Help with making offers on a house

Liammc1982

Hi All,

I was hoping someone might be able to help me determine the next steps I have to take in regards to making an offer on a house. I am a first time buyer who has mortgage approval and I have a found a lovely house.

The asking price is 130k and there was an offer of 110k when I had first viewed. I subsequently made what I thought was a calculated offer of 116k. The estate agent almost immediately contacted me to say the other party raised their offer to 117k.

I am a little anxious about making another offer as I do not want to get involved and this back and forth activity. For all I know, there might not even be another party. I feel I should take a back seat and let my father work with the estate agent. I do not want to loose the chance of purchasing the property but I do not want to be too eager.

I could manage the asking price no problem but I don't feel that the house is worth the full amount that is being asked.

I'm really unsure what to do so any guidance would be much appreciated. Thanks!

MadsL

Stick to your offer. It's a buyers market. If this falls through - plenty of other properties.

Idbatterim

if you are going to up your bid again, only do it by increments of 1 thousand... secondly Id arrange one of your mates or family members to enquire and view the property and after a few days put in offer of say 115k, see if you both get fed the same story by the estate agent...

the groutch

I'd lower your offer to 109k, with a time limit of 7 days, after which you're walking away.
You'll know very quickly if the other bids were genuine

Liammc1982

Hi All - thanks for the advice. I got a call from the EA this afternoon asking if I was still interested as they wanted to get back to the other party. I have decided not to budge on my offer and I am getting my Dad to deal with the EA. I guess I'll soon find out if there is another party or if the house is meant for me.

DublinDilbert

Liammc1982 wrote: »

Hi All - thanks for the advice. I got a call from the EA this afternoon asking if I was still interested as they wanted to get back to the other party. I have decided not to budge on my offer and I am getting my Dad to deal with the EA. I guess I'll soon find out if there is another party or if the house is meant for me.

Your only right! I walked away from a similar situation last year. This is what got the country into the mess its in, people out bidding other people (or usually just out bidding them selves).

killers1

Liammc1982 wrote: »

Hi All - thanks for the advice. I got a call from the EA this afternoon asking if I was still interested as they wanted to get back to the other party. I have decided not to budge on my offer and I am getting my Dad to deal with the EA. I guess I'll soon find out if there is another party or if the house is meant for me.

At that purchase level you are invariably competing against other first time buyers who have mortgage approval and are ready to go. There is a negligible difference between the commission an EA will earn whether the sale goes through for €110k or €116k so no benefit in risking a sale by creating imaginary bids. By all means don't get into a bidding war but logic should tell you there is another interested party....I'd be very surprised if you get this property...

Liammc1982

killers1 wrote: »

By all means don't get into a bidding war but logic should tell you there is another interested party....I'd be very surprised if you get this property...

Hi Killers1, I had a quite a bit of back and forth today on the offers front and you're right, there is definitely another party interested and they appear to be very eager increasing offers in increments of 1000EURO. As it stands now, the EA is waiting on another offer from me after my father raised my initial offer - We are up to 121k at this point and I am not sure how to proceed to be honest nor does he. If there was no other party, I think I would have the house but other parties are part and parcel of any sale.

killers1

Liammc1982 wrote: »

killers1 wrote: »

By all means don't get into a bidding war but logic should tell you there is another interested party....I'd be very surprised if you get this property...

Hi Killers1, I had a quite a bit of back and forth today on the offers front and you're right, there is definitely another party interested and they appear to be very eager increasing offers in increments of 1000EURO. As it stands now, the EA is waiting on another offer from me after my father raised my initial offer - We are up to 121k at this point and I am not sure how to proceed to be honest nor does he. If there was no other party, I think I would have the house but other parties are part and parcel of any sale.

Unfortunately you can be unlucky and be interested in a property at the same time as similar people who got mortgage approval around the same time. I'd suggest picking a figure you're willing to go to and be prepared to walk away if the bidding exceeds that. You can either keep increasing in small amounts or try to blow them out of the water with a more substantial increase but ultimately it'll boil down to whoever wants the property the most... Best of luck!

dara.obriain

hi all, i know this thread has been dormant for a while but we find ourselves in a similar situation with a nice house picked out and a letter of pre-approval from the bank- is this Approval in Principle, same thing??

If so, is this enough to go ahead and make an offer. we also have 20% of the ask price but have not yet hired a solicitor. do i need to hire a solicitor right away or can i wait till an offer has been accepted and i am ready to sign a cheque for the deposit?

i guess i am asking is the deposit and pre-approval enough to make an offer and what do i do next?? any advice VERY much appreciated..

killers1

dara.obriain wrote: »

hi all, i know this thread has been dormant for a while but we find ourselves in a similar situation with a nice house picked out and a letter of pre-approval from the bank- is this Approval in Principle, same thing??

If so, is this enough to go ahead and make an offer. we also have 20% of the ask price but have not yet hired a solicitor. do i need to hire a solicitor right away or can i wait till an offer has been accepted and i am ready to sign a cheque for the deposit?

i guess i am asking is the deposit and pre-approval enough to make an offer and what do i do next?? any advice VERY much appreciated..

Hi Dara,
A pre-approval and approval in principle are the same thing. What you want is an approval in principle which is only subject to property details, rate & term & solicitors details. This would be as concrete an approval you can have at this stage without a property being located as there are no further underwriting items required for approval i.e it's not subject to bank statements or income documentation etc.. You can now work away and make an offer on a property. You do not need to have a solicitor at this stage. Once your offer is accepted and you pay your booking deposit the EA will ask you for your solicitors details. Even if you haven't arranged one at that stage just tell them you are deciding on a solicitor and will email the details to them within a couple of days which will be fine. Once you have an offer accepted the next step is to pick a solicitor, pay the booking deposit and organise the bank valuer to inspect the property to allow the loan offer to be issued to your solicitor in due course. You then need to have the property surveyed and look after the non-legal items required for closing i.e. life cover, home insurance etc.. I hope this helps and any queries let me know. Best of luck!

dara.obriain

thanks a mill killer, that is really helpful which always seems to be the case with your posts. a couple of other queries if possible: 1) if booking deposit is paid, that means another offer cannot be taken? and 2) should i hire the solicitor in time to make the payment so that it is done properly and i can get my money back if something falls through?? thanks again for the help.

killers1

dara.obriain wrote: »

thanks a mill killer, that is really helpful which always seems to be the case with your posts. a couple of other queries if possible: 1) if booking deposit is paid, that means another offer cannot be taken? and 2) should i hire the solicitor in time to make the payment so that it is done properly and i can get my money back if something falls through?? thanks again for the help.

Thanks for your kind words! 1) Once you have an offer accepted, the EA 'should' stop showing the property and mark it as sale agreed on their website etc. This would be the norm however there are odd occasions when the EA keeps trying to get a higher bid, but few and far between. Once your offer is accepted keep the pressure on the EA to list the house as sale agreed. 2) The booking deposit you pay is made payable to the EA and they will give you a receipt for the monies paid. This is fully refundable and no need for the payment to be made via a solicitor. This is not something to be worried about with an established EA practice. The only time you would pay a booking deposit via solicitors would be if you were purchasing directly from a developer and there was no EA involved.

dara.obriain

thanks again killers for the help, great advice!

killers1

dara.obriain wrote: »

thanks again killers for the help, great advice!

No problem at all, best of luck with it! If you have any queries at any stage give me a shout..

dara.obriain

for killers or anyone else with helpful info: this situation has moved along somewhat and am about to make a final offer on a house which i feel will be accepted or very near. if it is i guess engineer and solicitor are next, am i right??
also, how do these firms charge, is it a % of the property value?

finally, any suggestions for a value-for-money firm for either solicitor or engineer? - house is in Balbriggan though i'm sure this does not make a difference to where i hire solicitor and engineer>

Gillian1

Hi we used Robert Sweeney solicitor when bought our house last year we found him fine. He also charged a fixed rate flat fee which I think is fairly common, have a look on rate your solicitor.com think that's the website! But be sure to get quotes as we received some quite high quotes before we settled on him. I can't remember engineer we used but we found him on google and he was really good. We knew house needed a lot of work inc rewire and when he did survey he rang and went through everything with me on phone said work needs doing but is a good solid buy then we received his report in post and it was damning! We wondered if we were doing the right thing going ahead with buy but he has to cover his own ass with the safety precautions with the electrics etc! Also your bank will give you a list of valuers our mortgage is aib and we had to choose one off list they then came out and valued and gave a report on rebuild costs and the house insurance had to be taken out to match his report. Initially on the insurance I put down the rebuild cost at approximate 5k less then his report and I had to get that changed with insurance and new cert issued to bank before draw down could happen. Also you don't have to get an engineer report to draw down the mortgage but it is something I would 100% recommend and wouldn't dream of buying the most expensive purchase of your life without one!

Sorry for such a long post, good luck with your new house!

the groutch

hopefully now the property register will show people like the OP if an estate agent was genuine with the other party, or just BSing to get a few quid extra

dara.obriain

thanks v much for the helpful replies everyone. have actually reached "sale agreed" on property (woo-hoo!!). next step is to visit the bank a manager and gather all the documentation so mortgage applic. can be sent to the underwriters. I also need to pay the deposit to the RE agent and higher a solicitor and give his details to the RE agent and my bank.. is this correct and is there anything else that is relevant at this stage ??? any help would be really appreciated, thanks in advance.

riclad

THE property register ,just shows adress, is it house,or apartment, price house was sold for.
ITS not going to stop phantom false bids.
You can look on daft ie or myhome.ie see what s the average price in any area anyway.
it doesn,t show what offers were made on a house for sale.