Estate Agent will not accept our offer!

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tufty1

Registered User
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Afternoon folks, neebie here but love the forum.

We have seen the house of our dreams and want to put an offer in asap. However, when we saw the house lastnight, the EA implied that they would not accept any offers if we or anyone else had a house to sell! Hardly seems fair that you have to have your house sold before you can look for a new one! Is this normal?

Just wondering if there are any ways around this requirement or alternative suggestions to the EA and vendor that may have worked in the past?

Our own house has only recently been placed on the market.

Thanks for any replies.
 
Re: Estage Agent will not accept our offer!

tufty1 said:
We have seen the house of our dreams and want to put an offer in asap. However, when we saw the house lastnight, the EA implied that they would not accept any offers if we or anyone else had a house to sell! Hardly seems fair that you have to have your house sold before you can look for a new one! Is this normal?
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Maybe those are the instructions that the vendor has given them? Their prerogative I suppose. They may not want any potential hassle with the buyers of their property getting delayed because their own property doesn't sell on time. Maybe if you can convince the vendor and their agent that the sale of your property would not be a problem even if it was delayed (assuming, of course, that this is actually the case) it might help?
 
Re: Estage Agent will not accept our offer!

tufty1 said:
, the EA implied that they would not accept any offers if we or anyone else had a house to sell! Just wondering if there are any ways around this requirement or alternative suggestions to the EA and vendor that may have worked in the past?

Our own house has only recently been placed on the market.
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Did you enquire to see if the vendor wants a quick sale? If he/she does I can see the logic where they prohibit bids from people who need to offload an existing property which could take months.
 
Re: Estage Agent will not accept our offer!

Can see why the vendor would want this. If the shoe was on the other foot....
 
Re: Estage Agent will not accept our offer!

Welfarite said:
Can see why the vendor would want this. If the shoe was on the other foot....
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Fully agree.

Most vendors will request this from the EA.

Even a FTB will be requested to provide some sort of proof of lending approval to help ensure the fastest possible sale (along with highest price of course) is secured.

I'd tend to go with a lower offer of a few k from a buyer ready to buy rather than take the risks on a buyer in your position, if I was the seller.

Remember that the EA also wants a quick sale (they make more from volume of sales than from eeking out every last cent from the buyer) so they won't encourage a seller to accept from a buyer in your current situation.
 
Re: Estage Agent will not accept our offer!

I encountered that attitude from a number of agents when we were in the early stages of looking. Having had a property I was confident would go sale agreed within four weeks (as indeed ultimately it did) I had no intention of putting our house on the market unless and until we were sale agreed on a new property.

We went to the bank to get bridging sorted out, and got pre-approval on bridging finance. This ended up being surprisingly cheap (they waived the arrangement fee since we'd already decided to go with them for the mortgage, and as we didn't have the money for long, the interest was only about €700). Well worth it, to be in the "effective cash buyers" category.

It's not an option for everyone, though - you'd need a very low remaining mortgage LTV, if any balance remains, and if your own property does take a while to sell, it quickly becomes a burden.

Good luck...
 
Re: Estage Agent will not accept our offer!

We were in your exact position fairly recently, and got so frustrated with the EAs saying this very thing that we held off viewings until we sold our property (which didn't take long).

By chance, we've found a new House, which is better than the others we looked at before.

You never know what'll happen.
 
Re: Estage Agent will not accept our offer!

Thanks folks.

Yeah, their house has been on the market since the summer. Previously went to auction, did'nt get the asking price, changed EA's and added another €200,000 onto the asking price and still no takers, we're they only ones interested!

So whilst we're confident our house will sell (its up for a good price) we know that the house we want is way over priced. So i think its abit much to insist that we must have ours sold before we can bid.

Wondering if we have to tell the EA we have a house to sell at all? I mean who's to know? If we don't well ours in time, we can pull out or try for a bridging loan.

Thanks again
 
Re: Estage Agent will not accept our offer!

tufty1 said:
So whilst we're confident our house will sell (its up for a good price) we know that the house we want is way over priced. So i think its abit much to insist that we must have ours sold before we can bid.
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Are you going to bid at asking or way below.
 
Re: Estage Agent will not accept our offer!

We are going to bid at less than the asking price, whilst the house is stunning, it does have problems with it, e.g. no drive, access is via a pedestrian lane! so whilst we are not in a great position to bid, neither are they getting any offers as its so over priced!
In fairness i think we've resigned ourselves to waiting until ours is sold, the other house may still be there in 4 months anyway!
 
Re: Estage Agent will not accept our offer!

In fairness i think we've resigned ourselves to waiting until ours is sold
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This of course could be to your advantage as you will at least have peace of mind of not having a burden of 2 properties.
 
Re: Estage Agent will not accept our offer!

tufty1 said:
Wondering if we have to tell the EA we have a house to sell at all? I mean who's to know?
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Well they could find out if they are really bothered, i.e. ask who are you selling through and get a copy of their listings or have a look on Myhome etc.

It's not an uncommon occurence and as elcato says, it could be in your interests to get your own house sold/sale agreed before buying another.
 
Re: Estage Agent will not accept our offer!

Alternatively , source a bridging loan and factor the cost of it into your bid i.e. €1/2M will cost about 10K for 6 months(thats a rough guess!).
Put that to them as a cash buyer and you will also see how genuine they are as sellers.
 
Re: Estage Agent will not accept our offer!

Had same problem with an EA I was dealing with but he kept taking my bid on house we liked. He kept saying that the Vendor was burned in past when a chain was involved etc....I reckon its an EA's bargaining tool. We eventually went sale agreed and we were told that the tenants in house were only on a month to month basis.But it was all lies,they had a legally binding lease till end of jan....

We eventually pulled out of buying house because of rising dampness...I reckon the EA wants a quick sale and get their revenue up...
 
Re: Estage Agent will not accept our offer!

Two possible approaches

1) Try to speak directly to the owner of the house. Knock on their door and see if the auctioneer is acting in accordance with their instructions.

2) Ask the auctioneer if he will sell your home for you. That might make him more proactive in putting the total deal together.

Brendan
 
Re: Estage Agent will not accept our offer!

tufty1 said:
Yeah, their house has been on the market since the summer. Previously went to auction, did'nt get the asking price, changed EA's and added another €200,000 onto the asking price and still no takers, we're they only ones interested!
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increase or reduced price by €200k?

Though costly, but you seem to love this house, have you considered getting a bridging load, e.g. acquisition can go ahead even if your current house is not sold?
 
Re: Estage Agent will not accept our offer!

bacchus said:
increase or reduced price by €200k?
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When a property fails at auction, the subsequent private treaty asking price is frequently set higher than the original auction AMV. This is because auction AMV's don't usually represent the price at which a vendor will actually sell.
 
I believe that it is standard enough for an EA not to accept any offers from someone who hasn't gone sale agreed, so for the second house we went to see we told a 'white lie' and told the vendor's EA we had offers in on our own house (our own house wasn't even up for sale at that stage), I know this was a bit risky but we were confident we'd sell our own house very quickly (sold in 2-3 weeks). I know other people who've done this also.
 
Moneypit said:
I believe that it is standard enough for an EA not to accept any offers from someone who hasn't gone sale agreed, so for the second house we went to see we told a 'white lie' and told the vendor's EA we had offers in on our own house (our own house wasn't even up for sale at that stage), I know this was a bit risky but we were confident we'd sell our own house very quickly (sold in 2-3 weeks). I know other people who've done this also.
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It should have nothing to do with the EA whether or not they will accept an offer dependant on a buyers position. He should have clear guidlines from the seller, who he is working for, and if no conditions are given he should provide the seller with every offer no matter what the background. Just because an EA takes an offer to the seller, it doesn't mean that the seller won't reject this offer for a lower one from a buyer in a better position.

A decent EA should have caught you out on that "white lie". Through general chit chat they'll get a good idea of your current location. When you say you've offers on your home/gone sale agreed/etc. an estate agent will often call up as a potential buyer to the selling EA and see for themselves where you stand putting in a false bid, or hinting that they'll bid to seek further info, to test the waters (so.... tell them nothing when your viewing ;) ).
 
I viewed a vacant house a couple of weeks ago which had just recently gone on the market. Fed up of looking around and really liking the house, I offered the full asking price (I am mortgage approved, renting, can move quickly). Since then, the EA has been giving me the runaround. I am certain I am bidding against a phantom bidder. Every couple of days he would ring to say that "another thousand has gone on", trying to eek more money out of me. I raised my bid a couple of times but I got so fed up of this that when he rang last Friday with the same old line I pulled out. However, I'm certain he's bluffing as he said that "if it doesn't work out I will get back in touch".
In addition, he told me that he would stop viewings and close the deal. I got a friend to ring up and she was offered an appointment.

I am very tempted to put a letter through the owner's door to alert her to her EA's behaviour. This deal could have been done and dusted days ago.
 
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