Offer for house laughed at..

Murt10 said:
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.
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This might have been the case pre June 06 but a lot of estate agents and their employees are getting a rude awakening now and with houses taking months to sell and are doing anything up to 20 viewings on a house plus they have to work the buyers to get them to bite. Some can sell and some are being found out for the total lack of selling skills they have.

If your thinking of putting your house on the market now you must be extremely picky in your choice of agent and my suggestion would be to go with someone who has been in the business for more than the last 6 or 7 years.

Sorry for going off thread.
 
Well I am going for a spin down to Wicklow with her this evening and drop a note in, she may aswell give it a go. I would say the vendor would be billed for any advertising to date by the EA. I dunno though, the agreement between vendor & EA should really be "subject to sale going through" and no money should pass hands until then...but then again "in a perfect world" etc. The vendor is never really 100% positive that the EA is doing their best for them to sell their house.
 
mf1 said:
The purchaser would not know the house was for sale if the EA's sign was not outside.
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I think you missed this part of my post "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."

I have in the past received numerous letters through the letterbox of my house from potential purchasers. The house was not for sale, either then or now. The purchasers did the whole estate in one go so if a sale took place as a result of the trawl then the EA's sign had nothing to do with this potential transaction.

I can't see anything wrong with cancelling the EA's contract to sell your house if you have managed to sell it yourself without his involvement in any way. An examination of the EA contract would of course be necessary.

Many people change EA's when they are trying to sell their house so there must be a get out clause. I don't think for one moment that it would be anywhere near the full fee that was agreed at the start for the completion of a sale.

When a property has been on the market for a while and hasn't sold you often see that another agent has been appointed in addition to the original agent. Is the seller going to pay the EA's on the double whether they sell the house or not? Hardly!


Murt
 
I certainly agree that seller should be notified of your offer. If a personally delivered note is the only way then so be it.

We had a horrific experience at the hands of an EA last summer. He promised a price of 350k plus. When it came to drawing the sale documents he insisted on an artificially low AMV of 325 which he said would excite interest and spark a bidding war. As first time sellers we accepted advice.

Two days later a contract arrived which stated that the EA only had to introduce a buyer "Willing and able" to complete the deal at the AMV. That weekend we had our first viewing and immediately after came an offer of the AMV.

No further bids or viewings were coming and the EA attitude was Ive done my job now close the sale. We pulled out when he came back arguing for the prospective purchasers that we should reduce the price further because they did not want to pay for certain contents (Gas appliances, Kitchen appliances etc)

To conclude I think there should be a system of written bids or some form of statutory disclosure to protect buyers/sellers from these people
 
Just to point out that if an EA has "sole selling rights/sole agency" of a property. If the vendor sells the property off the market, the EA would be entitled to a termination fee.
You would do well to read MF1's post above. I can't believe the amount of misinformation on this thread.
 
mo3art, perhaps you could enlighten us then, what would the situtation be if these vendors accepted this letterbox offer. Would they still have to pay the full EA fees?
 
The basic rule is that if you sell a house yourself without using an EA, and by that I mean no sign or advertising on your behalf by EA, you just don't involve them, then you incurr no fees as you sold the house by your own means.
If you have your house with an EA and you decide progress is slow and take it off them and you sell it yourself in the end, well unfortunatly you will get a bill from the EA for all advertising of your house by them.
In this case, if my friend is sucessful with her note she popped in last night, the vendor would have to inform their EA they are no longer using them to sell the house full stop and they will get an invoice. It's ridiculous really, especially when you know that they might have only shown the house once or twice!
 
Good luck with the letterbox route, hope it works out.

mo3art said:
Just to point out that if an EA has "sole selling rights/sole agency" of a property. If the vendor sells the property off the market, the EA would be entitled to a termination fee.
You would do well to read MF1's post above. I can't believe the amount of misinformation on this thread.
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I would agree on the misinformation part some posts.

I dealt with these issues 4 years ago when I needed a fast sale of my house. I went to the biggest estate agent in the city and told him I was going to list the house with him and also sell the house privately - I would pay his fee if he found a buyer, and not if I found the buyer. He told me no way, and not to bother contacting any of the other large agents as they were all boycotting people that used the local private sale ads.

A letter to the IAVI got a quick response and an investigation by same. I dont know the result but in the end a smaller agent did what I asked and listed my house as well as going private. In the end I found the buyer and paid no fee.

Mozart asks the right question. Has the seller signed exclusive sale rights to his house away? At the end of the day, only the seller knows the answer - if they dont drop the note in the letter box - their offer will not be recvd.

From the IAVA website...

Check out the FAQ in the link, if its Sole Agent then the fee has to be paid, if its Open Agent then:
"Where the property is placed on a number of agents’ books on a “first come first served” basis and the party introducing the buyer receives the fee.....Should the sole agent introduce a buyer, there is no dispute as to which agent is due the fee - in open agencies this can be a particular problem. "
 
Thrifty1 said:
mo3art, perhaps you could enlighten us then, what would the situtation be if these vendors accepted this letterbox offer. Would they still have to pay the full EA fees?
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Thrifty, as I have already pointed out above, if the agent is engaged on a sole agency/sole selling rights basis then a termination fee will apply. It depends from one EA to another but this could be as much as full agency fees to a % of EA fees. The vendor will still be liable for the full of the advertising costs in this case also. Most EA are engaged on sole agency basis, and this can be clarified by checking the letter of terms which is typically sent to the vendor when they decide to engage an EA.

Letterbox offers can work but are more be cost effective for the vendor if (a) the house isn't already on the market or (b) the agent is employed on an "open agency" basis.

It is most likely in this case that the EA is acting on their clients' instructions and they have been instructed not to accept any offers under a certain limit.
 
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Update, the vendor rang my friend last night and said thanks for the offer and that he did not realise that she had made an offer on the property. He explained very nicely that he will hold onto her details and if things are still the same in the next 6-8 weeks he would definatly consider selling to them especially that they are FTB's fully mortgage approved. She is happy enough with that and is hoping to god he gets back to her, so are we all. The vendor was extremely nice to her and found it amazing that she felt she had to resort to this after viewing it with the EA. So you never know what will happen in the next few weeks. There are a few more houses she is thinking of going down the same road with as one of them was €410k and she offered €381k and EA said it would not be considered. They are still playing the game and overpricing houses imho.
 
Hi there,
I was in the same situation as your friend, the highest I could offer on a house was 381k and last August I found a house in Dublin 8 that I loved which had a guide of 400K and also needed to be modernised so i just couldn't afford it. The EA practically laughed at me too and said oh no they will never except anything lower so I forgot about the house and continued my search. But I was still keeping an eye on this house and two months later it still hadn't sold so I got a friend to ring up and ask about it. They told her there was an offer of 390K on it, but I just didn't believe it as it had been on the market for so long, as even when I had found the house in August, I spoke to the neigbours and they told me it had been for sale for a good while. So I got back in touch and said I was still interested but my final offer was 381K and it was accepted straight away!! Your friend is much better off waiting it out. If people really need to sell then they will have to except something below the guide eventually. Plus, as far as I know I thought it was an EAs duty to tell the vendor any offer put on the house even if below the guide. It is only a guide after all. Good Luck!
 
Thanks Corky, well done on getting the house you wanted in the end and waiting it out, good enought on the estate agent having to accept the offer, you must have enjoyed that one!!.
My friend has bought a new house in Rathdrum instead and it's gorgeus, it's only another 6 miles from Rathnew anyway and far nicer plus it's a new build.
At least we all know not to bother with that EA if they ever has a house for sale we like, the ignorance of them!. That house is still on the market too, actually every single one of them are!!.
 
Murt10 said:
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.
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If the purchaser was originally introduced by the EA then there is an awful lot the EA can do. They can, and do, sue. And its a clear cut case.
 
The vast majority of EA's in Ireland have never had it so good. They have never experienced a crash.

If an English EA asked for fees to cover advertising costs they would be laughed at.

If you have the impression an EA isn't passing on your offer then put your offer in writing... cc'ing the vendor
 
Smi1er said:
If the purchaser was originally introduced by the EA then there is an awful lot the EA can do. They can, and do, sue. And its a clear cut case.
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I am not so sure. If my house is for sale and then I tell the EA to take it off the market he does not know whats going on privately between me and the buyer, the house will change hands without him knowing it.
 
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