Solicitor to bid on house?

Hi,
Need a bit of advice. We had viewed a house 5 months ago and though at the time the EA had said that the vendors would accept a figure of x, we decided to walk in the hope that in a few months time, if the house was still on the market, the price would be reduced further.

The house is back on the market at the price the vendors would have accepted previously for it, but with a different EA. It is disappointing that the house is now with this EA and frankly I do not wish to deal with him at all. Would you advise that I have another party negotiate the bidding on our behalf?

I know if we contact him directly that he will be aware of what price we can go to, and this will give him another opportunity to mess us about again. We were thinking of using a solicitor? Also, accepting that there is no other interest in the property how cheeky can we be with putting in an offer?

Cheers
dubda

Do you have anything to hide? If not, why go through a solicitor? At the end of the day, the EA will have to deal with you and not with the third party /also, do you want to pay a third party to do the bidding for you?/.
Looks like the vendor hasn't manage to sell and they want to. The EA wants to make their commission. This is a buyer's market and you have the full right to adopt the "take it or leave it" approach, no reason to be a "mysterious bidder". Be straight with the EA, at the end of the day, you've got the upper hand.

Yes, a solicitor can bid on your behalf. It's common enough where the purchaser doesn't want either the Estate agent or the vendor to know who is bidding. Usually the reason is that they feel if their identity becomes known the EA or Vendor might know enough ( or speculate) about their circumstances to believe they have more money to spend.

Maybe if you use a solicitor it will not take the EA long to put one and one together and work out who the vendor is.

Just lie to the EA and tell them that your personal circumstances have changed and can no longer afford what you used to.

i'm confused, how would the second EA know what you were prepared to bid if it is a different EA to the first time you viewed the house?
Is there a history of animus with this EA over another house you were looking at?

how about getting a couple of your friends to make an appointment to view the house and then get them to negotiate with the EA to find the lowest price it can be got for, let them make an offer and then get them to pull out as soon as their lowest offer is accepted. then in you come and start the process again but now you know the base price and the seller will be feeling a bit unhappy with previous buyers? you then come in at an even lower offer. this is underhand maybe and i am sure i will be told off ! - but we have done this numerous times in London and it works great. He who dares wins !

Do unto others...

I see absolutely no problem just bidding a lower price. That's what I did. I bid €Xk in July 2008, which was rejected. Then I bid again in October (a lower €Yk) so the EA would have known exactly what I had to spend and what I'd been approved for. She even asked me then if I'd like to reinstate my higher bid of the previous July - I said no. Anyway, that second bid was rejected as well and fast forward 6 months and I put in another, lower again, bid, which was finally accepted. The EA was perfectly well aware of the limit of my actual budget, but I just held firm on what I thought the house was worth. I wouldn't bother going through a third party OP unless there's a personal element that you want to keep private from the EA/Vendor.

This market is a different kettle of fish to that of 2/3 years ago, when information about the upper end of a buyer's budget and max loan approval would have been relevant.

Say you have been talking to the Bank again, since you last spoke to that estate agent, things have changed for you in the past few months and you need to seriously revise what's affordable for you.
For most people that does happen and estate agents know that.