Estate Agent's Valuation - what would you do?

[yoyo]

We put a house on the market in the Summer using the Agent we bought it from. We went on holiday for a week and came back to three offers of the asking price. So, sold STC. Ring Agent today as solicitor needs paperwork and Agent lets slip that 12 other people are interested in buying if this falls through! Am sure it must be undervalued for this level of interest. Have rung another Agent for a valuation and they said it sounded very suspicious. Our Agent is local and seems to know the potential buyers. Don't want to mess anyone around but do feel we might have been hasty. If the second Agent comes back with a much higher valuation would you pull out?

get the agent to ask them to do a silent auction. If so many are interested ask them to make you an offer!

see what the other estate agent says. The trouble is if this estate agent has undervalued your house so he can sell it onto some friends cheaply would you trust him with any further offers?

Also if he has done it on purpose the buyers must be aware and would know the risk of you pulling out.

The second agent will hopefully get back to us in the next 24h so will have a clearer idea then. The price seemed fair to us initially which is why we didn't query it. I just have a feeling that this isn't a straightforward sale if you see what I mean. I really don't want to mess people around but also don't want to be taken for a ride. Can you just pull out and transfer to another agent? Do you have to pay if they have had a survey done?
And I thought it was all going through so smoothly too although I suppose it still is apart from our concerns.

Sealed bids ?

How do sealed bids work? Do you put a reserve down or what?

Sealed bids is basically where all parties interested in purchasing your house have to put together a pack which states the MAXIMUM they will pay for your house, and what their position is, evidence that their finances are in order etc, this pack has to be submitted to your agent or solicitor (don't know which one) by a certain date (set by you) and then you and your solicitor/agent/financial advisor sit dwon and look at which offer is the best (not necessarily the one offering the most cash).

Second agent has just rung and said she felt it was a fair price and that the interest is high because people want to get into the village (it is a small house so lower end of the market). She advised us to proceed as the market in the area is exceptionally slow at the moment. So perhaps my concerns are unfounded.

Housing - so much stress. There must be an easier way to do things.

My house is on the market and I can confirm the achingly slow nature of the market at the mo. TAKE THE MONEY AND RUN !!!!!

Thanks NdP - you are probably right!

why not look at one of the web sites where you can look up what houses have sold for in your road/area renently.. Can't do links but this is theone I use and it is free.

www.nethouseprices.com/

I tried that initially and found no matches but I did trawl other websites to see if we were in the right area with the price. As I said we thought it was a fair price initially though. Think we will just leave things as they currently stand but would consider an indepedent valuation for any future property.

have to agree that the market is very sloooow. we were on market since end of March and finally completing on Monday!