EA pushing for sale agreed

[johnnyg]

Hi,

Our EA is pushing hard for us to accept an offer on our house, it originally went for 20K more but sale fell through and market has been slow, its been on the market for 3 weeks and had 2 viewings and one of them put an offer in last friday of the asking price..question is to accept the offer or not, i would like to hold out and see what happens as i do think it is worth more and that there will be changes in stamp duty and that people are holding off to wait and see, our EA has a very negative view on things ans saying that if we hold out we could get less as prices are dropping by 20K, but i'm wondering if he just wants to get a sale (targets etc)..any suggestions would be appreciated

 

[dats_right]

Do what many vendors would do. Acccept the offer and then delay contracts for as long as you can, whilst also waiting to see do you get a better offer in the meantime.

 

[pinkyBear]

Hi Johnnyg,
We sold our house last year and had a very simular push from our own estate agent, what you will find is that agents only like to have a house on their books for about 6 weeks, it's really quantity rather than quality when it comes to sales I think.

My personal view is go with your gut feeling - explain to the vender that you would like to wait for a week or so before making a final decision. No harm in that.

What you might find is that if the buyer really wants the house they may offer a slightly higher prive for you to take it off the market. That is what we did ourselves last year when we were buying our house.

Best of luck.

 

[mayway]

Surely your EA won't solicit better offers once the property goes Sale Agreed?

I'm in a similar position where I have gone Sale Agreed for 15K less than the asking price (cash buyer looking to close quickly) and the EA tells me that it's a good offer and to take it (I also rang a competing EA and they assured me that it was a good offer and that I should take it).

How am I supposed to get better offers on it now?

 

[whathome]

there will be changes in stamp duty and that people are holding off to wait and see, our EA has a very negative view on things ans saying that if we hold out we could get less as prices are dropping by 20K, but i'm wondering if he just wants to get a sale (targets etc)..any suggestions would be appreciated

My concern is that although some buyers might be waiting for a stamp duty announcement, there may be a lot of vendors holding off selling their property until the new year. I would suggest taking the asking price offer before your house has to compete with a new glut of property appearing for sale in January. Also - there will be an interest rate increase from the ECB on December 7th which may weaken the market even further.

 

[johnnyg]

i'm aware of the rate increase aswell, but EA put the asking price lower than we requested as i know i won't make the 20K back but was hoping to get an extra 10K on the asking price..the EA was as pushy the first time aswell and we got stung because of it (thats my opinion, i full sure that the EA would disagree), this time i'm more hesitant and want to wait and see

 

[Headachecity]

In my opinion the market will reveal itself in March '07 so its up to you whether you want to wait till then.

Can you tell me why you think this and what do you think will happen, as a FTB I would be very interested to see what you think. Apolgoies in advance for going off topic.
We have just gone sale agreed on a 3 bed semi in Arklow for €317.5k and we're starting to get cold feet about paying that for a house down there with the way the market is going.....

 

[makindye]

i'm aware of the rate increase aswell, but EA put the asking price lower than we requested as i know i won't make the 20K back but was hoping to get an extra 10K on the asking price..the EA was as pushy the first time aswell and we got stung because of it (thats my opinion, i full sure that the EA would disagree), this time i'm more hesitant and want to wait and see

Sounds like you have a good agent working for you - they were sensible to keep price realistic in current market - judging by the no of viewings the price aint too low - accept the offer and go for quick close. Ive been on a site recently which has examples of recent 150 price reductions - so thats pretty much in line with whats happenned with your situation except you just went with the reduced price as a starter. You never know what could be lurking around the corner!

 

[makindye]

Can you tell me why you think this and what do you think will happen, as a FTB I would be very interested to see what you think. Apolgoies in advance for going off topic.
We have just gone sale agreed on a 3 bed semi in Arklow for €317.5k and we're starting to get cold feet about paying that for a house down there with the way the market is going.....

Why dont you take your time with sale and see whats happenning down there.

 

[Bob_tg]

Your predicament is subject to two opposing forces:

1) the market prices for houses now in Ireland appear dropping at an increasing rate ... money supply is tightening (e.g. lending criteria has got strict, and interest rates are going up) and supply is now greater than demand.

2) estate agents generally sell houses for 5-10% less than they would otherwise fetch if you held on a bit longer. (They do this because once they have an offer on your house for let's say 300k, they earn 3k, assuming 1% fee. To sell if for 320k, they would need to manage another round of offers for an extra benefit to them of only 200euro.)

Therefore, people should be advised to ignore agents' recommendations and hang on for another 4-8 weeks to get a better price.

The only real benefit for using agents is that they are an advertising outlet: only they can advertise on MyHome.ie, and they are operating a national cartel through their "professional" associations. Agents would of course argue with this, and proclaim that they have certain powers in terms of determining "value". Countering this, houses have values relative to others in the area, so it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out what the rough price will be. So make up your own mind.

However, in our declining market, holding for this time extra period may not realise any extra gain.

I sold my house under pressure from an estate agent in 2001 (a flat market at that time), and lost up to 10% (25k or so). The proof of that was my next door neighbour who sold two months later, using an estate agent new to the area, who needed to break in by offering a higher sale price. There is further reading regarding estate agent "incentives" in the book Freakonomics.

In summary, if you really believe the market is flat or increasing, then hold for another 4-8 weeks. Otherwise, if you are not quite sure and think there is a high probability of a market fall, you should really sell now.

 

[phoenix_n]

Can you tell me why you think this and what do you think will happen, as a FTB I would be very interested to see what you think. Apolgoies in advance for going off topic.
We have just gone sale agreed on a 3 bed semi in Arklow for €317.5k and we're starting to get cold feet about paying that for a house down there with the way the market is going.....

Such Discussions are verboten i'm afraid.

 

[rmelly]

why set an asking price you're now willing to accept?

 

[makindye]

Your predicament is subject to two opposing forces:


2) estate agents generally sell houses for 5-10% less than they would otherwise fetch if you held on a bit longer. (They do this because once they have an offer on your house for let's say 300k, they earn 3k, assuming 1% fee. To sell if for 320k, they would need to manage another round of offers for an extra benefit to them of only 200euro.)

Therefore, people should be advised to ignore agents' recommendations and hang on for another 4-8 weeks to get a better price.

This is a generalisation and dosent make a lot of sense. Believe me if agents were going to get 5-10% more by waiting they would wait. Agents will price the house according to the market and the vendors will be in agreement with the sale price and the vendors will have the final say in the sale price. In my experience the vendors know the market better than anyone and will soon know if the agent is selling 5-10 % below market. Its in agents interest to get what the market will offer as this is the maximum fee. If an Agent is not getting market prices they will not get the instructions in the area and its lights out time for the the valuer. Agents recognise the market is changing and are trying to adapt by lowering exectations and prices this is a different matter entirley. Whats the point in paying an agent if you are going to ignore advice. Listen to advice and make your own mind up by all means. I understand that you feel that you were badly advised before but maybe this was at a time when the market was rushing ahead or maybe the agent got it wrong. Utimately the call was yours to sell. To write off the advice of agents and to assume they are all 'generally' not acting in interest of clients becaus of this incident would be questionable. Ironically I believe that agents are partly responsible for the over selling - over hyping and generally contributing to the mess that is the current state of the irish property market.

 

[Headachecity]

Why dont you take your time with sale and see whats happenning down there.

We are stalling signing the contracts just to see what happens but we kind of need to move into this house before Xmas. The thing is we paid the deposit 2 weeks ago and on the receipt it said contracts have to be signed by us by Nov 31st & our solicitor only got them in the post yesterday with no closing date on them, but it said closing would be a month from when vendor signs...like get off your high horse!.

 

[makindye]

We are stalling signing the contracts just to see what happens but we kind of need to move into this house before Xmas. The thing is we paid the deposit 2 weeks ago and on the receipt it said contracts have to be signed by us by Nov 31st & our solicitor only got them in the post yesterday with no closing date on them, but it said closing would be a month from when vendor signs...like get off your high horse!.

Sounds wise. See above post from PHOENIX N. You can get advice on this re legals etc on other threads and on other sites such as thepropertypin.com. Good luck.

 

[whatsmoney]

Quote from member whathome ''My concern is that although some buyers might be waiting for a stamp duty announcement, there may be a lot of vendors holding off selling their property until the new year. I would suggest taking the asking price offer before your house has to compete with a new glut of property appearing for sale in January. Also - there will be an interest rate increase from the ECB on December 7th which may weaken the market even further."

I have seen people mention a few times before that they think there will be a lot of new property on the market in january. Why is this? Is there normally a glut of new houses on the market in the new year?

 

[howstrange]

I have seen people mention a few times before that they think there will be a lot of new property on the market in january. Why is this? Is there normally a glut of new houses on the market in the new year?

I reckon there will be a lot this time. I have been watching certain areas of Dublin over the last few months and noticed a lot of houses/apts for sale disappearing from myhome/daft. BUT not because they went sale agreed/sold. EA's have been telling people to put off selling their house until the new year because the market is so slow and because of the 'stamp duty' theory. In the New year you will probably see all these places advertised for sale again. This will add to the already vast stock of housing for sale!

 

[Headachecity]

It's gas though that some EA's are still trying to sell a 3 bed shoebox in Bray for €570k!!. Madness and it's on the market for months. There is definatly a slow down and prices are being reduced and I think it will still be a buyers market in the New Year with the influx of other houses to sell. We wanted to buy in Bray but simply there is no way I could pay that sort of money for a 30 year old house under 1,000 square foot and they are all like that. The newer ones under 7 years old are €549k+ and for sale for ages aswell. How do they expect people to come up with that sort of money anyway. My god I am so going off topic shoot me if you want!!.

 

[cjh]

I have seen people mention a few times before that they think there will be a lot of new property on the market in january. Why is this? Is there normally a glut of new houses on the market in the new year?

1. January is a 'traditional' selling season.
2. Two more ECB rate rises (Dec and March) resulting in forced sales.
3. Investors leaving the market as Capital Appreciation eroded.