Estate agents........and moving! A true story about estate agents summarises this writer's experience.

About 10 years we decided to move house when a property in an area we always liked came up for sale . We went to view the property, met the estate agent and asked him what was the selling price. He advised that 200k would buy the house and after another look around the house we offered him the asking price of €200,000.

We enquired as to what the next step was and he advised us that he was meeting the owner that evening and would inform him of the offer. That was a Friday and we rang on Monday morning to get an update with no response. We again rang on Tuesday and finally got through on Wednesday when we were informed that the property was sold for €200,500. We were devastated and disgusted that we were not given a chance to come back on our offer which we had understood would buy the house.

Not being satisfied we contacted the owner and explained how disappointed we were. He advised us that the estate agent had said we made a conditional offer (which we hadn't) and he was recommending another party as the purchaser at the price stated above. It just so happened that the other party was in the process of selling their home and the estate agent was also acting for them in this sale. The owner was also annoyed because he did not get a chance to see if we would offer more, but felt honour bound by the deal he had agreed with the estate agent. We advised him that we remained really interested in the house and asked him to come back to us if any problems arose with the sale. Fortunately for us the other party could not complete the transaction and we eventually bought the house for €200,500.

On the other side of the same transaction was our decision to sell our own property. When we agreed with the owner to buy the new house we then had to sell our own house. After our experience with the seller's estate agent we decided to put an ad in the papers ourselves and sell the property without an agent. We had an idea of what the house was worth and put an ad in the paper at the valuation plus10%.Within two days we had plenty of enquiries and started showing the house the following weekend. One of the first couples to view the house came in and offered us the asking price. We thought about it overnight and picked up the phone and agreed a deal the following morning. The house was on show that afternoon and about ten people came, two of whom had visited the house on the first day. We were approached and offered a further 10% on top of the price we had agreed. We did not accept the offer as we had agreed the deal with the first couple.

There is no doubt that had we employed an estate agent he would not have jumped in and accepted the offer and that decision cost us a lot of money.. What is the moral of the story? I would say that I am extremely wary of estate agents but can understand how they might be a necessary evil!