We have seen a 3-bed house we really like. The vendor is a divorcee of around 50 has ill health and needs to sell asap. She has been on the market a while & dropped her price considerably.
We are selling our 2-bed apartment with a courtyard within a 15 min drive max of the location the house we like is situated. Our current estate agent is pressuring us to drop our price, which we are reluctant to do as we have already done this.
As it turns out, the vendor of the property we like is looking to downsize to a 1-2 bed apartment, which needs outside space for her cats, and which needs to be in the proximity of her current proximity, she has a car. She has been looking at property approx £10,000 over the price of our apartment.
Our contract with our current estate agent is due to expire in 2.5 weeks. We had already considered changing to the estate agent dealing with the property we like.
So, agent for the vendor says she may be interested in a part-exchange so to speak. This agent's eyed had lit up when we said we were almost at the end of our contract with agent and they had been a bit crap (chuh-ching! I expect she was thinking!).
So, her agent calls her, and she wants to view our property, arranged for thursday. The agent has now spoken to her director who says there is a way around the legalities of her viewing through them not our agent, and he would like to come out to see us himself tomorrow and discuss this and possible contract with us once our current one expire etc.
For them, this is clearly a win-win situation - they go from no sale, to 2 sales, and in this market, they need all they can get.
For us, and for the vendor, it also seems a win-win situation. She cannot proceed with buying an apartment, or finalise her divorce until she sells. We can't offer on her place seriously until we sell our place. So if she buys ours, and we buy hers, we both get property and our chain is a loop so to speak!
I have two questions:
- If the vendor views our property and wants to make an offer, can we/should we/how do we bypass the estate completely in this and sell privately? Seeing as the point of an estate agent is to go and find people to buy our property, and if she offers on our place, can she just do it through us? Of course we would still buy her place through her agent.
- We know what we want to offer on the property, we have what we want to offer, and a final figure of what we will pay. So my thinking is, if she is desperate to sell, more so than us, she will seriously consider our apartment. We have said the minimum that we will accept, and that there is no room for negotiation on it (there is, but the agent does not know). Should we place our first offer before she looks at our place, stating that this offer was based on our selling our apartment for £xxx. Then she would view our place with the knowledge that should she like it, she has sold her place. Thus showing our lovely apartment in an even more positive light. It would also give her a figure to consider when she sees our place and decides if it is worth what we are asking. Then, if she wants a bit more, or wants to offer less on ours, we can negotiate around that (we are prepared to go up to close to but not the asking price).
Phew, if you manage to read this, well done. I know it is long, but I am no good at shortening my summaries. Sorry!