Raising it’s ugly head again
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Gazumping
- Thread starter derek kelly
- Start date
Did it ever go away???
I believe it did but now there’s no stamp duty people are fighting over themselves to buy properties, since we have agreed on our sale we’ve been contacted by three estate agents promising to get us more if we go with them, they aren’t put off when we tell them we’ve got the full asking price, they still expect us to be swayed by the prospect of getting more, the people we are buying off were gazumped on their first choice but have luckily found another property.
Estate agents aren’t at the top of my list of favourite people. We had three in for a quote to sell our house in Kent. After we’d decided on one, the other two kept carpet-bombing me with calls asking “have you sold yet?” knowing full well we hadn’t. Even telling them to sod off didn’t work as well as I’d have liked. Thankfully, my phone number changed with my job.
Last year we sold my dad’s house just before he passed away. We put it on the market at offers in excess of £500k. We got 3 offers, the best being £525k which we accepted. Barely a week later we were offered an extra £1500 to sell it to a previous low bidder. I told them to go away as it was “sold” already. Personally I just don’t have the wherewithal to allow a gazumper anywhere near me. I am extremely pleased we sold it to a young couple - first house! and I’ve been invited in several times to see how they’re getting on with their remodelling of it.
Estate agents down here are generally very professional and I consider a few of the local ones as personal friends.
However, bad practice still abounds.....we put an offer in as a cash buyer on a property being sold by an executor that we were going to use as a rental a few years ago. We didn't get it but something didn't smell right...a bit of asking around and we found out that the accepted offer was less than ours...and that the estate agent had brokered a mortgage for the buyer. We were able to track down the executor and let them know that the agent had stiffed them, no idea what happened subsequently but I know what I would have done if I were the executor.
However, bad practice still abounds.....we put an offer in as a cash buyer on a property being sold by an executor that we were going to use as a rental a few years ago. We didn't get it but something didn't smell right...a bit of asking around and we found out that the accepted offer was less than ours...and that the estate agent had brokered a mortgage for the buyer. We were able to track down the executor and let them know that the agent had stiffed them, no idea what happened subsequently but I know what I would have done if I were the executor.
Boils my piss. The least qualified of any of the parties involved in the house purchase procedure and yet earn the most. Totally unregulated industry with no suitability or background checks at all. And that massive conflict of interest which you describe whereby they can act for the vendor on the sale whilst advising the purchaser at the same time. Never met one I like.
Similar thing happened with my father’s house after he died, my brothers were executors & when I found out that the estate agent had actually bought the house for almost half it’s value I did some digging & found it was a criminal offence & carried up to six years in jail, my brothers did not want to pursue it, I am still not 100% sure at least one of my brothers got a decent back hander out of it.
There is a degree of regulation but in my view not enough.
Personally I wouldn't deal with any agent who hasn't taken the trouble to get themselves professional qualifications - I wonder how many people check them out when appointing them to act in a sale?
Safest bet is to deal with local firms that have been around for a long time. Having said that, if we had gone with one of the long established firms when we sold our last place we would have received significantly less than we did if we ha drelied on their valuation!