Do Estate Agents Lie About Bids

boatsandhoes

Hi All,

Just wondering if anyone has experience with or come across estate agents lying about bids. I had been previously bidding on a house for 3-4 weeks between myself and one other party. my max bid was 355 but the other parties was 360 and they went sale agreed. A week later the estate agent came back to me saying the other bidders had pulled out and was i still interested. I said i was but not at my former price as i thought the price was artificially inflated by a bidder who ultimately pulled out.

I re bid 330 and he said he thought the owner would want to go back to the market given they originally had 360 which they did. They did a viewing sat 21st may and heard nothing back all week. I got a phone call on monday 30th to say a party from that viewing had bid 342500. Seems a bit suspicious to me that somebody would take that long to bid and the fact that its such a big jump from 330 for an inital bid. Do you think the agent is trying to trick me into bumping up my asking price? Seems a bit suspicious to me.

Thanks

galljga1

Does a bear sh1t in the woods?
In fairness, the above sounds plausible.The same happened to us when we were selling: the high bidder pulled out after inflating the price substantially. The underbidder settled below their last bid but way above the bid before the high bidder entered the affray (if that makes sense).

Alkers

What was the asking price?

Polo_Mint

Do they? Yes

They can create "Phantom" bidders to drive the price up.

"Phantom" bidders are also used in Auctions

Sky King

Be careful!

When my sis was selling her house she had sale agreed. The buyer thought that the agent was smoking up the price (he wasn't) so he pulled out and re bid a lower price.

Sis's Agent went back to the under-bidder who by this stage had gone cold and turned the offer down.

The whole thing looked like it had been a waste of time but as it happened I'd just gotten into a situation where I could buy the place for the underbiddrs price, so she accepted this and sold the place to me.

Original buyer then realised they weren't getting traction with reduced price and came back with original offer... was very insistent she accept. he ended up missing out.

JustAThought

Yss they absolutely do .

And, my friends suster who used work in one of the old big brand eatate agenta frequently used ask her to do this for her so that she would then get a greater % when the sale funally went through. A totally despicable woman.

Then there is also the court case of the mortgage brokerage company & developer working hand in hand - the broker would tell the seller hiw much the buyer was cleared to get a loan for and they would price or push up the price 'due to demand' accordingly. They were finally found out & it went to court - A Sutton/Co Dublin property developer & houses.

So yes - they get a % or are paid on comission. And it does happen.

Closed bids. Secret auctions. Invisible customers . Its unbelievable that that competition authority has not stepped in to this years ago. Rotten to the core I'd say.

boatsandhoes

The asking price was 315k. House is in bits so needs loads of works. I'm sure there could genuinely be a bidder but the fresh bid of 342500 was 12500 over previous bid i had entered and was their first bid. Its exactly half way between my current and my previous bid before the top bidder pulled out. Just seems a bit of a random number for a bid, like the agent is trying to get me back to where i was.

Michael D Not Higgins

This comes up a lot in this forum. You will not be able to tell a genuine bid from an invented one so the best advice is to bid what you think the house is worth and don't get caught up in bidding wars with real or phantom bidders.

galljga1

O.K. I believe there are dodgy practices in house sales but for a general one off sale where there is no collusion between seller and EA or buyer and EA, there may not be much to gain for the EA. Let's say the current bid is 500,000 and commission is 1%. The EA stands to get 5,000, happy days. After 2 - 3 months of additional viewings, phone calls and general hassle it goes sale agreed for 525,000. The EA gets an additional 250 euro. Is it worth it? On the other hand, that could be 2 weeks, 2.5% and sale agreed at 650,000 which comes to the princely sum of 3,750, not bad.

Homesick Alien

Definitely suspicious. A very strange bid to enter. It's obviously not unheard of to jump 10K or so in order to scare off other bidders however. The question you have to ask yourself is how much do you want the house? Because if you're going to call their bluff you have to be willing to lose it.

Bob24

I don't know if they lie (very difficult to know if you are not an insider).

But they certainly will accept bids from pretty much anyone without checking whether they are genuine and serious buyers (as far as the EA is concerned, the more bidders the better as it drives prices up).
So half the people you are bidding against are no seriously thinking of buying the property; some are even bidding on several properties at the same time.

The EA was not necessarily lying in the case you mentioned. You were very likely bidding against someone who was not that serious (and the agent didn't care as long as it was getting you to increase your offers).

Agents and seller are a bit hypocritical with this: on one hand they complain that half the sales or more are falling through, but on the other hand they have no interest in doing a pre-screening of bidders or making bids binding offers as they know it would reduce selling prices.

In any case, the best advice on the thread is the following:

Michael D Not Higgins wrote: »

This comes up a lot in this forum. You will not be able to tell a genuine bid from an invented one so the best advice is to bid what you think the house is worth and don't get caught up in bidding wars with real or phantom bidders.

Just decide what price the house is worth for you, and be ready to bit up to that price. Don't get too involved in the bidding process to much and just stop if it goes beyond your price (don't see it as a "war" with others bidders - which might or might not be genuine - but rather as a negotiation process with the seller).

CaoimheSquee

I have worked in a few different agencies over the years and genuinely never seen it being done.

Bear in mind that that the larger agencies are regularly audited by compliance departments, not just the PSRA. So contracts, bids, money laundering and BER's for all jobs HAVE to be up to date and are checked all the time. The newer agents coming to the industry have it drilled into them from college now so compliance procedures are thankfully becoming much more the norm. I am sure the smaller places find it harder to keep on top of the paper work but being honest I do not know how any agent would have the time to start phantom bids on their properties and then be able to keep track of it.

Having said that if you really did feel you were being messed around then log a complaint with the regulator. They will request to see the logged bids on the property which also have to detail when it was passed back to the vendor. Trust me, when or if these complaints come in they are treated very seriously.

Another thing to note is whether the estate agent is insisting on proof of funds from all their bidders. At least you know bids are as much as possible definite and can be backed up - not just a load of people bumping up a figure when the agent doesn't even know they are mortgage approved.

NinjaTruncs

The only way to know if it's a lie or not is to call their bluff and don't counter bid, then wait and see what the property sells for. However if you were willing to go to 355K it's very possible other people are.

Sheeeeit

I have viewed 3 or 4 houses in the past couple of weeks, all with different estate agents. In each case the estate agents have told me that there is a bid in for €10k less than the asking price. No matter what price the houses are there's always a bid in for €10k less. Is this just a coincidence? Or a typical starting point for bidding on a house? I was thinking the estate agents are just telling us that so that you have to bid in and around the asking price.

Tombo2001

I know when I was looking for a house two years ago; any time I looked at a place, and bids were coming in I was always thinking "No that cant be right, it couldn't be that much" - and then the house would go sale agreed and on EVERY OCCASION was backed up by price on the PPR.

I think there are a lot of lazy estate agents out there; but there are also a lot of good ones and I don't think they make prices up. Its easy to whinge about them but really its the wrong attitude in my view. You cant go around thinking the world is against you.

Maybe the environment has changed a bit, but I doubt it. There have always been these sort of threads on property pin and elsewhere and I think its bull myself.

bleary

Yep, agreed. When I've been bidding my family have helpfully chipped in that the ea is probably making up the bids as it always happens. Hasn't been the case so far and the have just succeeded in wrecking my head. Tbh ignore it, it doesn't really matter one way or another as someone said if you were willing to pay this amount at a time of limited supply why would someone else not?

boatsandhoes

Ye, that's true. Supply is shocking at the moment and no sign of it really improving so may be worth just going with it. Agent has been on the phone saying they are hoping to lock up the sale ASAP so likely to take that offer if i don't come back.

Tombo2001

I think you are far more likely to find irresponsible bidders than irresponsible estate agents.

The thing is that you have not bought the house until you sign the contract and handover the money.

Sale agreed is a gentlemans agreement with no legal foundation to it. I am sure there are bidders who will bid up, get sale agreed, and only then start thinking if they want to buy it or not.

I don't think its that common but it happens; and I think you have taken a good approach here because if someone bid up who wasn't serious, then that doesn't reflect the true value of the house.

Bob24

Tombo2001 wrote: »

I don't think its that common but it happens

I think between bidders who haven't really made up their mind or the ones who hadn't sorted their mortgage and offered more than what the bank is willing to lend to them, it actually happens fairly often.

In my experience it is fairly common to see properties marked as sale agreed and back to the market a few weeks later.

Tombo2001

Bob24 wrote: »

I think between bidders who haven't really made up their mind or the ones who hadn't sorted their mortgage and offered more than what the bank is willing to lend to them, it actually happens fairly often.

In my experience it is fairly common to see properties marked as sale agreed and back to the market a few weeks later.

Yes, and that's exactly why I described it as irresponsible.....if you've bid on a place and you don't know if you can get a mortgage for it - then you are just needlessly adding €5k or whatever on to the price for every other bidder. Of course you've never met these people and never will so......their problem.

Bob24

Tombo2001 wrote: »

Yes, and that's exactly why I described it as irresponsible.....if you've bid on a place and you don't know if you can get a mortgage for it - then you are just needlessly adding €5k or whatever on to the price for every other bidder. Of course you've never met these people and never will so......their problem.

True, but on the other hand these dodgy bidders can't really be blamed personally. Stopping this would be the responsibility of the governemetn or estate agents.

If neither the law nor industry practices make offers binding (or at least impose financial penalties if you withdraw your offer), people who are using the system aren't really doing anything wrong and are playing by the rules as much as more serious buyers.

JustAThought

Which estate agency 'regulator' - or do you mean the industry members club they all belong to which protects & promotes them? Request for Proof of funds is rare & usually reserved for those rare luxury high profile estates to keep the riff raff from smearing their hands on the silver during viewings. Certainly even the so called independent IAPI has no appetite for punishing those agencies who repeatedly misadvertise & misrepresent properties despute all their codes of practice & members guides. From what I see & have experienced Its a big party at their end & an unregulated farce.

allibastor

In my own experience, I have found they bend the truth a bit

I have very recently called an EA on a house in Stradbally. House is a nice house, 2k Sq foot.

3 bed 2 reception rooms.

Except, that 2 of the beds and the main bathroom are in the attic, and have no planning, and that the 2k Sq. foot is based on these rooms, and also very bad measurements.

Basically house is about 1150 Sq foot.

But yeah, my offer went in, and right away another offer came in for 8K higher, then my bid was mis-read so basically some other couple offered 8K more based on a poor bid.

CruelCoin

Absolutely they do.

It's a zero proof game. You'd be a fool to think they're not doing it.

CaoimheSquee

Definitely a minority that do.
And it would be very difficult these days to do now with the regulator, as by law they must be logged and open to investigation at any time.

Bob24

CaoimheSquee wrote: »

Definitely a minority that do.
And it would be very difficult these days to do now with the regulator, as by law they must be logged and open to investigation at any time.

While agents making-up bids out of thin air is indeed unlikely (but not impossible, in effect the regulator you mention has very little power to investigate), it also has to be said most agents will accept any bid without checking how serious the bidder is, which can have a similar effect.

For example lets say I have a house for sale and you make a genuine bid on it. If on my end I ask my friend to go for a viewing and overbid you (just to see if you will go higher), in all likelihood the agent will accept that bid no question asked and will tell you you need to increase the offer if you want the house.

Ironman76

We were looking around this time last year.

We viewed a house in the Santry area. It was us and another couple viewing. Other couple left before us.

We then had a chat with EA and he mentioned that the other couple have just made an offer for 5k over asking price. EA mentioned that they loved the house, particularly the attic conversion would be perfect for their daughter. He said it would be "sold by the end of the week". So we counter offered. A day later he said the other couple had counter offered again.

A few days later we viewed another house in Glasnevin and the same couple was there. We got chatting and we asked how the house-hunting was going. They mentioned they hadnt yet found anything suitable. I mentioned the Santry house and they said it needed too much work. Also they didnt like that there was no back garden, didnt like the fireplace etc etc. Clearly not interested.

ANother time there was a house on the market. . it was in bits. Falling apart so we put in an offer as house was the market a year. Suddenly there was a counter offer.. . .then another. So we pulled out. Six months later we saw the house was still on the market. So we offered again. Yet again a flood off offers poured in? !

There were other times with other houses. In the end we went with a broker and ended up where we are now, coudlnt be happier.

Couldnt take any more of the nonsense and BS from these guys.

allibastor

Ironman76 wrote: »

We were looking around this time last year.

We viewed a house in the Santry area. It was us and another couple viewing. Other couple left before us.

We then had a chat with EA and he mentioned that the other couple have just made an offer for 5k over asking price. EA mentioned that they loved the house, particularly the attic conversion would be perfect for their daughter. He said it would be "sold by the end of the week". So we counter offered. A day later he said the other couple had counter offered again.

A few days later we viewed another house in Glasnevin and the same couple was there. We got chatting and we asked how the house-hunting was going. They mentioned they hadnt yet found anything suitable. I mentioned the Santry house and they said it needed too much work. Also they didnt like that there was no back garden, didnt like the fireplace etc etc. Clearly not interested.

ANother time there was a house on the market. . it was in bits. Falling apart so we put in an offer as house was the market a year. Suddenly there was a counter offer.. . .then another. So we pulled out. Six months later we saw the house was still on the market. So we offered again. Yet again a flood off offers poured in? !

There were other times with other houses. In the end we went with a broker and ended up where we are now, coudlnt be happier.

Couldnt take any more of the nonsense and BS from these guys.

It is good you actually got to speak with the other couple.
Did you pull the EA up on this?

I do love to hear when a house has been for sale for AGES that the second you put in an offer a new offer comes right in behind it.

TheDoc

Michael D Not Higgins wrote: »

This comes up a lot in this forum. You will not be able to tell a genuine bid from an invented one so the best advice is to bid what you think the house is worth and don't get caught up in bidding wars with real or phantom bidders.

Looking from the outside, as someone who hasn't gone through the process yet, it's incredible how there isn't greater transparency about this bidding process.

L1011

JustAThought wrote: »

Which estate agency 'regulator' - or do you mean the industry members club they all belong to which protects & promotes them? Request for Proof of funds is rare & usually reserved for those rare luxury high profile estates to keep the riff raff from smearing their hands on the silver during viewings. Certainly even the so called independent IAPI has no appetite for punishing those agencies who repeatedly misadvertise & misrepresent properties despute all their codes of practice & members guides. From what I see & have experienced Its a big party at their end & an unregulated farce.

The Property Services Regulatory Authority. Who have legal powers of punishment and legislative rules not "codes of conduct".

notharrypotter

TheDoc wrote: »

Looking from the outside, as someone who hasn't gone through the process yet, it's incredible how there isn't greater transparency about this bidding process.

Just have a look at the number of posts where people are querying what to do when an EA asks them for proof they have funds available.

Everyone is in favour of greater transparency until it directly affects them.
Cant have it both ways.