Dodgy estate agent tactics

[SheWouldNever]

We were originally on market with Agent A, who we left pretty sharpish as we were really unhappy with how they presented our house online (awful photos, no floorplan) and they didn't address these concerns when we voiced them - their general communication was poor, lost emails etc, and we just thought if this is how they are also communicating with potential buyers then it's not a good sign for the prompt sale we were hoping to achieve.

We had no contract with them or agreed terms so it was very easy to walk away, although they tried a lot to get us to stay, including slashing the commission fee to essentially nothing. It was weirdly desperate in a time when the market was booming and they surely had other properties to concentrate on.

We relisted with Agent B, who were aware of our position with the first agent. Fast forward 2 months and we have accepted an offer (although it’s not listed as such online yet).

Agent A has now got back in touch to catch up on our position. But I think really it was more to bad mouth Agent B. Agent A has said they have a really keen buyer with good budget that tried to view our house with Agent B but Agent B told them no. Agent A wants to bring their buyer in for an under the radar viewing, and if they want to offer they say they can “get round the fact that we have sole marketing with Agent B because we were previously on the market with them”. Presumably they would say the buyer had viewed 2 months back when the house was on with them.

They also said that they know for a fact that our current buyer has more budget than they’ve offered as they’ve also been showing them properties and have seen their finances. They don’t think Agent B is working hard enough to secure us an asking price offer and that they are notorious for “settling for the first lower offers that come in”.

Essentially, Agent A is trying for a last ditch attempt to gazump with a buyer of their own.

Agent B has has not yet sent us any offer in writing or memorandum of sale. The buyer wants to view again at the weekend, so I’m not yet even treating it as a concrete offer, but we are verbally offer accepted at this stage.

Just to be clear, we are not considering Agent As plan. The offer with Agent B is decent, not asking price, but then our asking price was a bit high to begin with. I’m just a bit flabbergasted at the agent tactics we’ve seen this time round selling our property. Maybe I shouldn’t be surprised and they are all like this, or maybe these guys are particularly underhanded. I’m mainly just pissed that they obviously assume we are stupid enough to not see through their tactics and the blatant bad mouthing of Agent B.

Also, how on earth would Agent A's buyers be able to build trust in us as sellers if we allowed them to view and accept an offer despite being on with another agent and technically under offer?! Surely they’d think we were massive chancers and that the whole sale is risky. All I want is a smooth sale with a price we are happy with, and we hopefully have that!

Is this par for the course with estate agents or have we had particularly bad dealings?

[Raifa]

That is what happens when there are little differentiated factor in the product/service an industry can offer so it s subject to this sort of behaviour to scrap business left and right. There are constant estate agent bashing here and other forums so you won’t feel alone long.

[DespairingHomeowner]

The original agent sounds awful: just steer well clear as they may be messing up your sale

[greyhills]

How did Agent A find out who your current buyer is?

[Pipandmum]

No this is not normal estate agent behaviour. I buy and sell a lot, and while some agents are more professional than others, I've never come across anything like this.
There are unscrupulous people in most professions. Do not even engage with this agent from now on.

[SheWouldNever]

@DespairingHomeowner I know, I'm starting to suspect that they could have been badmouthing our current agents to their buyers and potentially discouraging the sale of our house all this time.

[SheWouldNever]

@greyhills Agent A had been showing our buyers some properties too, so I'm assuming our buyers updated them that they had an offer accepted on a house (ours).

[DespairingHomeowner]

[quote SheWouldNever]@DespairingHomeowner I know, I'm starting to suspect that they could have been badmouthing our current agents to their buyers and potentially discouraging the sale of our house all this time.[/quote]
Hopefully this weekend’s viewing has gone well and you will be SSTC soon

Also, with any luck your buyers will think agent A are unprofessional chancers too... even as a FTB I could see the difference!

[DeeplyMovingExperience]

Steer well clear and report them to trading standards. Cowboy estate agents need to be driven out of the market.