Neighbor wants to be friends but I fear they have lied to me

Post Reply New Topic

I am sorry but there is absolutely no reason to disclose this information to somebody who is essentially a perfect stranger. We don't choose our neighbours and in my experience (I've had hundreds of neighbours) I have never developed any form of friendship with one. School and workplace or social clubs are the place where you meet people with common interests. Not random neighbours. I personally dislike mine.

The annoying thing is I have no concrete evidence for any of my thoughts regarding the neighbor being the estate agents friend. I also have no concrete evidence the estate agent tricked me. I do have my suspicions though, a list of 10 or so things which make me suspicious.

I was going to arrange a meeting with the estate agent who I think tricked me and try and get the neighbor to come to the meeting so I can judge if the neighbor gets nervous. The annoying thing is the estate agent has moved to the other side of town and rarely calls into the office near me so I would have to get my timing right.

Another option to see if he lied to me is to ask the estate agent who sold my house if the neighbor viewed my house, they will have it on file still. The issue is due to data protection laws he won't give me that information.

The neighbor does like me for my honestly and I have made him laugh with my silly sense of humour. I guess he likes talking to me. The funny thing is if I offered to swap my house with his and gave him £100k on top he would refuse.

I think you’ve made a pretty good poker read of the situation. The question is, how much opportunity is there to realistically do something with it.

I’ve had hands in which I was pretty sure the other player was bluffing. But if I have no pair Jack high, I can’t even beat a bluff! I also had a hand in which I started with a pair of Kings and then got a dream flop of two other Kings, except no one else got anything. The thing to do is just to wait hoping someone else will try to “steal” the pot. Or, I can make a small bet the very last card and hope the other player “detects” weakness and comes over the top to drive me out. As it was, I got a little impatient and made a bet the second to last card, and the other player folded.

After putting all this thought into it, playing cash games tight-aggressive and tournament games loose-aggressive, and for two years, and I just barely broke even. Way less than minimum wage.

So . . .

if part of what you’re saying about getting the timing right is light-touching it and not being married to one way and not trying to kludgeware it into existence, then it’s all for the good. Your neighbor may feel embarrassed and some outside chance he might even apologize.

Regarding what the person said previously about your neighbor’s first obligation being not to squeal on his friend for doing the favor, well, that changes as he hangs with you. At this point, his loyalties are, or should be, kind of split. Although people have different speeds of coming to this point.

Now . . .

You could have tried to start a new business, which here in the States have an 80% failure rate over the first couple of years (yes, 8 out of 10 new businesses fail).

Or, you could have brought an existing business and then ran into all this COVID slowdown.

All things considered, a fixer-upper home is not a terrible outcome.

I know you feel it was a sub-par decision and that you let yourself down. But consider that if you had started over with a second estate agent, then you may have really hesitated to start over with a third agent and could have really made a kludgeware decision in another direction.

Buying cars and homes is just plain tough. It’s hard to be good at something you do only occasionally. Especially when the agent, the fellow player as it were, does it all the time.

First off, I'm really sorry that things haven't worked out seamlessly when you've made such a big purchase. Buying a house is stressful at the best of times.

I quoted the part that stood out to me the most. I'm wondering how upset or disappointed you are with yourself? A couple of years ago I had a really a good seat on an airplane for a long international flight. I let some people talk me into switching for an uncomfortable seat because I didn't want to upset them. And, I guess on some level I didn't think I deserved to be as loud as they were being, even though I had PAID for it. For a long time I was really mad at those people. I still hate that people can be so inconsiderate. But, mostly I am disappointed that I didn't stick up for myself, and I cared about their feelings more than my own. Do you relate to that?

Regardless of whether the agent was friends with the buyer or not, he should have shown you both properties. He worked for you. This situation cannot be changed now, but you can use it to learn from for the future. Every house has pros and cons, and fixing your house up will show you what you can appreciate about your purchase.

You don't owe your new neighbour any explanations. If you enjoy his company, then you can pick and choose which invitations to accept. If you don't want to nothing more than a 'no thank you' is needed. I used to agonize over coming up with excuses until I realized 'no' is enough.

I am very upset with myself. Still beating myself up over the situation I find myself in.

I think there has been a slight misunderstanding as to the exact turn of events so I will clarify what exactly happened now.

The house I bought was sold by estate agent "A" who worked for company "Z". I took advice from an estate agent "B" who worked for company "Q". So two separate estate agents not related to each other in any way.

The second better house was also being sold by an estate agent who worked for company "Z". It is my own fault for not viewing the better house.

Before I completed the purchase of my current house I took advice from estate agent "B" as I thought I was paying too much for my current house at the time. I used the other better house as an example of why I thought I was paying too much for my current house. Estate agent "B" had previously told me (before the better house came onto the market) that he had bid on my current house as he was helping his friend who was not a cash buyer to purchase my current house. He advised me not to bother viewing the better house in person as I had already seen mine. He warned me that if I pulled out of my current house purchase the agent might not sell me the other better house as both houses were listed with company "A".

His view that the agent might not have sold me the other better house is wrong surely. For a start that would be illegal and secondly surely I could just have called on the door of the better house and spoke to the sellers and explained the situation I was in. I was in a better position to buy the house than most people as I was chain free and a cash buyer. I believe the agent was trying to steer me into buying the worse house so his friend could get the better house. It also makes no sense what so ever why he would tell me not to view the better house.

I am 90% confident estate agent "B" wanted me to purchase the worse house. Part of my Autism was not realizing he would have a conflict of interest due to him previously telling me that his friend wanted a house on the street both houses were on.

My reasons to believe the neighbour was the agents friend are as follows:

1) The street I live on is a terraced street and the neighbour lives 3 houses away from mine. On the day he was moving in he was wanting to make contact with me and got the attention of my mum who was out in the garden. I find this very odd, surely he would have approached his immediate neighbours first.

2) On the first convo I had with him he mentioned an apartment that he pulled out of, he said there was a legal issue that made him pull out. The funny thing is I had heard of this issue online before with that particular apartment. My suspicion is that the estate agent friend told him to have a cover story to unlink them as friends.

3) The estate agent "B" was around the same age as the guy who won the house making it more likely they were friends.

4) The house is beside a train station and his mother lives on the train line, and he works one day a week away from home and he gets the train to work. On our second conversation he made it clear that he does not use the train to travel to work and uses his car instead as it is faster. Fast forward a few months later and he now suddenly uses the train to get the work.

5) He did not know that apartments have service charges, yet he was about to purchase one I find that very odd.

6) On two occassions when we walked past estate agent "B" office he has looked uncomfortable. The second time we were on the opposite side of the street and he turned his head over to look over at the office.

7) He is English and I remember when viewing my property there was a English male around his age also there viewing, I sadly forget his face so it might not have been him.

I guess I would hate to be friends with someone who has told lies to cover his own back and his estate agents friends back.

The estate agent who I believe is friends with the neighbour owns two offices, one near my current house and another in another part of town. Him moving to the further afield office is just by chance. I guess I would have to arrange a meeting with him when he happens to be in the office close to me. I would then have to hope that the neighbour would agree to go for coffee at the same time and then I can make him swing by the agent with me.

I guess it boils down to can I be friends with someone who likely lied to me like that.

One thing that has annoyed me is I was invited by my new next door neighbour to go to their house for dinner. I had arranged to discuss my extension with her. The neighbour who lives next to the "friend" also attended the dinner. The next day I messaged the neighbour guy and said that I liked the new neighbour. His response was weird, "WHEN YOU GETTING MARRIED THEN?". I wonder why he shouted like that.

If you’re just asking an uninvolved realtor (U.S. term) for some off-the-cuff advice, I don’t know what the ethics are. Doctors handle this by not giving casual advice.

He may view it as the two of you not having a professional to client relationship.

In addition, his self-interested motive of wanting to help a friend may dovetail in with his advice to be a “good” client. For example, not to cause your current estate agent extra work by looking at too many properties.

Regarding the neighbor . . .

Yes, you have baseline, which is considerable. Odds are he is the friend. The clearest read is that he got uncomfortable twice. But if I’m nervous, it might kind of rub off on the other person and/or I might overperceive in that direction.

Overall, I’d say there’s 2/3’s or more chance of him being the friend.

I still think there’s some potential in casually asking, almost as if it was out-of-the-blue, hey, are your ______ [estate agent’s] friend? Accept whatever answer he gives right there and then, without making a big deal about it.

And there’s plenty of time later to think about whether you want to continue spending time with him.

This seems like a very civil and everyday comment on your part. And this guy way overreacts.

Well, we on the spectrum are sometimes looked askance at for doing unexpected things. Neurotypical people can 100% do this, too!

Just guessing, even though discussing the extension (UK term I’m not familiar with, at least as it applies to real estate) was part of reason for the dinner, maybe this guy has a big inflated ego and always wants to be the center of attention.

And/or he doesn’t have much patience for details, unless it pertains to his life!

All in all, I’d say this guy has shown his true colors.

I think I want to avoid doing that as it shows my hand too easily.

I was going to instead as we are walking by the estate agent just say to him can we call in here to see the agent to see what his thoughts are on my house renovation? I can then gauge his reaction, though he might get nervous as it is a bit sprung on him. I guess to be sure I could do it with an unrelated estate agent to gauge his reaction and compare them both.

The message he sent me was very odd to say the least, I forgot to add he also said that I should marry the neighbour, and knock down my house wall into hers so our houses are joined up.

I am still trying to judge his character. I did tell him once that my dad is super religious and is against abortions and he said for me not to take offence and that my father is an total idiot and going on to explain why he was an idiot for thinking that way. I actually agree with abortions but thought it strange for him to dis my father like that having never met him.

He also told me about a one night stand he had with a larger girl and how she got attached to him but he just tossed her aside. I am not into one night stands myself.

Yes, by all means, I’m just making suggestions. It’s your hand to play as you see best.

Now, the neighbor who made the abrupt “WHEN YOU GETTING MARRIED THEN?” is the same guy who’s probably the estate agent’s friend?

And it’s definitely an abrupt statement. As is calling your dad an idiot because of his views about abortion. As you say, dissing your father and unnecessarily so.

Maybe, ironically . . . the guy’s actually Aspie! Or, different in a different way, with spaces and gaps in his social skills.

Yes it's the same guy. I don't think he's aspie. He is a drug user though so maybe that's messed up his mind somewhat.

I put it to my family today about the message and they laughed it off saying he was only joking around with me.

I also mentioned to my sister about him staring over to the estate agent and she said that was not unusual.
I even gave a demonstration to her. I was tricked over 2 years ago now, it's not exactly a recent event.

I can be bothered by things which happened a lot longer than 2 years ago, believe me. And this is still ongoing since the guy wants to hang with you and be friends.

I remember reading part of a book on social skills and one of the early chapters was on what the author called “gentle de-people-ing.” I might call it calm de-people-ing. And the author’s point was that if I’m going to get out there and meet people, I might also need a couple of skills on letting them down gently.

But you’re also on a mission to find out the truth about something important to you, and I respect that.

Even if your neighbor and your estate agent were friends and the agent helped his friend get that house it will not resolve any of your issues because you were the one who chose to take the agents advice and not pursue the other house.
Lots of people use agents that are their friends because they trust them. It’s pretty much the way the world works.

I have had real estate agents that undermined my attempt to purchase several homes. It’s not unusual, even if it’s illegal. It’s very very difficult if not impossible to prove. My inability to connect to people means I am never on the receiving end of these types of favors.
I’m sorry this happened to you.


Either sell your house, take your losses and lessons and move away, or find a way to make it a happy place for you to live. It’s not good to live somewhere that cause you so much stress and regret.

Do not use that agent again. Use someone else and ignore the agent in the future. He/she does not deserve an explanation.

This helps me a bit:
Close your eyes, take a deep breath, relax and release your anger while you blow out that breath, let that animosity float away forever.
I hope you find a happy home where you can flourish.