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.

No. We’re in the midlands.

This is what I’m presuming too.

Under the estate agents act of 1979, estate agents are legally required to pass on all offers in writing. Not the exact wording but I'm rubbish with technology.

Definitely put a note through the door with your contact information and the amount you’re willing to offer (or some sort of suggestion that you’re not a time waster).

Ask if you can please view the property with the intention of putting in an offer that they can use as a back up option if the current sale falls through.

If it’s less than half the price of all the other homes then chances are they have a long waiting list of potential buyers and so I wouldn’t get your hopes up.

I am shocked how many scam artists there appear to be!
A relative sold her house for very cheap, even though it was worth more (they said it was the highest offer they received).
3 estate agents gave a similar price and so she just accepted it but she found out that those estate agents were connected to each other.
We felt it was dodgy but couldn’t put our finger on why and these are all big name EA and so didn’t believe they’d act in an unprofessional manner.

I've seen it first hand and I 100% follow the rules and I was probably naïve to think these things didn't happen until I met someone who was involved in this sort of thing - I was so shocked (no longer in my life) but I guess it happens a lot, a quick way of making money for dodgy estate agents, definitely try to make the offer direct through any means possible

I would try to speak to the neighbours and see if they have any contact information or/and leave a letter through the door of the property. No harm in trying a couple more times.

I rang up when the property had been on for just under a week (IIRC). Yet was told that an offer had been accepted and no more viewings.

I wasn’t asking for sympathy, I was asking for advice?

A few people have asked about neighbours - both houses either side are big new builds (I’m not even sure if people are living in them yet). And I don’t think I’d feel comfortable knocking on other houses in the road to ask about the owner of the house.

I think I’ll ring the estate agents on Monday and ask about putting in an offer. And question whether an offer would be presented to the seller or not (when I last spoke of them, they didn’t mention it being possible to offer on the property).
If I get a strange vibe from them, I’ll post a letter through the door. I don’t have big hopes for this though as the house is already empty so there would be little need for somebody to be in the house. I would imagine the estate agents are ‘looking after’ the house.

Would also be interested @PigeonDuckGoose

It’s so annoying isn’t it. I wonder if you could kind of rock the boat a bit on Facebook. See if you can find a residents group for the area the house is in and post an enquiry post asking if anyone knows who the owner is. You could kind of feign innocence and say you had been trying to make contact with the owner re. ab offer on the house but were currently being gatekept from it by the estate agent. Yes it might be a good idea to do this NOT under your real name as I suspect it will flush out the estate agent but it’s something I would do before I walked away altogether just incase your suspicions are correct that there’s some cronism going on.

In the first post you said “I initially rang hoping to view the property after it has been on the market for 2 weeks”

My house went on the market on Tuesday, on Monday after a 1 day of viewings (Saturday) we had 4 offers, 2 above asking and we accepted one of them. There were no viewings after this even though we didn’t even say we didn’t want them. Yes you could genuinely be a victim of a dishonest agent, but nothing that you described is out of the ordinary- I came across all of it

If I get a strange vibe from them, I’ll post a letter through the door. I don’t have big hopes for this though as the house is already empty so there would be little need for somebody to be in the house. I would imagine the estate agents are ‘looking after’ the house.

If you're right about that, OP, then it's most likely that the person who finds the letter will be the EA. In which case, I suspect that's the last anyone will see of it.

Not sure - it was in a small village and I think people just talked to one another and the story broke. The press covered it.

No indeed it’s the EA’s responsibility to get their sellers the best possible offer.

Don’t ask them OP, just tell them you’re making an offer on x property and can they please pass it on.

Absolutely no point posting a letter to an empty house.

It’s not the responsibility of the EA to go against the client’s instructions not to allow further viewings after an offer has been accepted.

However, I think I would have more fun playing chess with a pigeon, so I won’t respond to you and your selective reading again.

? Majority of cash buyers are simply people who’ve already sold their house.

You’re entitled to sell to the least experienced, least secure buyers if you like, but that’s an eccentric approach.

This happened to me, but not because they were in cahoots but because they used the same online tool valuing the house - the first one left a printed report from the tool and the second agent came and proposed the same price. I did my research on sold prices in the area and knew that we can easily get £30k more so I pushed for a higher selling price, then my house sold for £35k more after 1 day of viewings. Sometimes agents also lowball the price because it won’t make a substantial difference in their commission, but it will save them a lot of time and resources (no endless viewings) if the price is low enough to sell quickly

It is if they have not stated in writing they want no furthers offers.

Now do please stop going on.

As you're cash buyers and its not listed as sstc I'd put a note through. We had an issue a few years ago. We wanted to view a house but because we were not listed for sale with the estate agent they were using it to block us. I put a note through, we viewed it and made an offer, that was accepted. As the sale progressed the ea was so vile and pushy we actually pulled out in the end.

Exactly, you don't know if they have or have not.

If you want to be in with any chance on this house, follow my previous advice, write a letter/email to the EA expressing your genuine interest, and your position and that you would very much like to view the property if the existing offer falls through, you could post a hard copy through the house door envelope addressed to proprietor

Then leave them alone - it is literally your only reasonable course of action.

Do some digging. Don’t trust the estate agent. My house was already under offer when I finally sold my previous one. I got in touch about it as I’d been looking at it on Rightmove for ages and got a message the next day that it was going back on the market. Had my offer in within an hour.