Do Estate Agents pretend they have a higher offer

Jack53

Trying to buy three houses since June this year. Each time we have been out bid and cant afford to go higher. But when we withdraw our offer the house is still up on DAFT.
for example,
house looking for 375.
we offer 365
come back and say they've offer of 370
then we offer 371
them they come back and say they another person in loop and theyve offered 374
we offer 376
they say the original person now offering 377.
we withdraw as i feel its not worth anymore.
its sale agreed on daft
week later its back on daft and open viewing again. what happened to the two other viewers.? strange? no? friends of owner?

A Shaved Duck?

To be fair there is messing about by bidders aswell, ive heard of people bidding above the limits that have been ony approved in principle then the underwriters refuse the mortgage.. agents obv dont cover themselves in glory either and the lack of information provided to people that are going to spend 100's of thousands is criminal.

Jack53

i feel there is no transparency.

Xterminator

Do Estate Agents pretend they have a higher offer

probably.

but as the last poster said, there are many reasons why this could have happened and they don't all involve dishonesty. You have people who are in a chain, you have people who make bids on multiple properties, and those who for one reason or another withdraw or make an offer they cannot get approval for.

Jack53

s'pose

bit annoying tho. Called today to see if i could offer on that particular house. i asked if they had an offer - yeah 377 as the response.

JDD

I suppose the thing is to say that your previous offer of €376 still stands if whoever put in the €377 offer pulls out. Tell him you are bidding for another house in the area, and it looks like that house is getting to the end of the process so you'd expect to know whether you have it by the end of the week. He may completely disregard this, but there's no point in him thinking you're happy to sit there with a safety net of an offer while he's goes around trying to find bidders who'll go higher.

Thestones

Jack53 wrote: »

Trying to buy three houses since June this year. Each time we have been out bid and cant afford to go higher. But when we withdraw our offer the house is still up on DAFT.
for example,
house looking for 375.
we offer 365
come back and say they've offer of 370
then we offer 371
them they come back and say they another person in loop and theyve offered 374
we offer 376
they say the original person now offering 377.
we withdraw as i feel its not worth anymore.
its sale agreed on daft
week later its back on daft and open viewing again. what happened to the two other viewers.? strange? no? friends of owner?

Strange that they wouldn't call you the underbidder if the person who bid higher pulled out. It does suggest their tactic of getting a higher price didn't work so they are trying again on the open market.

Nothing you can do though if the seller wants a particular price and you won't go there they don't have to sell to you. Often properties are priced lower to attract interest but they don't want to sell for the asking price.

Jack53

Thestones wrote: »

Strange that they wouldn't call you the underbidder if the person who bid higher pulled out. It does suggest their tactic of getting a higher price didn't work so they are trying again on the open market.

thats exactly my feeling. !!

JDD

That's why I would put on a bit of pressure. The seller might have a figure in his head - €380k or so, but if he sees bids start to dry up at the €375 mark and the highest genuine bidder (you at €376k) might close elsewhere it might just get him to close at your price. It's so hard though, you really need to be detached from the whole process. If he's willing to let you go at the end of the week then I'd take it that he considers your price too low and you'd only be wasting your time.

Jack53

feel like withdrawing offer at 376, waiting a few days and submitting another offer lower. I really have a feeling there was never another two bidders and it was only to make us keep upping

BailMeOut

remember that the EA makes around 1.5% commission which equates to €15 per €1000 on sales price so there is very little incentive for them to mess with you over a few grand.

Jack53

BailMeOut wrote: »

remember that the EA makes around 1.5% commission which equates to €15 per €1000 on sales price so there is very little incentive for them to mess with you over a few grand.

i know i know, but whats stopping the sellers pal making a fictional bid. its not as if hes to give a bank draft. its just a phone call and an email to follow confirming

ellobee

Jack53 wrote: »

feel like withdrawing offer at 376, waiting a few days and submitting another offer lower. I really have a feeling there was never another two bidders and it was only to make us keep upping

Auctioneers and estate agents are legally obliged to keep records of all bids made on properties so they can be examined by the authority. If they do not keep appropriate records and are found to be guilty of improper conduct following a PSRA investigation they can be fined up to €250,000 by the PSRA or have their licence to trade revoked.

Ask to see records of the other bids and if they won't give them to you . Tell them you will make a complaint to the psra.

BailMeOut

Jack53 wrote: »

i know i know, but whats stopping the sellers pal making a fictional bid. its not as if hes to give a bank draft. its just a phone call and an email to follow confirming

possible but incredibly stupid thing for anyone to do. EA also just do not take bids from randomers over the phone.

SteM

ellobee wrote: »

Auctioneers and estate agents are legally obliged to keep records of all bids made on properties so they can be examined by the authority. If they do not keep appropriate records and are found to be guilty of improper conduct following a PSRA investigation they can be fined up to €250,000 by the PSRA or have their licence to trade revoked.

Ask to see records of the other bids and if they won't give them to you . Tell them you will make a complaint to the psra.

I'm pretty certain that the potential buyer has no legal right to see these records.

SteM

Jack53 wrote: »

i know i know, but whats stopping the sellers pal making a fictional bid. its not as if hes to give a bank draft. its just a phone call and an email to follow confirming

I would imagine this is more common than EA's making up phantom bids. Sellers have much more to gain from an increased selling price than an EA.

C3PO

This theme comes up every couple of weeks on this forum. As somebody else has pointed out, there is very little to gain and a lot to lose for an Estate Agent to make up a fictitious bid - they would need to be very stupid to do it for the sake of €50 on a €3k price increase!

blue note

ellobee wrote: »

Auctioneers and estate agents are legally obliged to keep records of all bids made on properties so they can be examined by the authority. If they do not keep appropriate records and are found to be guilty of improper conduct following a PSRA investigation they can be fined up to €250,000 by the PSRA or have their licence to trade revoked.

Ask to see records of the other bids and if they won't give them to you . Tell them you will make a complaint to the psra.

I've seen this said a couple of times. What records do they have to keep? How would the authority assess the validity of the bids? If they just wrote down a made up one how do they investigate it?

Thestones

blue note wrote: »

I've seen this said a couple of times. What records do they have to keep? How would the authority assess the validity of the bids? If they just wrote down a made up one how do they investigate it?

Well even it is just written down, an investigator could ring that bidder and find out did they really make a bid, not that difficult really, I'm sure if a pattern was found that estate agent had no phone numbers, people couldn't be contacted that it would be highly suspicious against them. When I bought my house the estate agent required all bids to be made by email so a record could be kept, but I know plenty don't require this but presumably they do keep all contact details of the person making a bid if verbally made.

Plumbthedepths

ellobee wrote:

Ask to see records of the other bids and if they won't give them to you . Tell them you will make a complaint to the psra.

Whoever told you this is possible was messing with you. A little thing called data protection comes into play.

q85dw7osi4lebg

ellobee wrote: »

Auctioneers and estate agents are legally obliged to keep records of all bids made on properties so they can be examined by the authority. If they do not keep appropriate records and are found to be guilty of improper conduct following a PSRA investigation they can be fined up to €250,000 by the PSRA or have their licence to trade revoked.

Ask to see records of the other bids and if they won't give them to you . Tell them you will make a complaint to the psra.

:pac::pac::pac::pac::pac:

Austria!

BailMeOut wrote: »

remember that the EA makes around 1.5% commission which equates to €15 per €1000 on sales price so there is very little incentive for them to mess with you over a few grand.

But an estate agent getting good deals might attract more customers?

BailMeOut

Austria! wrote: »

But an estate agent getting good deals might attract more customers?

or a EA taking stupid risks and screwing up deals would also get a very bad reputation.

Wildly Boaring

BailMeOut wrote: »

or a EA taking stupid risks and screwing up deals would also get a very bad reputation.

Exactly people want the place sold and will tell everyone in earshot when the EA screws up. Do this a few times and see how many clients you get.

There is little incentive for EA to invent bids. Huge incentive to sell cleanly, quickly and professionally.

Seller getting phantom bids made. That I can believe but again why not come back to you as next in line.

Also that's not the title if the thread.

JDD

Have the PSRA ever imposed a fine against any estate agent since they were set up? I know they have the power to do so, but I see nothing on their website regarding any outcomes. No point in having the legislation if it's not enforced.

And yes, there's no point them trying to push up a price by €1,000 just for an extra €15. But if you've got a sales agent, who works on commission, and has 40 houses to sell every quarter, then using creative measures to each of those houses gets an extra €10k on the sales price, well..... That's an extra €6k in fees to their employer. And guess who'll be getting their quarterly bonus? If no one is actually going to scrutinize what you're doing, the temptation to operate at the edges of compliance is there.

Wildly Boaring

JDD wrote: »

Have the PSRA ever imposed a fine against any estate agent since they were set up? I know they have the power to do so, but I see nothing on their website regarding any outcomes. No point in having the legislation if it's not enforced.

And yes, there's no point them trying to push up a price by €1,000 just for an extra €15. But if you've got a sales agent, who works on commission, and has 40 houses to sell every quarter, then using creative measures to each of those houses gets an extra €10k on the sales price, well..... That's an extra €6k in fees to their employer. And guess who'll be getting their quarterly bonus? If no one is actually going to scrutinize what you're doing, the temptation to operate at the edges of compliance is there.

Ah yeah I wouldn't trust any word out of an estate agents mouth.

And agree full on above wrt regulation
Just reckon on extra 10k per house. Be far more likely to push to close 2 more properties at slightly lower price.
1.5% on 10k times say 10
Or
1.5% on 300k

I know where my effort would go

bri007

My experience of estates agents to date have been poor, don’t fill me with any trust in them at all!

In the example in the OP, the EA would be risking their job for about 20 quid in commission.

Why don't you go back with your original offer?