Bidding Against Someone Who Needs To Sell House

sapper

Hi

I've been in a bidding war with someone over a house for the past few days now and it's already gone crazy. We've bid the house up from 360K to 415K. Last night though the estate agent let slip that our rivals have yet to sell their house, in fact they haven't even put it on the market yet!

The estate agent mumbled something about "they have the deposit and can sign the contracts immediately" but this sounds wrong to me.

In my experience, in the Dublin area, an estate agent would never consider an offer from someone who has yet to put their house up. This guy sounds new to the game...

Am I right in saying that, regardless of whether or not they have the deposit, our rivals would have to get contracts signed on the sale of their house before they would be in a position to sign on the house I'm bidding on?

ie. They would not be able to sign contracts for another 8-12 weeks, and therefore I, who have sold my house already, am in a much stronger position?

I was going to just match our rivals 415K and say to them "you'd be mad to accept the other 415K" and walk away if they don't accept it. Does this sound like the right plan? I really like the house...

JimmySmith

sapper wrote:

Hi

I've been in a bidding war with someone over a house for the past few days now and it's already gone crazy. We've bid the house up from 360K to 415K. Last night though the estate agent let slip that our rivals have yet to sell their house, in fact they haven't even put it on the market yet!

The estate agent mumbled something about "they have the deposit and can sign the contracts immediately" but this sounds wrong to me.

In my experience, in the Dublin area, an estate agent would never consider an offer from someone who has yet to put their house up. This guy sounds new to the game...

Am I right in saying that, regardless of whether or not they have the deposit, our rivals would have to get contracts signed on the sale of their house before they would be in a position to sign on the house I'm bidding on?

ie. They would not be able to sign contracts for another 8-12 weeks, and therefore I, who have sold my house already, am in a much stronger position?

I was going to just match our rivals 415K and say to them "you'd be mad to accept the other 415K" and walk away if they don't accept it. Does this sound like the right plan? I really like the house...

If i was you i would reduce my offer.
Just tell them that you are completely ready to go and that the price has gone too high.
Ask them if they are willing to wait and risk a deal falling through with the other guy.

Beruthiel

sapper wrote:

. We've bid the house up from 360K to 415K.

that's a crazy amount to increase by

In my experience, in the Dublin area, an estate agent would never consider an offer from someone who has yet to put their house up.

they will agree to almost anything once money is involved, he can always pull out later if they don't cough up the rest in time

Am I right in saying that, regardless of whether or not they have the deposit, our rivals would have to get contracts signed on the sale of their house before they would be in a position to sign on the house I'm bidding on

I don't believe so

I was going to just match our rivals 415K and say to them "you'd be mad to accept the other 415K" and walk away if they don't accept it. Does this sound like the right plan? I really like the house...

I think you are mad to pay so much more, but yes, I'd gamble if I were you.
ring him up, tell him you offer the 415k now, with no strings (ie - you've got the money now, they don't).
Tell him he has 24 hrs to come back with an answer, after that, the offer drops 5k for each 24 hours after that.
This gamble will only work if you actually stick to your word on what you say.

wanabe

Im a developer myself and from experience a "clean chain" in otherwords a person with no other property to sell before the sale can be completed is worth at least €10k to €15 for the buyer! but about does other people they're perfectly intitled to sign the contract before they sell they're house but within the contract there would be a stipulation of a time frame in which they have to complete the sale!!!

sapper

Beruthiel wrote:

that's a crazy amount to increase by

Completely agree with you - but have you tried buying lately (this year)? A 10% rise over asking price is typical these days. And demand is so high/supply is so short in Dublin, you need to pay a premium of an extra 10K for the privilege of buying the house at all

The thing that concerns me is that this estate agent is in charge of the house further up the chain - the people selling the house I'm bidding on are buying another house in the estate. The estate agent accepted their offer prior to them selling their house too...

What happened to the professionals? This guy never answers his phone, always calls back 5 mins later - I think he's probably doing a nixer on his office job...

um7y1h83ge06nx

360K to 415K. Holy sh*t.

Thank God i'm living where I am. Just bought a large semi-detached, Guide Price 270K, sold at 282K.

It's so hard to buy though. Be careful with Phantom bids, that sounds a crazy price increase in a few days.

A tactic to attempt to uncover a fake bid is to phone the auctioneers office anon and enquire about the property from the receptionist. Ask about the guide price, any bids etc. She'll just read off whatever is on her PC, which may differ from what the auctioneer in charge is saying. An influential person may also be helpful to know .

Also try not to get attached to a house too much before you buy. Easier said than done but it can affect a persons logical thinking. I had bids on 5 different houses at the same time about a week ago!

Best of luck with whatever happens and you plan may be worth trying.

Oral Slang

Pretty much every house we bid on went up by about that much..
The one we finally got (after looking for about 6 months!) went from €385 to €426. One we got outbid on went from €400 to €471, another from€400 to €462. Absolute madness, but that's the market in Dublin at the moment.

I would have thought like you sapper before I got into this, but now I think differently. The estate agents really don't care what position you are in, once they get the highest price for the vendor.

We ended up putting our house back on the market after we got sale agreed, because we simply couldn't have afforded the repayments if we didn't do that. We ended up getting a good bit more money because we did that, so I'm glad we did it, but it was nervewracking in case we lost our new house because we did this.

FillSpectre

Guide prices are 10-20% below expected price as standard.So there is nothing shocking about it at all. IF it is with GWD they price 20% below according to themselves in an interview I saw. That is in Dublin or course

BaZmO*

Another alternative would be to knock into the house and speak to the homeowner directly and tell them the position that you are in. Tell them that you don't believe that the Estate Agent is telling them the full story (something that I've learned to be quite often the case in my experience). It's definitely worth a shot if you really want the house.

As for people being shocked at the huge jump from asking price to price being offered at the moment, unfortunately that's the way things are working at the moment, especially in Dublin.

NewFrockTuesday

We went to look at a house in D9 and the start ask was 550k. Its now up at 651k and when I ranfg this morning the agent said the vendor was not happy with the aoffer and wants higher. If he wanted 565k or so, why put it on so low? getting the punters in the door?

BaZmO*

Dellgirl2 wrote:

why put it on so low? getting the punters in the door?

Exactly. On the lower scale it's the Stamp Duty cut off points that dictate the selling price. e.g. at the moment, if a house is listed at 340 it is gonna go for 381. It just becomes a race between bidders o the cut off point. This time last year it was the same but the same house would have started at 270-280 and ended up going for 317.5

EKRIUQ

OP, its up the the vender to decide which bid he accepts and you'd hope the estate agent would convey this to the seller, in all honesty it would be in the estate agents interest to sell to the buyer in a favoured position instead of messing with someone who's waiting to sell their house which could take months to sell.
But some venders are willing to wait months for an extra €2,000

Lex Luthor

I wouldn't entertain this bidding any further if I were you but it all depends on how much you want the house.

I imagine if you pulled out the vendor would get twitchy just having to rely on someone who has yet to put their house on the market. I'd be inclined to revert back to 380k and see what they have to say.

If it were me I'd have stopped well before this and said that it was your final offer. You are in a position to move immediately and this should hold well in your favour. If I was selling my place I'd be inclined to always go with someone who is chain free than someone who isn't.

And all this talk about the bubble bursting...:rolleyes:
Once you have people willing to go to these odds to get a house it just goes to show that the demand is still not being fulfilled. Ok certain houses will attract more attention than others depending on their location, but thats a monumental increase in the space of a few days.

Victor

Tell them you offer €415,100, a bottle of champagne and that you have all your paperwork in order and are ready to proceed.

Lex Luthor

Victor wrote:

Tell them you offer €415,100, a bottle of champagne and that you have all your paperwork in order and are ready to proceed.

Too much IMO...I would start lower seeing as there is only 2 bidders and one is not chain free

sapper

I still haven't heard anything yet....But I did think about offering significantly less when I heard that the other bidder was in a chain, but then I thought that the house should have sold for the 400K mark anyway, but that once they had the number 415K in their head they would have a hard time going back to 400K. I know from when I was selling my house that as soon as your get a higher offer you have the money spent in your head!

Also the estate agent is one of these remax franchise holders and I am not too convinced that he is completely on the ball. I'm worried that he doesn't see their unsold house as a problem and won't advise the vendor correctly. Do these guys have to have some sort of qualification before they can get a franchise from remax?

I am sick to the teeth of missing out on houses that I've bid on - I've been at this since Nov for feck sake!

TheMonster

sapper wrote:

Hi

I've been in a bidding war with someone over a house for the past few days now and it's already gone crazy. We've bid the house up from 360K to 415K. Last night though the estate agent let slip that our rivals have yet to sell their house, in fact they haven't even put it on the market yet!

The estate agent mumbled something about "they have the deposit and can sign the contracts immediately" but this sounds wrong to me.

In my experience, in the Dublin area, an estate agent would never consider an offer from someone who has yet to put their house up. This guy sounds new to the game...

Am I right in saying that, regardless of whether or not they have the deposit, our rivals would have to get contracts signed on the sale of their house before they would be in a position to sign on the house I'm bidding on?

ie. They would not be able to sign contracts for another 8-12 weeks, and therefore I, who have sold my house already, am in a much stronger position?

I was going to just match our rivals 415K and say to them "you'd be mad to accept the other 415K" and walk away if they don't accept it. Does this sound like the right plan? I really like the house...

be careful - estate agents don't usuallt let things slip - this could be a phantom bidder and he wants you to close now.

sapper

TheMonster wrote:

be careful - estate agents don't usuallt let things slip - this could be a phantom bidder and he wants you to close now.

Don't I know it - but I have walked away from two houses convinced I was bidding against a phantom since November and they both remained stubbornly sale agreed. I'm pretty sure that these are genuine - their bids are mental enough to prove that they are real people!

EKRIUQ

sapper wrote:

Don't I know it - but I have walked away from two houses convinced I was bidding against a phantom since November and they both remained stubbornly sale agreed. I'm pretty sure that these are genuine - their bids are mental enough to prove that they are real people!

The Phantom bidder, bit of an urban myth usually created by under bidders who can't believe someone else is bidding against them.

djkeogh

Stuck in the property bidding war myself. Have pulled out of a number of bids on places only to have the Agent come back and offer it to me again saying the other bidder went above their finances. In one of the cases i agreed to enter a lower bid but was told there was a higher bid on the cards and they would sale agree on that. This was about 3 weeks ago and I was looking the other day and saw the agent is having another viewing on the house now this week. This carry on cannot be legit!?

the_syco

On the possibility that your up against a "phantom bidder", say you're offering €395 right now, and see what they say. If no, you can match the other guy, if yes, you save money.

Lex Luthor

I'd be interested to know what your original budget was?

At what price were you at when the agent let it slip about the other bidders situation?