Estate Agent Tricks

MarkAnthony

The image has been doctored.

Personally though, does it matter? You know you're dealing with Swiss-Tony when you pitch up for the viewing.

Berserker

April 73 wrote: »

We offered the asking price and almost immediate the bids rolled in. At the time I was convinced there were phantom bids but the house ending up selling for €45,000 over asking so the bids were real.

Eight weeks isn't that long a period. My sister was bidding on a house that had been on the market for over six months. Her friend lived next door to it and knew that there had been little to no viewings for months. Her friend is a stay at home mother, so she is at home most of the time. My sisters bid matched the asking price because she really wanted the house and she was naively hoping for a quick sale. The EA called her back, less than an hour after she put in her bid, to tell her that a new bid had come in which was above hers. This happened on another three occasions before my sister pulled out. My sister's final bid was €14K over the asking price. The house is still not sold, eight months later. Definitely something suspect going on there.

sapper

If there are any dodgy tactics going on, I would always look at who stands to benefit most - ie. the vendor. I really cant imagine any small local businessman or national brand would risk creating imaginary bids for an extra few 100 in commission - much more likely that the vendor is getting their cousin/mate to call up the EA to put a bid on to try and bleed more money out of the real bidder.

The EA is just doing their job by passing on the bid, even if they suspect the person on the other end of the phone isn't real. Theres no requirement to prove you are a genuine buyer before you put in a bid - I personally have never been asked to prove my credentials before bidding

Michael D Not Higgins

Berserker wrote: »

Eight weeks isn't that long a period of time. My sister was bidding on a house that had been on the market for over six months. Her friend lived next door to it and knew that there had been little to no viewings for months. Her friend is a stay at home mother, so she is at home most of the time. My sisters bid matched the asking price because she really wanted the house and she was naively hoping for a quick sale. The EA called her back less than an hour after she put in her bid, to tell her that a new bid had come in which was above hers. This happened on another three occasions before my sister pulled out. My sisters final bid was €14K over the asking price. The house is still unoccupied, eight months later. Definitely something suspect going on there.

Just because there's no bids doesn't mean there are no interested parties registered with the estate agent. As previously outlined above, someone can be slow playing it and pounce as soon as the agent informs them another person has bid. They could later pull out because another property they were bidding on accepted their offer.

The lack of transparency in the process lends itself to inventing a scapegoat in the times the bidding doesn't go our way. Just not knowing who the other bidder is means it could be anyone. It could be the agent pushing the price up for the vendor, or a genuine bid that later falls through, or as outlined above a relative pushing the price up for the vendor.

Sleepy

There's a huge number of Estate Agents currently placing properties on-sale for *WAY* less than their client is prepared to accept so even offers of asking price can be nowhere near what the vendor hopes to achieve. I've heard on the grapevine that our landlord's estate agent will be placing the house we currently rent on the market for 420k with ambitions to achieve a closing price in excess of 500k! :eek:

Berserker

Michael D Not Higgins wrote: »

Just because there's no bids doesn't mean there are no interested parties registered with the estate agent. As previously outlined above, someone can be slow playing it and pounce as soon as the agent informs them another person has bid. They could later pull out because another property they were bidding on accepted their offer.

The lack of transparency in the process lends itself to inventing a scapegoat in the times the bidding doesn't go our way. Just not knowing who the other bidder is means it could be anyone. It could be the agent pushing the price up for the vendor, or a genuine bid that later falls through, or as outlined above a relative pushing the price up for the vendor.

So, this other bidder waited for over six month's before bidding and continued to bid until my sister pulled out and never bought the house. This house is located down the country, fyi and there are plenty of empty houses in the area. My sister purchased another house around the corner from it. She bid €25K under and it was accepted straight away. Could have been the case that the owner had unrealistic expectations regarding the sale value but would that be reported as "new bids" by the EA. Surely, he or she would say that the bid was not accepted by the owner?

Michael D Not Higgins

Berserker wrote: »

So, this other bidder waited for over six month's before bidding and continued to bid until my sister pulled out and never bought the house. This house is located down the country, fyi and there are plenty of empty houses in the area. My sister purchased another house around the corner from it. She bid €25K under and it was accepted straight away. Could have been the case that the owner had unrealistic expectations regarding the sale value but would that be reported as "new bids" by the EA. Surely, he or she would say that the bid was not accepted by the owner?

There's no way of knowing and that's the lack of transparency. If her friend lives next door, then they might know the vendors. Maybe ask them?

Most likely is that the vendor wouldn't settle for the reasonable market price and was still holding out. EAs have to temper the expectations of their client but when bids start coming in then the vendor might see it as their opportunity to hold out for more.

These are all just guesswork, but if anyone's playing silly buggers with the bidding process, it's less likely to be the professionals in the middle.

mad m

I feel for you OP, wouldn't want to be in that situation again. When I bought my house many moons ago we went to a sealed bid. We put down 148k (punts) at the time.

I didn't tell wife but I tore up bid and rewrote a new one and put down 145k. we got it and saved 3k. Estate agents have their tricks but when they are working for you to sell a house you don't care what method they use, they are there to get the best price for you and commission for them. All I can say is go with your gut.

Good luck with your search I'm sure you will get something.

heavy_sleeper

sapper wrote: »

If there are any dodgy tactics going on, I would always look at who stands to benefit most - ie. the vendor. I really cant imagine any small local businessman or national brand would risk creating imaginary bids for an extra few 100 in commission - much more likely that the vendor is getting their cousin/mate to call up the EA to put a bid on to try and bleed more money out of the real bidder.

The EA is just doing their job by passing on the bid, even if they suspect the person on the other end of the phone isn't real. Theres no requirement to prove you are a genuine buyer before you put in a bid - I personally have never been asked to prove my credentials before bidding

the whole " its not worth the EA,s time pumping the property for the sake of a small bit extra commission " line has been debunked time and time again

1. it makes an auctioneer look better if they can pull of a higher priced sale ( and will deliver them more business in the future )

2. its a thrill for them and auctioneers are usually that kind of personality

JimmyMW

heavy_sleeper wrote: »

the whole " its not worth the EA,s time pumping the property for the sake of a small bit extra commission " line has been debunked time and time again

1. it makes an auctioneer look better if they can pull of a higher priced sale ( and will deliver them more business in the future )

2. its a thrill for them and auctioneers are usually that kind of personality

Your spot on here, its not the extra commission on that one sale but the volume of business generated from being able to command the highest prices for the vendor.

rocheyk1

blackeyedpeat wrote: »

Maybe you need to rethink your strategy? Most of us "hope to get a property at the lowest possible price" and follow the same patterns. When selling our house, on the first day of viewing the opening bidders, went over the asking price before they left the property. This instantly killed off nearly all the "hopeful wait and see bidders" and subsequent viewings. Within 24hrs a small bid followed by another large increase, killing off the second bidder. Luckily a third bidder then arrived on the scene after ten days. The two then played it out in reasonable figures over the next 48 hrs. I know this is not the norm but I think the original bidders knew what the wanted and at what the likely end price would be. By not following the normal bidding cycle they took out virtually all the tyre kickers and were able then to ensure that the sale didn't drag out. In the end the house sold pretty much for what we had expected/discussed with our estate agent. It's not the normal bidding pattern, some would say brave/some stupid. Reflecting on it, a bid is not legally binding but by bidding at the top end of your budget you could scare off most of the opposition and make sure the EA takes you seriously.

Thanks for this advice. we're going to look at a house today and thinking on putting in an aggressive bid. A 10K jump from the current bid and 15K short of our upper limit and go from there.

I know there's a number of cash buyers out there at the moment... which is a b*ll*x. but we'll go up to what we think the house is worth to us and if it's gone over that. it's not for us...

TeaBagMania

mountai wrote: »

My rule when buying is , decide what the property is worth to YOU , make that offer and walk away if you are messed around.

This is my attitude to buying. As someone who would like to purchase a house in Ireland I try and explore all avenues of education. From what I’ve gathered reading posts here, there are a lot of messers whether it’s the EA or home owner, as mountai mentioned, place your bid and keep looking\bidding on other properties.

Butters1979

Berserker wrote: »

So, this other bidder waited for over six month's before bidding and continued to bid until my sister pulled out and never bought the house. This house is located down the country, fyi and there are plenty of empty houses in the area. My sister purchased another house around the corner from it. She bid €25K under and it was accepted straight away. Could have been the case that the owner had unrealistic expectations regarding the sale value but would that be reported as "new bids" by the EA. Surely, he or she would say that the bid was not accepted by the owner?

I'd say what happened here is someone else already had a bid in, the vendor was waiting to see what will happen. Then when your sister put in a higher bid, the EA contacted the other bidder who immediately upped their bid.

Your whole story is assuming that your sister was the first one to actually place a bid, and ignores the possibility there was already a bid on the property in which you sister just challenged.

lcwill

mountai wrote: »

My rule when buying is , decide what the property is worth to YOU , make that offer and walk away if you are messed around. When selling , decide what you WANT and the first offer you get accept it. Do not become involved in their games , Gazumping etc , because karma is just around the corner. The sooner that the law is changed to the French system the better IMHO.

I agree with this. I bought an apartment in Dublin city centre in Dec 2012. The asking price was so low I almost didn't go and see it but it turned out it was nice. The agent said there were other people interested and eventually we went to sealed bids.

I decided what I was willing to pay and made a bid 25% above asking price and won.

Did the other bidders exist? I don't know.

Could I have got it for less? Maybe. And I knew from the property price register that 2 neighboring apartments sold for just over the same asking price a few months earlier so I knew I had missed out on the real bargains.

Did I think it was worth what I offered? Definitely. I was buying based on rental yield so had an objective indicator of value. And now it would sell for double the original asking price but I could never have predicted that and would have still be happy with my decision is house prices had stayed flat or declined even further but I knew the risk of this was low.

Best place to start when valuing a house is the rental yield - look at daft or PRTB for yields in your area on the kind of property you are looking at and calculate the starting value based on that as this shows the price investors would be willing to pay.

Then calculate how much you would be willing to go above that price for a house you want to own and live in yourself.