, think of it just as a suggestion!!! As they say cash is king and with builders struggling to get their hands on it, it is amazing what deals can be done. I had two builders over in the West, willing to cut their prices by between 40% - 50%! So go ahead and make them an offer, all they can say is no.

Good luck with that,

Jim (Switzerland)
 
EA would be wasting time by showing properties to buyers who have no money to buy. So it makes sense if they do basic checks before hand IMO.

It does make sense from that point of view, but I think it's overintrusive - I don't really want to show my financial details, including bank statements, to every Tom, Dick and Harry Estate Agent, so unless all of them demanded it, I'd just give those demanding a miss and go and view properties with more reasonable ones.

Also until you have had a look at a few houses, you might not know how much of a mortgage you need.

I never got a mortgage approval before viewing at least a few houses, any agent who demanded it from me before even bothering to do a viewing would have been told to get real.

I did have to provide a mortgage approval once - but only AFTER putting an offer in. Even then, the piece of paper I provided wasn't really worth much - it just stated that based on the information I provided, the bank would be prepared to lend me x amount subject to usual checks.
 
We only had one house we were interested in seeing, and would only sell our own home if we thought we could get that one. I told the EA we hadn't even got our house on the market or sought mortgage approval and was that a problem. He just said, sure I'll show it to you and see where we go from there. Think the fact that it had been on the market for 9mths and had had no viewings in the past 5mths probably helped. That was in May and we're waiting for contracts now. So it was worth his while showing us the house.
 
Most banks will no longer give mortgage approval in writing as they can't say for definite until you put the application in for an actual property whether they will give money or not. I'm saying this from experience as we had mortgage approval from more than one institute, we found house we loved, bid was accepted but banks refused us mortgage.
 
It does make sense from that point of view, but I think it's overintrusive - I don't really want to show my financial details, including bank statements, to every Tom, Dick and Harry Estate Agent, so unless all of them demanded it, I'd just give those demanding a miss and go and view properties with more reasonable ones.

Also until you have had a look at a few houses, you might not know how much of a mortgage you need.

I never got a mortgage approval before viewing at least a few houses, any agent who demanded it from me before even bothering to do a viewing would have been told to get real.

I did have to provide a mortgage approval once - but only AFTER putting an offer in. Even then, the piece of paper I provided wasn't really worth much - it just stated that based on the information I provided, the bank would be prepared to lend me x amount subject to usual checks.

There's no question of the OP having to provide bank statements! When I was buying last year, AIB gave me a mortgage approval letter, I tipexed out the amount and scanned it and emailed it to the EA after they had asked for it, makes a lot of sense to me.
 
There's no question of the OP having to provide bank statements! When I was buying last year, AIB gave me a mortgage approval letter, I tipexed out the amount and scanned it and emailed it to the EA after they had asked for it, makes a lot of sense to me.

Did you have to do this before the EA even allow you to view any properties, or when you wanted to put in an offer? If the latter, it does make some sense, it really it's no guarantee of anything for the EA.

As you tipexed out the amount, it didn't really mean much - what if the mortgage approval was for 20K? :)
And what's to stop time wasters saying they are cash buyers?

Maybe it's the new way in Ireland - demanding mortgage approvals before bothering to show up to show a property, but it seems all wrong to me. EAs weren't demanding it in boom times, when there was a strong interest from viewers, why demand it now, are EAs so overworked these days?:)

OK, it might put off some time wasters, but it will also put off some genuine buyers, and there aren't that many of those these days.
 
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