Estate Agent who pulled out of apt sale

[Mrs Dara]

Anybody see the article in the Sunday paper, don't know which paper, about an estate agent who sold 60 new apartments a year a ago and then pulled out of the sale over the past week without informing the purchasers.

Hookie was talking about it on yesterday's programme and I missed it aswell. Does anyone know which apartments and estate agent it was. Can't find anything on the news sites.

Thanks

Dara

 

[OhPinchy]

I heard Hookie talking about this alright - it was apartments on King Street I think - 60 apartments I think it was.

The developer was Apex somebody or other. The estate agents name began with a 'bally' I think. From what I heard I don't think its the estate agents that are to blame - this is a case of the developer getting greedy in reckoning that he could make more profit by renting now and screwing all the people who had been waiting for their apartment for the last YEAR!

The girl on the show was even called in two months ago to pick tiles and paint schemes for her apartment. She found out by a phone call to tell her she had lost out and then got a letter from the estate agents. Other people didn’t even get contacted – they found out in the paper. I think it’s a disgrace that the law allows the developer to get away with something like this. As Hookie pointed out it may be lawful but its not moral.

As the guy from the Labour party that was on with Hookie said, legislation is needed to regulate the whole property market to ensure buyers are treated fairly. In other areas, such as the electricity industry etc. regulation is a bad thing for the consumer and deregulating the market increases competition which is beneficial to the consumer. Its not a case of regulating the property market (i.e. not regulation in the restricted competition sense) but more like installing a regulator (like IFSRA in the financial market) to monitor behaviour. If there was no regulator in the financial sector thered be even more ripping off customers than there already is. The property market is a huge industry and some of the shenanigans from developers and estate agents are disgraceful so I feel that introducing legislation specifying what is acceptable and what is not would protect the buyer which can only be a good thing.

 

[Unregistered]

There is nothing u could tell me about builders / estate agents that would shock me. Have been trying to buy a house for the last 6 months and the things I've seen. In the end am now buying my sisters house from her, cause dealing with anyone else is insane!

- I've had an estate agent tell me that unless I got the house surveyed( there were still at least 5 people bidding on it) then he wouldn't take me offer as serious! He wanted ALL of us to get it checkd, before we started to bid!

- I've been the highest bidder on a house @ 289k for 3 weeks, only for the house to jump to 310k which it sold for the next day! I mean the house had gone up 1k, 2k etc, then it suddenly jumped 21k after doing nothing for 3 weeks very odd

- I've had an offer accepted, only to be told the seller wouldn't agree to a moving out date. I explained it didnt really matter that so long as I had a date I'd be happy, I said 3 months? 6 months? 12 months? Nothing. At this stage you HAVE to think are they using my offer purely to get a mortgage or something, and then planning on putting the house back on the market when they are serious about selling.

My conclusions are WE NEED TO REGULATE this. Estate agents / builders have had it ALL their own way for so long. They dont need to work, the houses are selling themselves. There needs to be more clarity so people can see what is really going on. At the moment ur just bidding blindly and taking their word for it. Is a very odd situation I cant think of another like it in business today

My 2 cents...