Hello Simon

First of all thankyou for taking on our property to sell.

I must say though that ‘you’ set the price at £210000, I had no idea what to put it at.

On the Friday it was on the market we had an offer of £201000 which was not acceptable then an offer of £203000 from one of your ‘ on the books’ investment buyers who your colleague suggested that it was a non negotiable offer and if we didn’t accept then they had another property to look at that they would buy.
No problem at all.
I’m not being bullied into accepting an offer.
I felt I was being pressurised into accepting an offer from someone you already had on your books, even though appointments had been made for the following week.
Who, in their right mind, would accept an offer when other appointments to view had already been made by yourselves?
They may have offered aswell?
I was told by yourselves on the phone,( after it only being on the market for 6 days) that if it was on the market for longer people would wonder why it had not sold and then interest would subside.

Again, a bully tactic, and making us scared to negotiate.

You said that this was the only property of this type on the market and it would sell.

I asked at the first point of contact that if there was something we could do to make our property more sellable, and if there was any feedback then please tell me.

I’ve not had one piece of feedback from yourselves at all.

What are people viewing saying?

You then sent me a letter after a telephone conversation stating that somebody had offered £201000.
Where is the letter stating that the other offer was made at £203000 from the investor?
Was it a real offer?
How come you state in your letter one offer but not the other that you obviously want me to take?
Can I have a letter stating the £203000 please, should have come with the other letter as they were at the same time.

How do we go with terminating you selling our property?

Do we still pay you £2100?

Kind regards

Mark

Dear Mark.

I think you have accidentally posted your letter to your estate agent online, rather than in a post box.

Kind regards

Bongo

I’m a general trades guy, in a housing estate of ‘general trades’.
Now being taken over by workers from Microsoft and others on £100000 plus salaries.
Made me feel sick when the mortgage advisor said we could get a £300000 mortgage and laughed.
WTF wants a mortgage like that round there neck ’till 75?
It’s all out of proportion.
Breaks my heart to sell my property and go into the rental market because it’s my only option.

Thanks for pointing that out bongohoohaa.
I put the letter on here for some feedback.
Maybe others have similar situations we can share?

I guess irrespective of how you feel the estate agent felt obliged to tell you about the low ball offer and presumably they’ve had complaints about not always advising clients on offers and hence the letter – as to the “investor” offer you may want to play it along a bit ask estate agent for written confirmation funds in place / no chain – you don’t have to say yes just that if other offers come low ball you may consider it for quick settlement – meanwhile if the investor successfully goes elsewhere no problem to either party

did you get any other estate agents to “value”?

remember 10,000 on the sale price makes little difference to what the estate agent gets they just want quick and easy churn

Other people’s domestic correspondence and spam email is even more tedious than our own. Thanks for bringing it to our attention.

Try not to do it too often. Boring.

Go to the ombudsman.

Other people’s domestic correspondence and spam email is even more tedious than our own. Thanks for bringing it to our attention.

Try not to do it too often. Boring.
😯

Who are these “investment buyers”? They make me sick. Margaret Thatcher wanted to get people out of renting and instead we’ve gone from councils owning all the houses to “investment buyers” owning all the houses.

Yourselves have said ‘yourselves’ a lot when ‘you’ would have made more sense and not tripped up the entire letter. I’d recommended that yourselves change all the ‘yourselves’ so that yourselves get a much better letter.

Nobody says ‘yourselves’, unless some pixies are signing off.

Yours,

Elves.

We’ve got 4 for sale at the moment. One was a done deal till the “surveyor” decided it wasn’t worth the asking price. The estate then rang to say knock 35k off and all will be fine as we’re asking too much, it was suggested that they are total knobs as they set the **** valuations in the first place! Some are good most are poor in our recent experience……

Your on for 210k and had an offer of 203k. It is not a bad offer and the agent is obliged to tell you of ALL offers, by post or phone. Of course they are keen as mustard for you to accept and sale…..it is how they are paid!!!

I’m torn here.
One part of me sympathises as I’ve also suffered this stupid estate agent tactic.
They valued my flat and within a week were advising me to accept offers 20% lower.

The other part of me thinks, just take the £203k offer.
Or, better still, go back with a counter offer (see if the threat of it being non-negotiable is real) and try and meet somewhere in the middle.
I mean, let’s say you settle at £205k. Taking a hit of only 2.5% off an original asking price would be pretty good going I’d say.

Two points:

1 Agents don’t always know about values. Even professional valuers don’t always get it right. It’s not like there is a set formula for what a house is worth, though if there are lots of recent sales of very similar properties that’s a pretty strong clue.

2 No-one in the history of house buying ever went in with a firm non-negotiable offer as their first bid. We’ve never done it as buyers, and we’ve never settled for it as sellers.

Ok, almost no-one.

Non asking price offer from a buyer ready to go or wait for possibly closer to asking price from someone who could be in a chain who make not have even sold thier own property yet .
Personally I’d take the offer and move on .

Don’t send the letter…firstly your paperwork will probably state that if you sell within six months of them marketing the property, they are due their ‘fee’ of £2100.

Also, why get on the wrong side of them and risk a drought in viewings, or, the agents telling every viewer that you are open to offers as ‘desperate to sell’ therefore you keep getting low offers making you think the house is overvalued.

Bullying tactics, just humour them and say no. But who cares if the purchaser is an investment buyer or an IT bod on £100k, you’ll probably never meet them!

Estate agents are working for you, unless the purchaser is also selling with them or its someone they have a business relationship with, in which case there is a conflict of interest and the agent may reveal your lowest price or desperation to sell. Keep your cards close to your chest!

The use and repetition of ‘yourselves’ in the letter makes you look a bit dumb. Just saying. Sure there is time to change it if you care.

Take the offer. You don’t want to shoot you in the foot.

EState agents don’t tell you what the house will sell for, they tell you what to market it at. Everyone expects to negotiate nowadays (even on new bikes, FFS!!) – so asking £210 and being offered £203 as a first bid and probably settling for around £205 seems like they’ve marketed it pretty well right.

As said above, if they’re on 1%, selling for £203K now gets them £2030. Doing loads more viewings and negotiating further to hold out for £205K gets them a whole extra £20!! I can see absolutely why they’re keen for you to take it.

Why do you have to sell and go on to the rental market? Just because houses are being bought up around you doesn’t mean your existing mortgage will change, you can continue to live in it and enjoy those nasty white collar workers around you driving your price up so later on you can sell up, downsize and take a chunk of cash out? (apologies if there are personal reasons why you have to move, not clear from your OP)

OP your letter is far too emotional and long for a transactional complaint. I’ll leave it there in terms of the complainant itself and do nothing.

Only accept an offer you are willing to accept. Any behaviour outside of this is irrelevant.

Please tell me you had multiple valuations from multiple estate agents?

Also read your contract! Don’t rely on the person who created the contract to tell you the details. If you don’t understand ask a friend for help.

If you didn’t get at least three valuations from EA’s get them round now, ask them to value based on a multi agent fee. Find the part of your existing contract about fees and you will find out what the multi agent fee is for your current contract.

I’m not suggesting you go multi agent but at least tyou would have a broad consensus of opinions on the value of your house (as that is all EA’s can legally provide anyway)

Not all EA’s are bad.

Nb the fee will be +vat unless stated

Do we still pay you £2100?

No one could be that naive to put something so dumb in writing, surely?

Your letter shows a degree of confusion about the price; you don’t know what it’s worth, closely followed by offers that are not acceptable

How do we go with terminating you selling our property?

Do we still pay you £2100?

You(selves) mean you(selves) didn’t ask when you(selves) engaged them to sell the biggest asset you(selves) have (presumably) Did they leave you(selves) a copy of the contract you(selves) signed, does it not say?

On the Friday it was on the market we had an offer of £201000 which was not acceptable then an offer of £203000

The first offer was only 4% below asking price, as others had said, not a bad offer. The 2nd only 3%!

An estate agent puts a “marketing” price on a property. As a buyer I would not expect to pay as much as that. Unless you are in certain parts of London, it’s still a buyers market in most of the UK.

For info, I bought a house about 3 years ago, originally offered nearly 20% below asking price and settled on 10% below. The house had been reduced by 15% from the originally marketing price 6 months earlier.

I think you are being a little naive on your expectations.

The estate agents job was to get your house sold.

As an agent, they know who is looking. They know the investment buyers in your area. They have one wanting to buy.

They marketed it a few £ above, hoping to nudge up the price offered for you. This they have managed.

They and you are expected to negotiate – on purchase/selling price, and their fees. This they have done, you have not.

You are being somewhat naïve in my view, and the agent is doing the job you asked them too. Accept the offer, move on.

then an offer of £203000 from one of your ‘ on the books’ investment buyers who your colleague suggested that it was a non negotiable offer…

So they were being clear on the facts to try and get you a sale?
No problem at all.

Who, in their right mind, would accept an offer when other appointments to view had already been made by yourselves?

When the offer is from an ‘investment buyer’ which means no chain and an almost guaranteed sale as they will have all the finances in order?

I got gazumped on a house by someone offering 10% less as they were a cash buyer and the seller was moving in with her mother to provide home care. Cash in a few weeks or suffering months (took us 7 with the house we did buy!) of potential uncertainty that the sale might fall through, she took the cash.

On the Friday it was on the market we had an offer of £201000 which was not acceptable then an offer of £203000 from one of your ‘ on the books’ investment buyers

So you had two offers [close to the asking price] within 6 days and you’re complaining?

Where is the letter stating that the other offer was made at £203000 from the investor?

See below, they’ve probably bought the other house – you were warned.

your colleague suggested that it was a non negotiable offer and if we didn’t accept then they had another property to look at that they would buy.

This EA seems to be trying to sell your house for you while you are being unfathomably bitter about something. Is this your first house sale?

Tell them you will wait for more offers – its a very strong sellers market where you are so you can pretty much ignore any posts waffling on about x% under
unless your property is unsalable or priced high (which it is not in your area)
Its too soon – yes they expect you to sell in a week – thats why the market is so hot – but you can afford to wait 3 weeks and get the best offers in.
Investment buyers can usually afford to lowball you – they have nothing to loose – Estate Agents in your area are going to be under pressure from investment buyers to get them properties – there might be favours done for favours in this kind of market.

Hang on. Why do you have to go rental?

You’ve got a house and a mortgage (i guess) all sorted out before the prices went up (more).

So just selling up to go rental seems a bit…… odd.
Unless you’ve had a major change in income.

Take the offer. You don’t want to shoot you in the foot.

🙂

I feel for the OP. not because of your change of circumstances but because of having to deal with estate agents.

Basically see them as knowing nothing about your house, doing nothing and then making you feel bad about your house sale while taking your money.

Only slightly better than solicitors but that’s because they don’t have the brains to know any better.

Unfortunately its one of those things you have to deal with.

btw agree with those above that have said read your contract etc. Also be realistic with your offers. We went to see people marketing their house for 215000. they wouldn’t accept anything less than 213000. A buyer wants to feel as though they have a deal so market accordingly. As you agent has set the price you clearly need to do research into what you feel is acceptable. Basically its like your mate dave saying you could get a grand for your bike down the pub. Someone offers you 900 quid and you have a go at dave for saying it was worth a grand. Even though evans are knocking the newer model out for 800 quid.

If you don’t like an offer don’t accept it.

It’s really rather simple.

All estate agents will have ‘investment’ buyers in their contacts list.

And selling to go rental – are you mad!? I’d rather have a mortgage than hand £1000 to an ‘investor’ every month.

Basically see them as knowing nothing about your house

Eh? Care to expand on that?

I think some are being a little harsh on the OP here, I can understand reluctance to jump at an offer immediately at short notice when there is other interest. we managed to wangle a few % more even though we had only one bidder.

OTOH it is a pretty decent offer and worth considering seriously, if you really want to sell.

I think the OP might have been on the sauce last night, and I am sure they were not ever going to send this in real life.

At least I hope not….especially the bit about the payment.

Eh? Care to expand on that?

Yes your in a much better position (with a little research) to have an understanding of what your house is worth than an estate agent. (purely with my dealings with the ones in Huddersfield).

basically the best they can do is look at houses that have sold recently ( which you can do). next doors even used pictures of our house to sell theirs because it looked nicer 🙂

all in all my experience if estate agents has been they are **** useless.

Don’t get me started on the money grabbing solicitors.

Mark.

Don’t send that letter. Read the contract you signed with the agent before you re-write it. The length of sole agent and the terms of the fee will be in it.

You are selling the house – it’s a business deal. I know it’s your home but you have to see it as a business transaction and not personal. Take the emotion out of your letter.

You need to state the issue at the beginning of your letter and suggest the solution you want at the end.

Also don’t understand why you ‘have to go into rental’ – why don’t you stay in this house or buy another one?

Yes your in a much better position (with a little research) to have an understanding of what your house is worth than an estate agent.

They can do the same research as you (maybe more), do not have an emotional tie to the house creating an overinflated view of what it may be worth and there’s a good chance they’ve already sold [possibly exactly the same] houses on the same estate – so I’d say they are actually in a far better position than the home owner.
YMMV.

Thank you for all your replies/ comments.
I don’t get on here often so haven’t seen any replies until today.
I was indeed ‘on the sauce’ when I wrote this.
I was extremely frustrated, me writing things down is somewhat cathartic.
Apologies for the ‘you’ ‘yourselves’.
Back to school for me.
Selling a house is said to be one of the most stressful times of our lives.
I’m only on Singletrack so I vented in the only forum I am on.
I wasn’t expecting anything, was just sounding off.
Some comments have been very helpful and I thank you for replying.
Irony point; spent £75 at Wickes and a whole Mother’s Day painting and decorating to spruce it up then find someone who visited last week has put in an offer that I had in mind…..
Who wants to buy 25l of white Matt and 30l magnolia, hardly used!!!!