The nervous wait to exchange....

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Can estate agents lie about offers received? The owners are having to sell as they have family issues in the south. They’ve been fleeting across the country regularly. They got an offer 12 months ago at £450k but the person failed the affordability checks, whilst it was on the market they rented it out for a bit but now want to sell (apparently)

Apparently they had a viewing after ours and the estate agent has said there two viewings today which I’m not sure I believe.

The viewing went great, we were there about 90 mins and they made us coffee and we were having a good old chat. I just wish I’d known about this £450k figure before a 900mile round trip and shelling out for hotels and fuel as in my opinion, there’s a bloody big difference between a house being advertised at OIEO £395k and them wanting an extra £55k!

The reason I’m asking about the lying about offers is because the estate agent knows we’re selling two properties and once a small mortgage has been paid off, we’d have about £700k in the bank. I’m wondering if they know we can afford £450k, that they’ll lie and say “we’ve received another offer of £450k” kinda thing. So nervous and anxious, the house is perfect for us but my principles are strong!
 
HoneyBadger said:
(It’s in Scotland)

The house is perfect for us, and we could go to £450k but I’m annoyed it’s priced at ‘offers in excess of £395k’ at £415K that’s £20k in excess of £395k!!!!
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There's the reason.

From what i remember of living there nothing sold anywhere near the 'offers over' figure.
 
HoneyBadger said:
Fair enough, if I had offered £396k then I’d expect a rebuttal but I’ve offered £20k more. Where do you draw the line?
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It's a tough one mate.

We recently went through the same thing, I guess you have to think of a value you'd be happy to pay and not go beyond it.

It's tricky, no doubt, as you have to balance the not being too hard with not being bled dry.

With ours (English system) we went over 10% under as work needed doing, got pushed up a little more but that was the limit - we'd have walked away otherwise.

The Scottish system has its benefits but the vague offers over nature always seemed a bit hard to gauge as to what a 'good' and 'reasonable' offer is.

As i say, tricky. I guess it's a balance of not caving straight away but then not shutting yourself out.

Yeah they may have been offered 450k a year ago, but that's not now and it didn't sell.
 
HoneyBadger said:
Can estate agents lie about offers received?
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I dunno about Scotland but when we were trying to sell my gran's place the estate agent had no problem lying to prospective buyers :( even telling them it was off the market seemingly to try and shift people with money to other properties they were having problems selling, etc. first. (fortunately one of the people interested happened to see my mum coming or going from the property and knew her slightly which was how we found out).
 
Isn't #1 rule of house buying: Assume the agent is lying.

The easiest way to tell if they have had an offer for £450k is just wait a few days and it will be marked Sold STC. If it doesn't, the offer doesn't exist or they want silly money.
 
HoneyBadger said:
Fair enough, if I had offered £396k then I’d expect a rebuttal but I’ve offered £20k more. Where do you draw the line?
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I was told by an estate agent that the "offers over" price, is to show potential purchasers what the seller's floor price is i.e. "offers over 395k" means the seller isn't interested in an offer of £370k. In your case, I don't know why you'd have expected a rebuttal at £396k - you're looking to buy an expensive house in an area of the country were expensive houses probably don't change hands very often. You're not approaching cap in one hand, forelock in the other, hoping the seller will accept your "cheeky" 20k over asking. If it's offers over £395k in an area where houses don't sell, don't feel like you have to go in high.

As for your question about whether estate agents can lie to drum up the asking price, I'm sure there are unscrupulous agents who do exactly this. However my (limited) experience is that most estate agents just want a house to sell quickly and reliably in order that they can get their commission. On a £395k house, their commission will be decent, so I don't know why they'd risk chasing you off by inventing offers, though again, I have no doubt there are some agents who would do so.
 
The house we are buying was up for sale at 325k for months. Only came on our radar when they dropped it to OIEO 300k. We offered 300k and stuck to our guns, making it clear we would go no higher. They accepted 300k in the end.
 
They need to ban these terminologies - OIEO, offers over, OIRO.

Frankly if (using the example above) you're selling a house and wanting 450k for it, you don't put OIEO/OIRO 395k as clearly you won't accept those.

If anything it is false advertising, as just in that posters case, they travelled very far with an overnight stay to then find out that the seller actually wants 10% more than what it's listed for.

I suspect they've had it up at ~450k previously and barely had any viewings.
 
Semple said:
They need to ban these terminologies - OIEO, offers over, OIRO.

Frankly if (using the example above) you're selling a house and wanting 450k for it, you don't put OIEO/OIRO 395k as clearly you won't accept those.

If anything it is false advertising, as just in that posters case, they travelled very far with an overnight stay to then find out that the seller actually wants 10% more than what it's listed for.

I suspect they've had it up at ~450k previously and barely had any viewings.
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Spot on, on all points!

The estate agent rang me and said she only spoke to the wife and she seemed happy with my offer of £415k but the final decision fell onto the husband who was travelling and she would get back to me today. She advised he would probably reject it but said if so, she would come back to me with the lowest figure they would accept to take it off the market.

I advised her that was fine, I would await a call but I’d be very angry if they weren’t going to be flexible with the price considering what it’s on the market for. I also said I would not be offering £450k out of principal. To be fair, I think she could see my point of view and almost seemed to agree.

Let’s see what comes today!!!
 
HoneyBadger said:
Spot on, on all points!

The estate agent rang me and said she only spoke to the wife and she seemed happy with my offer of £415k but the final decision fell onto the husband who was travelling and she would get back to me today. She advised he would probably reject it but said if so, she would come back to me with the lowest figure they would accept to take it off the market.

I advised her that was fine, I would await a call but I’d be very angry if they weren’t going to be flexible with the price considering what it’s on the market for. I also said I would not be offering £450k out of principal. To be fair, I think she could see my point of view and almost seemed to agree.

Let’s see what comes today!!!
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Always remember, estate agents are in it for the seller, never the buyer. Awful two way street to deal with.

In terms of my purchase, the forms are off to my solicitor along with his up front costs. Now time to wait.

I'm taking a guess at completion some point in October.
 
In regards to the OIRO stuff, I put my house up for 5k more than I'd thought I'd get for it (with no OIRO or anything). That way, when my buyer haggled down, they thought they were getting a good deal, and I got a little more than what I was expecting :D
 
So the estate agent has called with a figure to take it off the market. £440k.

I’ve said that’s unrealistic and unreasonable. I’ve had a bit of a rant and said I’ll go to £430k and no more. (We really do want it) and I’m going to stick to my guns.

At £430k that’s £35k above asking, anymore is taking the mick.

She said there was another interested party who may go to £440k and my reply was “So be it, if they’re willing to go £45k above asking then I wish them luck. I will not” and her tone changed a bit.

Getting more and more narked now.
 
Tell
HoneyBadger said:
So the estate agent has called with a figure to take it off the market. £440k.

I’ve said that’s unrealistic and unreasonable. I’ve had a bit of a rant and said I’ll go to £430k and no more. (We really do want it) and I’m going to stick to my guns.

At £430k that’s £35k above asking, anymore is taking the mick.

She said there was another interested party who may go to £440k and my reply was “So be it, if they’re willing to go £45k above asking then I wish them luck. I will not” and her tone changed a bit.

Getting more and more narked now.
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Tell them you have revised your offer and are now only willing to go to £420k and they have one day to let you know as you have seen others you like.
 
HoneyBadger said:
She said there was another interested party who may go to £440k and my reply was “So be it, if they’re willing to go £45k above asking then I wish them luck. I will not” and her tone changed a bit.

Getting more and more narked now.
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Good for you, thats the only way to play it.

In my experience oiro was more to catch search brackets, ie oiro 395 was when they wanted more but wanted the people searching for up to 400k on property value.
 
Same as OIEO, it's all about how the property sits in the Right Move search brackets. The more expensive the property the wider the bracket to the greater you may need to offer over the listed price.

When looking at right move you also don't wan't to be in the middle of the search brackets e.g. If the property's proper value is 215k, right move offers 210k or 220k as search options. The default is to also order the houses by most extensive to cheapest, so if you advertise at 215k then your house will be below every house between 215k and 220k, makes more sense to list as OIEO/OIRO 210k.

The only downside is that you get people viewing that can't afford the realistic price and put in chance offers way below.

EDIT: the search brackets at the £400k range are £25k so really if they want £450 they should be at OIEO £425k, £395k is a bit of a **** take and borderline deception to get you in the door.
 
Yep, agree with what's been said - Offers around £395k when they're after £440 is a complete joke.

Got a linky to the property? Curious to see what £450k gets you up in Scotland.
 
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