Offer for house laughed at..

M

Mag2006

Registered User
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191
Hi,

Just a quick one here. My friend looked at a few houses in Wicklow over the past fortnight. Her budget is €381k and herself and her other half are first time buyers. So, most of the houses she looked at had no offers on them (surprice surprise) and have been on the market for 2 months plus at this stage.
So, she offered €381k for one that's asking €425k and the EA said no way will the vendor accept it and he did not really want to go to the vendor with an offer like that. What does she do??. ( I have suggested the letter box option?!?)
Another one that's €415k, same offer and she was laughed at again. Same with one that's €395k.
Thing is, those houses are on the market for ages and the EA's seem to be still dictating things. I think any offer should be considered, but don't we all!:rolleyes:

Sceanario is, the lease on the house they are renting is up on June 1st and they really want to have their house bought and done and dusted by then. All their finance is in order so they are ready to go.

Should they just hang on until April and see what happens or push the EA to ensure he is making the offers or do the letterbox thing I suggested??.
I just had lunch with her and she's sick of it, €381k is a good amount to have for your first home plus they are due their first baby next August.

Any good advice I can pass on??. I went through it last year but we played major hardball with the EA to get our house...well my hubbie did if I'm honest!!:D
 
The EA's seem to be a right bucnh of ....... What is the letterbox option?
 
Write a little note and tell them you looked at their house and like it and would be willing to offer them €xxxk as a private sale etc and you are loan approved etc. Alot of people give it a go, the worst they can say is No!!.
 
The vendors may simply have instructed the EAs not to consider offers as low as €381K even if there are no other offers. That's their prerogative. Was the offer literally laughed at? If so then that would seem to be a simple case of bad manners over which they might consider making a complaint to the EA in question.
 
Yes, the guy in question basically sneered at them on Saturday apparantly and they were very taken aback by his manners.
I dunno, just hope they do get somewhere from a mannerly EA!!
 
Mag2006 said:
Sceanario is, the lease on the house they are renting is up on June 1st and they really want to have their house bought and done and dusted by then. All their finance is in order so they are ready to go.
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Is there any way they can avoid this time pressure ?

Some landlords will allow you to sign up for another years lease but with a non-penalty "get-out" clause after 3 or 6 months.

Our current lease is like this but we may not avail of the exit clause given the price changes we are seeing around us. We might just wait and see a bit longer. The amount we pay on rent is quite small compared to some of the reductions we are seeing.
 
Unfortunatly not as the owner of the house has his son moving into in on June 1st, he told them that in December that he is back on June 1st so in fairness he has given them good notice it's just a pity they are under this added pressure. They don't want to rent anymore, especially with a baby on the way and they are both in the early 30's now so they feel they really need to bite the bullet now. It's taken them so long to save up and get in a position to get full loan approval that it would be great to see them get their first home. They want to buy in Wicklow Town as Bray is too expensive for their budget and the likes of Arklow and Gorey are too far away for their jobs and it's overpriced there anyway imho. They are looking for €360k for a 3 bed semi down there at the moment...
 
It seems to me that a house valued/advertised in excess of €400,000 would not be sold to anyone in the <381k bracket and as long as we have the current regime of stamp duty that's the way it's going to stay.

Personally having been a vendor the stamp duty situation was discussed in detail prior to going on the market and the advertised price for the property was set either at the stamp duty limit or €25,000+ in excess of it. Having set the price in excess of the stamp duty limit there was no way (after 8 weeks) that it would be going back down to under the lower bracket (no way unless the house wasn't sold 6 months later)

The estate agents are actually at fault here I think by either overvaluing the house and setting the expectation of the buyer to high. Remember the agents promise the vendors the sun and moon and then beat down their expectations to close the deals.
 
Personnally i would give the letterbox option a go, like you say the worst that can happen is they say no.

You dont know what the circumstances are of the vendors and perhaps they would go for it for a quick sale, there is no chain behind you friend so thats a bonus.

They could also save the EA fees. Tell her to try it.
 
Thrifty1 said:
They could also save the EA fees. Tell her to try it.
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The EA will still be entitled to be paid for work done and expenses incurred to date so there may not be as much of a potential saving for the venrod as one might assume.
 
A house is only worth whatever someone is willing to pay and the fact that houses are taking longer to sell is proof that people are no longer willing, or due to intrest rate increases, able to pay the prices asked by sellers, so an EA laughing at your offer just shows that they are an This post will be deleted if not edited to remove bad language with poor social skills, so I wouldn't worry too much about them.
I have been looking at house prices in wicklow/Greystones area fro about 8 months now and very few houses are selling, thats not to say buyers are still trying to get to dollar, as is their right I suppose, but I have no plan to buy just and will rent for a year or so, not that I expect to pay less when I do buy but I do hope to have a better choice.
Anyway if people don't want to buy then sellers either have to hang on to their properties or sell at current market value not market vale of a year ago.

I read a report on property in Portugal, where houses prices have droped by up to 75% in some areas and still take over 2 years to sell.
 
Nothing to lose with letterboxing. They could also put something in the note about being willing to negotiate on contents, auctioneers fees etc. to let the vendor believe they may be able to get, in real terms, something in between the asking price and the offer price. The vendor may also be under pressure to close.
 
Well the EA was stupid enough to tell them that the vendors are under pressure to sign contracts for a house they have bought elsewhere but that they want the asking price or they will rent it out, well that is what she was told. It's gas the excuses you hear from them. It is a nice house but no way is it worth €425k!. I nearly died when I saw the price of it.
 
ClubMan said:
The EA will still be entitled to be paid for work done and expenses incurred to date so there may not be as much of a potential saving for the venrod as one might assume.
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If the seller and the purchaser reach an agreement over the house without the purchaser going near the EA then I would imaging that there is very little that the EA could do about it.

If the seller puts a note in the doors of a housing estate informing the owner occupants that they are a cash buyer looking to buy a house in the area then the sale has nothing to do with the EA. He hasn't facilitated it in any way. The EA certainly would not be entitled to or get anything near the massive fees that they are currently charging. It would be interesting to see them trying to justify 1.5 - 2.5% of the selling price for the miniscule amount of work that they do. For the life of me I cannot see why the EA (or a solicitor for that matter) is paid a % of the sale price. Is there twice the work selling a house for E900,000 than there was for a house costing E450.000?

The mere fact that the booking deposit wasn't paid over to the EA would considerably weaken their hand. Normally in practice, if they handled the sale they would simply deduct their own fee and expenses from the deposit.

Possession is 9/10's of the law.

Of course the seller would have to pay for the work that was done by the EA and they would also be liable for some other charges that they incurred. As far as I know these additional expenses are charged on top of the EA fees anyway.


Murt
 
Mag2006 said:
Well the EA was stupid enough to tell them that the vendors are under pressure to sign contracts for a house they have bought elsewhere but that they want the asking price or they will rent it out
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Very foolish of the EA, doesn't look like the vendor is in a very powerful position so the letterbox option could do the trick. The vendors could be in for a rude awakening if they try and let it out with the paltry yields that are commonplace now
 
"If the seller and the purchaser reach an agreement over the house without the purchaser going near the EA then I would imaging that there is very little that the EA could do about it. "

Just to correct a couple of fairly serious misconceptions. If the house sells, while the house is on the EA's books, the EA is entitled to their fee. They will sue and they will be successful. The purchaser would not know the house was for sale if the EA's sign was not outside.

If a vendor does not want to pay an EA they can choose to sell the property themselves, without assistance. Once they involve the EA and the house sells, the EA is entitled contractually to their fee. End of story.

"Of course the seller would have to pay for the work that was done by the EA and they would also be liable for some other charges that they incurred. "

As above.

It is no service to people viewing this board to be fed very palatable but ultimately untrue tabloid type info.

And before anyone says, ah yes, but how would the EA know? - don't - thats not the debate.

Finally, there is a slowdown, its a poor time of the year anyway for selling and its for vendors to decide how they sell their houses - privately or through an EA. If I was selling my house with an EA, I'd be doing it precisely because I don't want the hassle of showing it and dealing with prospective purchasers. Unless I had hit desperate stage, I would not take at all kindly to a purchaser trying to negotiate directly with me.

mf
 
Mag2006 said:
Well the EA was stupid enough to tell them that the vendors are under pressure to sign contracts for a house they have bought elsewhere but that they want the asking price or they will rent it out, well that is what she was told.
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Bear in mind that the EA will tell you whatever they think will coerce you into upping your bid, so dont pay too much attention to that sort of stuff. No harm can be done with the letterbox idea, if nothing else, it gives the vendor the info that there is at least one buyer out there. You never know.
 
Wouldn't the fact that the EA refused to pass on an offer that was acceptable be considered them not doing their job and be a justifiable reason for not paying their full fee, especially if this resulted in bridging loan costs, additional advertising (covered by fee I'm sure) etc.?

Advertising etc would have to be paid for of course but I'm sure if you were able to highlight dereliction of duty you'd have a case.

I'd go the letterbox route.
 
My Mam had a house on market a few years ago. She was approached privately and an offer made which she accepted.

She paid the EA for advertisement cost etc but that was all.

Surely they could take the house off the market and then sell privately to this girl.

I can see the ethical implications ie if advertising not done in first place she wouldnt have know it was for sale, etc.

I dont see why they should be entitled to the full fee. As another posted said could they not argue that the EA was wrong ( i dont want to say negligent/incompetent) in not putting the offer to the vendors in the first place?
 
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