Gazumped!

[2BIT]

Have you considered that the agent is telling the truth? Do you think they'd bugger up a perfectly good sale for an extra £300* (that's hardly a get rich quick scheme is it?). *£300 is 2% of £15k.

agreed, there is a theory that there is a threshold at which trying to get higher price becomes no longer worth it - for example they may have been trying to sell the house for months and they can sell for £200K but the seller wants £215K the agent may not feel it worth doing to much work on getting it sold for what works out to an extra £300 in commission

[2BIT]

Have you read Freakanomics? It states similarly, from the sellers position, the estate agent is not going to bust his tail to try and get a £5000, £10,000 increase in an offer as he hardly gets anything out of it.

ah jmo had explained this better than I did

[SueEllen]

Most vendors, it seems to me, choose their agent based on who gives the highest valuation. Knowing this, an agent will give a high valuation and then subsequently recommend that the vendor accepts a somewhat lower (realistic?) offer.

Lots but not all.

Plus there are vendors who reject higher offers even if both parties are willing to move quite quickly because they strongly dislike the person(s) who made the higher offer.

In housing buying you come across all sorts......................