Estate Agents not letting us put in an offer?

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Hi all. We have no experience with dealing with estate agents so I was hoping someone would be able to advise on the below!

We really want to put in an offer on a property. It’s listed on Rightmove (and has been for 5 weeks), and is a £900,000 house on a street full of £2m+ properties. The area is full of elderly people in average properties that are then typically snapped up by developers and resold for insane amounts.

I initially rang hoping to view the property after it has been on the market for 2 weeks. I was told that there are to be no more viewings as the seller has accepted an offer in principle, but was waiting for them to sell their own house. End of call.

I rang back a week later and asked about the house again as it was still on RightMove. I was told that it was still on Right Move as it hadn’t sold as the seller was waiting for the buyers own house to sell. I asked if I could view as I may want to put an offer in too and was told no as the buyer had accepted the sellers offer (then surely it should be taken off of Right Move?).

A couple of weeks on and the house is still available to view. I rang off of another number and was told the same story again.

Can anyone shed any light onto this? Surely if the sellers are waiting on the buyers to sell, then they may still be interested in receiving new (potentially higher) offers? I can’t help but think something dodgy is going on by the estate agents as the house is such a bargain in a very desirable area.

In any case the offer can be contingent on viewing.

OP makes offer contingent on viewing.

Buyer (via EA) says “current accepted offer conditions include no more viewings, as we said. We’ll call you if things change.”

And we are back at the place we started.

I would think they were being ridiculous especially at a 900k price point.

I put an offer on a house but the buyer(s) for my property fell through 3 times. The seller put their house back on the market but said they were still interested in us if we could sort out our sale. Eventually we sold to a cash buyer and also bought that same house we'd wanted all along. Point being, sometimes a seller does like to stick to a particular buyer if that buyer can sort out things their end.

Pretending there’s been no interest in order to sell to a friend at perhaps a lower price or who is a less strong buyer.

More likely is:

OP writes offer contingent on viewing.
EA obliged to tell seller and obliged to get best deal for client
Viewing takes place
EA advises buyer this is proceedable cash offer from keen client
OP confirms offer and provides proof of funds
Seller accepts stronger offer from OP

We had a similar situation. My MIL lives in a rented property. The landlord passed away and the EA who managed the rental were instructed to sell it. My partner offered to buy it (it was listed for way below the market value) and third parties rang up (anonymously on our behalf) and the EA wouldn't let anyone else have the details. It wasn't even listed on RM. In the end the Manager sold it to his parents ! We never found who how much for, if it's sold way below market value the sold price doesn't appear on the Land Registry.
BTW there was a Panorama about EAs who sell to people who have mortgages through their preferred mortgage company (so they get commission) and won't pass on interest from other parties.

Or to a developer who does a lot of business with the agent.
Or even, Ime, just that the agent is lazy the offer’s in & they cba

Your presumption is that the EA is lying.

Mine is not.

They tell you that all the time…

Yes. I could get them the money by next week.

You think EAs are scrupulously truthful? 🤣

More likely they’re lazy or crap in this case.

Happened to us when we were selling our house, we were living abroad, and the person who was being refused a viewing reached out to a family member, when we spoke to the estate agent he said he already had a good offer of almost asking price which he was about to present to us, turned out it was a friend of his and he was refusing other requests for viewings. We ended up getting loads of offers once we insisted he did viewings, we got 15% over the asking price, which was pretty substantial.

See if you can reach out to the owners.

I never said she had.

That’s generally how the house buying process works? Where I live, most estate agents don’t even let you view a property if you haven’t sold/aren’t proceedable. People tend to value a strong/non chain buyer quite highly?

I don’t think any one profession is full of liars or full of truth tellers.

But the EA and seller are behaving exactly as they should if the sellers have accepted an offer which is conditional on no further viewings. And such a condition is pretty common.

Could all be a lie. I don’t think it is. You do.

Have you rung them again today? Ask to speak to the director of the office if you don’t get anywhere.

Really? If I was selling a desirable property for under market value and received a good cash offer sight unseen, I’d take it.

The EA might not be telling prospective viewers the truth verbally. If you put an offer in on paper and via email you then have proof that your offer was in good faith and must (should under the EA Act) be forwarded to the vendor.

I had similar to this years ago- went to view a house, spoke to the owner, all went well. Put an offer in next day and was told the house was sold! The owner didnt seem to be aware...
Bought another house in the same area, then met the woman in the local shop a year later. She told me the house sold weeks later...for less than I offered. She was unaware that I had put in an offer and was pretty annoyed!
I don't trust estate agents!

No they’re not the EA isn’t following the law.

No reason to think they’re lying just crap.

Sold recently. Told the estate agent we weren't interested in cash offers and once we had a buyer we didn't take any further viewings/offers because we had accepted his and we aren't AH.

Move on. They don't want to sell the house to you end of. 🤣

Or even, if it’s that desirable and underpriced, the EA themselves wants it.