what if the vendor hasn't knocked back any offer before?
It doesn't really matter too much - the agent can use his/her discretion and/or preempt what a Vendor might be willing to accept or knock back, and play a bit of a white lie game with the buyer. Not totally ethical, but it sorts out the tyre kickers from the real buyers and stops everyone's time being wasted.
I worked for an r/e who occasionally called up a Vendor who had no or low interest in their property, and he would tell the Vendor that an offer had been presented. It was lower than the asking price of course, but it was (one of) his ways of attempting to feel out the Vendor's real position.
say they want 500k and you got an offer of 450k is that classified as to low? What if the vendors were desperate to sell and would take the 450k now on unco and 30 days (which is the offer you have) but instead you rejected it?
If 450k was okay, how about 445k/440k/430k where do you draw the line?
I am fairly sure that no agent would reject an offer/s this close to the asking price - unless there were written instructions from the Vendor not to bring any offers below say; $475k, etc.
What if there was 20 beneficiaries on the property worth 500k that is a deceased estate and the REA got an offer of 460k (maybe the guy started at 430k) and there has been no interest for 2 months, each person would get 25k @ 500k sale price but for 460k they get 23k each. However the REA rejects it and the vendors find out this and say they would of taken that as it made little difference in their back pocket reducing the price to that level.
It is up to the agent to use their experience and expertise to make the discretionary call on these types of scenarios.
With written instruction the REA is protected otherwise the REA could be in trouble with the law as he never presented the offer and they might have taken it.
It depends on how low the offer is I would expect.
For example; the Vendor wants $500k. A reasonable expectation for a serious offer (that has a likely chance of being accepted) would probably be within 20% discount of the asking price....$400k.
The obvious question is; would anyone here accept an offer that low? In normal circumstances you wouldn't most likely.
You would if the Bank was about to take your house possibly, or you were going through a divorce possibly...more unusual circumstances than normal.
A good agent would probably already know some of these details before the campaign begins; or have a suspicion about the circumstances behind the sale, and act accordingly..
So, an agent might say to the buyer who offered $400k; "Look; we already have an offer in for $435k and this was rejected, so if you really want the property; you might want to come up a bit more."
The agent can still take the $400k offer to the Vendor after this, but at least he/she is having a crack at getting the best price out of the buyer and in a shorter time frame without all the games.