Dodgy Estate Agents??

Question

There was a house for sale that I was intertested in (which I think was a building soc repo) and the estate agents were asking for offers in the region of £139K. Obviously they wont tell you what their best offer so I said that I would offer £2K above whatever their best offer was ( assuming it to be somewhere around £140 K/ £145K. After a few minutes of furtive conversation between themselves they decided that they didnt want any more offers tho this was before the closing date and I was sent on my way. A few months later I noticed that someone had moved in & during a casual conversation with the new owner found out that he had got the property for less than I was prepared to pay! Obviously someones palm was being greased at the estate agents, but just how untrustworthy are they..... if I had asked them to sell a property for me I would expect them to get the best price not the deal that best lined their back pocket. Anyone else had similar experience or estate agents comments

Answer 1

estate agents are the dodgiest of the dodgy... did you ever catch that documentary on Foxtons? they got rumbled big time forging signatures and whatnot..

if at all possible i'd like to leave them out altogether, cut out the middle man...

worse than 2nd hand car salesmen...

Answer 2

Your method of doing business is underhanded. If you made a formal offer in writing, the seller would be able to consider the offer. By not stating a offer in writing, you permit yourself to get played.