Sales Tactics of Estate Agents & Builders

Whether you are a First Time Buyer actively viewing properties or a home mover with your house on the market, you may have noticed that some of the larger estate agents and builders are very keen for you to use their in-house mortgage advisor and conveyancing services. 

Being part of a stand-alone mortgage business we receive lots of feedback as to what sales tactics can be used, examples of this are:

• Refusing to put your offer forward to the vendor if you have not taken in-house mortgage advice or favouring another offer over yours because you already have your mortgage sorted. Please note these situations are illegal. 
• Quoting extortionate conveyancing fees, I recently had a client who was quoted more than £1,500 for a straight forward purchase with an estate agent.  They got this down to £750 with our help by using another conveyancer local to them. 
• From the big well known colourful online agents, within minutes of making your offer they may call you wanting the name of your conveyancer, not just the company, the actual individual acting for you! At the same time pushing their extortionately overpriced quotations, and refuse to take the property off the market without this. Don’t worry, we can help you be ready for this.
  

Don’t be fooled, popular Estate Agent & Builder sales quotes include:

“Keeping everything under one roof is easier with one point of contact”

“If you use our services it will give the vendor peace of mind that everything will go through smoothly”

“You need to come in and see our mortgage advisor for your offer to be qualified”

“Your offer is more likely to be accepted if you use our mortgage advisor”

“We get better deals than most brokers”

“Everything is likely to go through quicker if you use us”

“We will do all of the chasing of the solicitors for you and they’ll be more responsive to us due to the amount of work we send them”

“We’ll give you a free carpet/washing machine if you use our (extortionately priced) recommended conveyancing service”

Remember, when negotiating a purchase price, do you really want the seller of your property having access to your personal financial situation and potentially knowing your maximum borrowing?