Estate agent myths debunked: What buyers really need to know

Buying a home is probably the biggest purchase most of us will ever make. Yet buyers are often making decisions involving hundreds of thousands – or even millions – of pounds based on information supplied by someone they fundamentally misunderstand.

One of the biggest misconceptions in the property market is that the estate agent is there to help the buyer. They aren’t.

That doesn’t mean estate agents are dishonest, unhelpful or out to get you. Far from it. The vast majority of estate agents I deal with are hardworking, professional people doing their best to get transactions over the line.

But buyers need to understand one fundamental fact: the selling estate agent works for the seller, not for you.

Their job is to sell their client’s property, ideally for the best/ highest price possible and on the best terms they can achieve.

As a buying agent, we sit on the opposite side of the transaction. we represent the buyer. Over the years, that has given is an interesting insight into the misconceptions buyers have about estate agents – and occasionally the tricks used by the less scrupulous operators in the industry.

Here are some of the biggest estate agent myths we regularly encounter.

This is probably the most important myth to understand.

Myth 1: “The estate agent is working for me”

A selling estate agent’s client is the vendor. The seller normally appoints them and pays their fee.

An agent may be extremely friendly. They may send you properties, arrange viewings, answer questions, recommend solicitors and help keep your purchase moving.

But don’t confuse being helpful with representing your interests.

We have seen buyers make precisely this mistake.

One buyer genuinely believed the estate agent was helping them negotiate the best possible deal. They trusted what the agent told them about the property and what they should offer because they thought the agent had their best interests at heart. They ended up paying considerably more for the property than they needed to.

The agent hadn’t been engaged to secure the buyer a bargain. Their job was to secure the best result they could for their seller. There is nothing inherently wrong with that. The problem was that the buyer misunderstood the relationship. It is one of the reasons buying agents exist.

The selling agent represents the seller; a buying agent represents the buyer.

Myth 2: “The estate agent valued it at £800,000, so it must be worth £800,000”

An asking price is not a statement of fact.

Property valuation is an art as well as a science, and two perfectly competent estate agents can look at the same house and arrive at two completely different figures.

There can also be a difference between what a property is “worth”, what an agent recommends marketing it for and what it will actually sell for.

Sometimes sellers insist on an ambitious asking price. Sometimes an agent deliberately launches above the expected sale price to test the market. And, yes, there are occasions when an agent may give an optimistic valuation in the hope of winning an instruction.

But it is unfair to assume every estate agent deliberately overvalues property. Most don’t.

As a buyer, however, you shouldn’t base your offer purely on the figure printed on the particulars.

Look at comparable properties that have actually sold. Consider condition, size, tenure, location, service charges, lease length, outside space and the property’s previous marketing history.

Ultimately, a property is worth what somebody is prepared to pay for it – but that doesn’t mean that somebody has to be you.

Myth 3: “There’s another offer, so I need to offer more”

Perhaps there is.

But don’t automatically panic and start bidding against yourself.

We recently represented a buyer where we were told another offer had materialised and that we needed to increase ours. We didn’t believe it.

Rather than immediately raising our offer, we called the agent’s bluff. Eventually, they backtracked. The supposedly competing offer wasn’t quite what it had initially been made out to be.

That doesn’t mean you should assume every competing offer is fictitious. In a competitive market, multiple offers are extremely common, but a buyer needs to remain disciplined.

If another bidder genuinely wants to pay more than you believe the property is worth, sometimes the right decision is to let them.

Myth 4: “The agent says it’s a bargain”

Be very careful about confusing salesmanship with independent advice.

“This is fantastic value.”

“You won’t find another one at this price.”

“The seller will never accept that.”

“You’ll regret losing it for £10,000.”

We’ve heard countless variations.

The agent might genuinely believe every word. Experienced estate agents know their local markets extremely well and their opinions can be useful.

But their opinion isn’t independent buying advice.

Do your own research and establish what the property is worth to you before negotiating.

If somebody whose job is to sell you something tells you it is a bargain, that alone isn’t evidence that it is one.

Myth 5: “It’s new to the market”

“New to market” is one of those phrases buyers tend to take at face value.

We’re often presented with a properties described as new to the market that we alreaday know very well. Why?

Because we’ve previously been offered it off-market and have then subsequently watched it appear on and off the market for sometimes well over a year, including with several other estate agents.

A property can be newly listed with a particular agency without necessarily being genuinely new to the wider market.

That distinction matters.

A home that appeared three days ago and already has five interested buyers is a very different negotiating proposition from one that has struggled to sell for 12 months.

Before making an offer, investigate its history.

Myth 6: “I have to act immediately”

Sometimes you really do.

Good properties can attract enormous interest, particularly in sought-after parts of London. We’ve seen homes receive multiple offers almost immediately in the past.

But urgency can also be an extremely effective sales technique.

“You need to offer today.”

“We’ve got another viewing this afternoon.”

“There are several interested parties.”

“The vendor is about to accept another offer.”

Any of those statements could be completely genuine. But don’t let artificial urgency push you into making a decision you subsequently regret.

Buying a home requires decisiveness, but decisiveness and panic are not the same thing.

Myth 7: “Your offer is too low, so we won’t put it forward”

An estate agent may tell you that an offer is unlikely to be accepted. They may tell you that the seller has already rejected offers at a similar level.

That’s useful information.

But by law in the UK, estate agents must promptly pass on every genuine offer to the seller in writing. This legal duty continues right up until contracts are officially exchanged, even if an offer was already accepted, unless the seller gave written instructions to ignore specific offers.

We recently became involved after a buyer was effectively told that their offer couldn’t be put forward unless they first spoke to the estate agency’s mortgage company. That is conditional selling and it is illegal. The agent didn’t realise we were advising the buyer. We stepped in, challenged it and the agent apologised. Our offer was submitted to the seller and was accepted.

Buyers shouldn’t assume that because an estate agent describes an offer as “too low”, they are entitled simply to make the decision for the seller.

It is ultimately the vendor’s property and, subject to their instructions, their decision whether to accept or reject an offer.

Myth 8: “I have to use the estate agent’s mortgage broker or solicitor”

No, you really don’t.

Estate agencies will often try and offer mortgages, conveyancing and other services, and there is nothing inherently wrong with that. Some buyers find having several services under one roof genuinely convenient.

An agent may also legitimately want to establish that you are financially able to proceed. Sellers understandably don’t want to take their property off the market for a buyer who cannot actually afford it.

But that is different from requiring you to purchase an in-house service simply to have your offer considered or communicated.

You are completely free to choose your own mortgage adviser, conveyancer or solicitor.

Don’t confuse financial qualification with an obligation to buy the estate agency’s products.

Myth 9: “Best and final means I have to increase my offer”

The words “best and final” seem to induce instant panic in some buyers. They shouldn’t.

A best-and-final-offer process usually means the seller has multiple interested parties and is asking each buyer to submit the best offer and terms they are prepared to make by a particular deadline.

It doesn’t mean you have to increase your offer. Your existing offer can be your best and final offer.

We’ve seen buyers become so frightened of losing a property that they abandon their original assessment of its value and effectively start competing with themselves.

Decide the maximum you are genuinely comfortable paying and stick to it.

And remember that the highest offer isn’t necessarily the best offer. A seller may prefer a slightly lower cash buyer, somebody with no chain or a buyer who can work to their preferred timescale.

Price matters enormously, but so does proceedability.

Myth 10: “The estate agent says there’s no chain, so there’s no chain”

Ask questions and, where possible, verify the answers.

We recently dealt with a buyer who had been told there was no chain. That was understandably attractive because it suggested a relatively straightforward transaction.

Only after the offer had been accepted did the buyer discover there was, in fact, a chain.

That fundamentally changed the transaction they thought they were entering.

Chains can also develop. A seller’s circumstances can change, so the fact that somebody originally intended to move into rented accommodation doesn’t guarantee that will remain the plan.

Ask exactly what the seller’s onward position is rather than relying solely on the reassuring phrase “no chain”.

Myth 11: “My offer has been accepted, so the property is mine”

Unfortunately, not in England and Wales.

Until contracts are exchanged, an accepted offer does not normally give the buyer ownership of the property or guarantee that the seller will ultimately sell it to them.

We’ve often represent buyers who have prevuiosuly had offers was accepted and who were told there would be no further viewings and that the property would be removed from Rightmove and Zoopla. Yet the marketing nevertheless continued. Other buyers subsequently offered more money and the clients were gazumped.

It was extremely frustrating for them, but buyers need to understand the distinction between something being morally frustrating and being legally impossible. An accepted offer is an important milestone. It isn’t exchange of contracts.

If having the property removed from the market is important to you, make that an explicit condition of your offer and get the position confirmed in writing. Even then, buyers should understand the limits of that protection.

Myth 12: “Estate agents can stop me being gazumped”

This follows directly from the previous myth.

Buyers sometimes blame the estate agent when a seller accepts a higher offer. But the estate agent doesn’t own the house. Ultimately, the vendor decides whether to accept another offer.

Indeed, an agent’s legal obligations to their seller mean the cannot simply conceal a later offer because doing so would be convenient for the existing buyer.

A good agent can encourage a seller to behave sensibly. They can explain the risks of abandoning a committed buyer for somebody offering slightly more money. They can also keep the transaction moving quickly to reduce the opportunity for problems.

But they cannot necessarily prevent a seller from changing their mind.

Sometimes the person buyers are angry with should really be the vendor rather than the agent.

Myth 13: “Everything the estate agent tells me must be correct”

This needs some nuance.

Estate agents shouldn’t deliberately provide buyers with false or misleading information. But that doesn’t mean buyers should abandon their own due diligence.

An agent may themselves have been given incorrect information by the seller. Details can change. Mistakes happen. And some statements are opinions rather than facts.

If something materially affects your decision to purchase, investigate it.

Don’t just ask whether an extension has planning permission – check.

Don’t just accept that the service charge is “about £2,000” – obtain the paperwork.

Don’t assume a property is 1,000 sq ft because somebody mentioned it during a viewing – check the floorplan and, where important, verify it.

Don’t assume the seller is chain-free simply because that was the original intention.

Listen to what the agent tells you, but do your own research and take appropriate independent professional advice.

Myth 14: “Estate agents are all dishonest”

This may be the biggest estate agent myth of them all.

After everything we’ve written above, this point is important. The vast majority of estate agents we work with are good at their jobs and genuinely want transactions to succeed.

Like every profession, property has some bad apples. Unfortunately, questionable behaviour by a relatively small number of agents can damage the reputation of an entire industry.

The reality of being an estate agent is also very different from the stereotype of easy money for showing somebody around a house for 20 minutes.

Good agents work incredibly hard. The hours can be long. Earnings can depend heavily on commission. Transactions that somebody has spent months progressing can collapse through absolutely no fault of their own – and the agent may earn nothing from all that work.

They spend their days juggling buyers, sellers, solicitors, surveyors, mortgage brokers and chains, often while being blamed by everyone involved when something goes wrong, and sometimes the behaviour a buyer attributes to the estate agent is actually coming from the seller.

An agent may personally think accepting another offer is a terrible idea, for example, but ultimately they take instructions from their client.

Most estate agents aren’t sitting in an office plotting ways to trick buyers. They just want to sell houses and get deals completed.

So, can you trust an estate agent?

Yes – but understand the relationship. A good selling agent can be an invaluable source of information and can make the difference between a transaction proceeding smoothly and falling apart.

I’ve worked with many excellent estate agents whom I trust and respect enormously. But a buyer should never forget who the agent represents. If you are buying a property being marketed by an estate agent, you are not their client. The seller is.

That’s the crucial distinction.

Listen to what the agent says. Ask questions. Build a good relationship with them. Good relationships matter enormously in property. But don’t blindly take everything at face value.

Research comparable sales. Investigate the property’s history. Check important claims. Take independent legal, financial and surveying advice. Decide what the property is worth to you before negotiating. And don’t allow urgency or emotion to make you pay more than you believe you should.

Most importantly, don’t mistake an estate agent being helpful for an estate agent representing you.

Their job is to achieve the best outcome they can for their seller and there’s nothing wrong with that.

You just need to remember that nobody on the other side of the negotiating table is automatically there to get the best deal for you.

Buying a property and want someone on your side?

Curetons is a London property buying agency representing buyers rather than sellers. We search for properties, assess opportunities, carry out due diligence and negotiate with selling agents on our clients’ behalf.

Unlike a traditional estate agent, we don’t represent the vendor and we don’t sell you their property. Our client is the buyer.

If you’re considering buying a home or investment property in London and would like independent representation throughout the process, contact Curetons to discuss your search.