Asking estate agents for more info

[dizzyupthegirl86]

Hi all,
I viewed a house two days before lockdown and was super interested in it. It had been on the market since July last year, price dropped by almost 10% in February and up with another agent at the same time. The day after I saw it, it had an offer made which the estate agents told me was pending some legal info, they later changed the listing to sold STC.

About two weeks later, the listing no longer showed sold STC so I enquired with the agent to be told that the offer was made by a developer and they’d basically said the property they were already on would be delayed due to lockdown so didn’t want to proceed with the purchase for the time being. We agreed that when lockdown was lifted, they’d get in touch with me for a second viewing.

I’m wondering if I can contact them to ask for more info, or whether it’s not the ‘done thing’?
It doesn’t have a floor plan, the agents don’t have one, but I’d like to get an idea of the square footage for comparison to other properties. It also has an extension, which I’d like to know if they had permission for (which is another reason why the square footage would be interesting), I’d like to know the age of the double glazing and boiler - to see whether I would need to budget for them being replaced or not. There’s a big tree in the front garden but I can’t tell whether that’s on the boundary of the house or the one next door.

I’d also like to know what the previous offer was, and the reasons it’s being sold - but is that too cheeky? It’s got a new carpet in the hallway, a cheap unfinished bathroom (think kitchen tap on the basin, etc), bare floorboards in some of the rooms and a kitchen that is literally cobbled together from bits of old wood... it’s empty at the moment, doesn’t feel like it’s been a family house but also doesn’t strike me as a house that someone bought to do up and resell as the kitchen hasn’t been touched.

There’s not much that goes up for sale on the road, the ones that have sold in the last few years all have had considerably more work done on them so it’s difficult to compare like for like in terms of seeing if it’s overpriced.

It’s definitely not in move in condition and the garden is very definitely not child friendly so I can imagine this is potentially putting families off, but for it to have been on the market for so long makes me think that there’s a problem with it!

Is the estate agent likely to be able to tell me any of this? Would I be cheeky to ask?

Definitely ask for me info. They can tell you most of the above except what the offer was on it. Doubt they'd disclose that as they'll want to push you to the max.

We're also looking at the moment and estate agents are going to extra mile to get answers to the questions that we have. They're desperate to keep the market moving as best they can.

Good luck with it!

Not me! I don't know anything about it. The agent obviously.

They're estate agent, you can ask them anything! Don;t forget they work both sides though so might end up playing you against the developer. I wouldn't expect them to give you the value of the offer however as they want as much as possible for it.
I bought my place against a developer (several actually!) but I got it as the family wanted it to go to another family, not just get built on

Some of that you can do your own research on. Get the boundary info from the land registry. Look up the planning history of the house on the local council website. Always better to get information from an impartial source where possible.

But otherwise, yes I'd ask. The agent will be desperate for a sale!

They shouldn't tell you what previous offer was ,although they might give you a hint eg around asking price
Either way take it with a pinch of salt

Thank you all!
I hadn’t thought of checking planning history, that’s super useful. I’ve done that now and there’s no record of that house having one. There is a record of the house next door having a ground floor extension, albeit much smaller than the one on ‘my’ house. That one was an extra room at the back whereas on the house I’m looking at, it’s a side extension and goes the full length of the house. If the house next door needed planning permission for one much smaller though, that does suggest the extension may be an issue.

The current asking price is above my budget - I could just about stretch to it but it would leave me nothing to get the work done. A developer is unlikely to have offered asking price, but I do accept they aren’t likely to tell me how much it was.

It was up for 240 for a while, and now 220k. There’s a house for sale with a loft conversion and in much better condition inside, up for 279. They’ve also had the garden done, whereas this house hasn’t - and it’s a very steep upwards slope and lots of different levels - so would be considerable money to change! That’s not super important to me but I do think it would put a lot of people off.