You view a property, you ring to make an offer, its already sold - is there anything I am missing here?

[DecisionTime123]

This has happened to me three times - latest one I viewed on Saturday afternoon, rang agent today to find the vendor accepted an offer already; they seemed surprised that I should even want to know!

So is it not normal practice to check people who viewed and say just to let you know it's going to go under offer do you want to offer too? Is that not how it should work? I saw the documentary last year where they were saying agents will tie up a sale with someone who is taking a mortgage through their broker, without getting all other offers first and not actually passing on all offers anyway - just to get the extra commission. Anyone else had this experience?

Edited to say I could understand it more if you'd not got back in touch for days; also I just remembered this happened in a slightly different way on one occasion before where I had made an offer, waited to hear and then they said no someone has offered higher and its been accepted. This was within a day of viewing so not when there had already been a back and forth of offers.

You can still ask the agent to pass the offer to the vendors. If you don’t trust them to do so you can also put the offer in writing and post it through the property door.

If they were still taking viewings on Saturday they’ve only possibly accepted an offer verbally.

It’s being “sold” takes a long time. If that’s the case a very long time has happened between the OP viewing and wanting to put in an offer.

We have just sold our property STC.

We had plenty of viewings and a few offers at different stages of able to complete etc. We got an acceptable offer (£10k less than another offer) and as it was a first time buyer and proceedable within next 6 weeks we accepted.

Funny thing is we had to call the sales negotiator up to remind her to stop arranging viewings and under no circumstances was she to try to increase any offers from the acceptable bid or any others. She was like a bloodhound.

Sometimes its not just about playing people off against each other to eek out the last ££. Sometimes its about giving people the opportunity to pay an acceptable figure and to stick to the agreement.

I hope this stance helps us in the long run. Of course it can still backfire but at least we can look ourselves in the mirror. If someone was proceedable and had viewed the house, they had every opportunity to make a suitable bid.

So is it not normal practice to check people who viewed and say just to let you know it's going to go under offer do you want to offer too?

No, that's not normal practice. If you don't make an offer they will assume you don't intend to offer.

As they said an offer has already been accepted, I expect your offer was lower than the one already accepted.

Possibly the other viewer also viewed Saturday but offered immediately ? Or ten minutes before the OP, they wouldn’t waste their time showing more viewers round otherwise

I found that if you are really interested you need to be quick! We missed out on a property last year - we viewed the same day as the people who bought it; they rang up a few hours after the viewing to confirm they wanted it, they had no chain and made an offer the seller was happy with, so when I called on the Monday to offer the agent said that he would pass the offer on but he knew they wouldn't accept it as they had already made the decision to accept the other people's offer - it wasn't just the amount but the fact they were chain free.

Worked in our favour when we bought this house - we were the first to view, offered just below asking, and the sellers didn't want the hassle of more viewings they just wanted the certainty of the sale so said if we would go to asking they would take it off the market straight away, and they did. Not everyone is about getting the most money, often people have other things that are important to them when selling.

If you are really keen on the house I’d strongly recommend a note through the door. One of my DC viewed a house with their partner, they loved it so put an offer in. To be told that another offer was accepted and no negotiation could take place. So they put a note through the door just to say if there are any issues with the sale etc please let us know as we loved the house. The vendors had not been told of their interest or offer. Even though they rang the agent immediately after the viewing to say they would be offering.

The vendors were furious with the agents especially as the accepted offer was actually lower than my DC had offered. We suspect it was a friend of the agent or someone getting their mortgage through them. Despicable behaviour. And my DC abd partner got the house!

Evening all - what on earth did the deleted posts say?! Hard to follow the thread now, but thank you all. I just didn't think the market for leasehold flats was so hot that I'd have to offer the same day, esp it being Saturday afternoon. Thanks to those suggesting a note through the door, that's worth a punt.

The post that was deleted just said that the offer might have been on condition that the house was taken off the market immediately and perhaps the estate agents had failed to do that. I don't know why that was problem or what guidelines it broke

@WallaceinAnderland that's very odd. Did MNHQ know the estate agents?! 😂

Definitely can recommend a note through the door. I offered on a house, it was accepted but the agent wouldn't take me as proceedable. Later agreed this was in error, and, long story short, I'm now in the house despite another offer being accepted!