Viewed a house, now what

[Warren]

Folks we recently viewed a house and are potentially interested in buying. The estate agent has said that the owner has refused an offer of X. If we are seriously interested what's the next step, is it to ring the estate agent say we are interested and arrange to have an engineer review the house. Or is normal practice to put in a bid on the assumption that it only stands after an engineers report is complete. What should we do next?

Thanks,
Warren

 

[bacchus]

Owner refusing offer can be pure EA bull, nobody knows.
Put your offer in ignoring offer of X and wait and see.
Only start encuring cost once your offer has been accepted.

 

[Macstuff]

Put in your offer, ignoring what the estate agent told you. You will quickly receive feedback on it. If its rejected you will have to decide how much higher you will go.
The main pointis that once you place an offer the agent will have your contact details and will update you on any counter bids.
If you do get the house, you will be asked to pay a deposit to secure it, approx €5k to €10k, you pay this by cheque to the estate agent. At this point the house is marked 'Sale Agreed'. You should then engage your surveyor, lawyer etc.