Irish Property Market chat II - *read mod note post #1 before posting*

of course you can sue but where is your evidence? Or is it just a suspicion based on a gut feeling?

The other bid could have been genuine and they pulled out when got outbid and bought a different house…. From what I can see it’s just a feeling without evidence to back it up so unlikely you would be successful in any legal action.

You are speaking in riddles now.

You want it each and every way. You claim the industry is regulated, but then spout on about a free market. You go on about the 'choice' one has to engage and if they feel something is off, one can disengage, but you make a claim about regulation and oversight which appears to be null and void. So the consumer has little recourse anyway.

We bought a 3-bed mid terrace house last November and ended up paying €40k over asking. It was at the edge of our budget and we felt that, for the size of the property, we were overpaying at the time.

Fast-forward 7 months and one of our neighbours has just sold their house for €150k more than we bought for. Exact same house type and layout. Another house in the same row also sold for €100k more than our place. It's absolute madness at the moment.

I will pose a question to you so. Can you give me an example of regulatory body that monitors each and every transaction (and acts accordingly without some form of "Whistle blowing" or compliant) in the sector they regulate where the products on offer differ so much and are not uniform in price nor can be.

Yes, the stock market for one.

Insurance would be another.

A free market allows for participants to enter and exit it freely. Regulation exists for those to utilise if they feel they have been treated unfairly. Perhaps you want over regulation rather than regulation?

The only thing I would like is transparency in the process and the PRSA to audit their members accordingly. Is that too much to ask?

So possibly it is all genuine and above Board and your just assuming something underhanded took place

It really isnt misrepresentation, it's just advertising/marketing.

Pitch it low, get people in and make them bid against each other. It's horrible, but it's certainly not illegal.

In the exact same way that that agent selling you that investment product on commission for behalf of the issuer isn't subject to any regulation or rules I guess…………… Oh wait, is he? He can't be? No? Why on earth would that be?

What regulation? Why any need for it at all? Sure if either party feels there is immoral/unethical activity then don't do business with thempure and simple .

Is not the agent an agent of the seller they are not the seller. Ie the buyer and seller in this instance are both private treaty parties (irrespective if the purchasers or seller are a company or any other legal person that is not a natural person).

What's your next strawman - "Does that include if the agent says it's forecasting good weather for the weekend but it rains on the Saturday?"

There are no fundamental reasons why requirements or rules around EAs and their practices should not or could not be tightened up. Doing so would ultimately help the market.

It really isnt misrepresentation, it's just advertising/marketing.

Pitch it low, get people in and make them bid against each other. It's horrible, but it's certainly not illegal.

So you do agree it's unethical behaviour from so-called professionals, but alas it isn't illegal so nothing can be done?

This is why I posted yesterday, that it should be illegal, like it is in many other jurisdictions.

Consumer law is there to protect consumers equally. Both the seller and buyer of a property are both consumers for the purpose of this transaction.

So what laws are there to protect buyers from underhanded tactics? Please be specific.

Because the estate agent is exactly what their title describes. They are an agent of the seller they are not the seller. Ie the buyer and seller in this instance are both private treaty parties (irrespective if the purchasers or seller are a company or any other legal person that is not a natural person).

In this transaction, the EA represents the vendor/seller.

Who represents the buyer and what protections are offered to them, from the seller/vendor/EA?

..

Perhaps the penny is slowly dropping.

Not sure I'd call it unethical, it's just the way it happens. But it is horrible.

The real problem is there's not enough housing, so people compete with each other. If there was less competition, the asking price would probably be more realistic.

When we started to first look, we started viewing prices with the asking price at the max of our budget. We soon learned to price the bidding war into the process.

I'd be wary about the Government doing anything about it. They don't seem to be able to touch anything in housing without pushing prices up.

I think people’s dislike for estate agents (probably because the market is so hot) is making a mountain out of molehill.

Page 6 of the link below shows that, on average, estate agents do a pretty good job of pricing houses. When the market was falling fast, they priced too high as they couldn’t follow it down fast enough (maybe this was some evil sneaky strategy too?). When the market was stable they pretty much had the price perfect on average for about 5 years. When the market got hot, they couldn’t follow it up fast enough. When things stabilised last year, the asking prices caught up, the market has just moved away again.

Asking prices tend to follow sale prices but with a lag (up and down), which again makes sense as in a rising market, by the time the house sells, it’s worth more than when they EA got the listing and agreed pricing with the client and vice versa in a falling market.

Estate agents seem to anchor slightly more to longer term valuations so don’t capture the volatile short term movements immediately. That’s understandable and sensible. Theres also the slightly self fulfilling piece that when ‘everything starts going over asking’, people start looking at houses below the top end of their budget on the assumption the ones at the very top will also go over asking. Hence it makes total sense to not overshoot.

Of all the problems out there. This definitely isn’t one of them.

https://ww1.daft.ie/report/2024-Q2-houseprice-daftreport.pdf?d_rd=1

EA are 100% pricing well below market price and as has been mentioned by a few posters it's both a sales and marketing tactic but also not good for the market.

People saying "the market sets the price" so there's no point in any asking prices at all really.

I think an issue is around the wording, if it was "Guide price" instead of "asking price" it changes it entirely. The word asking makes it sound like that is what the seller and EA are happy to accept when realistically they want more than that.

House in Poppintree, asking price 375k, selling price 480k.

House in Churchtown asking price 550k, selling price 660k.

House in Swords asking price 395, selling price 505k.

For just 3 examples, (1st hand knowledge) all 3 EA's stated they set the "asking price" deliberately low to get more interest in the hope of a large bidding war.

This may be their job as getting the best price for their seller but it just all seems wrong.

I repeatedly told you that there is no concrete proof, but I also have no proof that there was an actual bidder either.

Sure, the other bidder may have moved on, it can happen.

But my issue is really about the process, the transparency or lack thereof, and very little consumer protection for the buyers.

My experience is not unique by the way, and the snake-oil nature of the EA I was dealing with left a lot to be desired when it came to him being a so-called professional and acting as such in that capacity.

Often when you trust your gut, you can't go wrong.

We looked for a long time, in different areas, and bid on a lot of houses. The asking price doesn't matter one bit. The market will dictate what the sale agreed price is.

I'm no fans of EAs either. But they're not the problem.