Bid on different houses with same Estate Agent

krazyklown

hi,

Quick question - is there any problem simultaneously bidding on two different houses with the same Estate Agent? We are FTB, so have no experience in this craic at all.

Cheers,
KK

April 73

You could potentially push up the price of two houses & you can only buy one. The EA should ask you to commit to bidding on one. I say should - a less than scrupulous EA may allow you to bid on two.
Why not just bid on the one you really want & ask to be kept informed of what's happening with the second contender?

krazyklown

Thanks for the reply - I need my wife to see one of the properties and between one thing and another it cant happen until the end of next week. Its my preferred one of the two. My concern is that the one we have both seen and like is a good bit more expensive and my guess is that we wont win the bidding on it. My fear is that by the time that happens, the second cheaper one might get away from us.
I think you are right though, we should focus on one, thanks for the input.

April 73

Nothing will probably happen too quickly. Tell the EA you are interested in the first house but that you both need to see the second one before you decide what to do. Tell the EA to keep you informed of any bids that are made on the first house.
Then go & see the second & decide which is your preferred house. Then try to secure it while keeping a close eye on what's happening with your second option.
There will be lots of decisions to make in the next couple of weeks. Take it one step at a time.

L1011

The EA may be unwilling as you're only going to buy one (at most); you're also possibly revealing too much about your financial capability

Quandary

We asked the estate agent if we could bid on two of their properties after viewing both. Our logic was that we wanted to move quick and whichever vendor accepted our offer first would be the house we would like to purchase.

Nothing wrong with it IMO as you are being completely transparent and are genuinely prepared to buy either property.

antoinolachtnai

You are not bidding. It is not an auction and the price you state is not binding on you legally or even morally. You are making an offer. An offer is just an expression of interest. You are not committing to anything. You are just saying you are interested in negotiating on the house at a certain price. That is all.

An agent who refused to communicate an offer on the basis that the prospective purchaser already had made an offer on another similar property would be leaving himself open to getting sued by his client.

If the agent doesn't want to communicate your offer them get a third party to make the offer on your behalf.

slowjoe17

April 73 wrote: »

You could potentially push up the price of two houses & you can only buy one. The EA should ask you to commit to bidding on one. I say should - a less than scrupulous EA may allow you to bid on two.
Why not just bid on the one you really want & ask to be kept informed of what's happening with the second contender?

Why would it be bad?

If OP were to bid on two properties with different estate agents, no-one would know. This is if anything more ethical.

Phone the agent and say that you'll probably proceed with the first property to go sale agreed. S/He can pass that on.

allibastor

I had three offers in with the same EA last year.

They are a big agent and had a number of houses I viewed. Again the logic was that I liked all three and would go with which ever came first.

I paid a deposit to the EA to use for which ever house was in the forefront, and the EA is only required to keep your deposit as expression of interest, they dont need to sign it over to the homeowner.

I ended up with house no.2 on my list of 3, and no issues with the others, it was just first one which moved to sale agreed stage.

Butters1979

I don't think there is anything wrong with it, you are putting a bid on a property you are interested in buying. From the EA's point of view they have an active bidder on 2 properties, which is good for them. If, at the end of it, you buy one of the properties and help up the buying price of the other, then I'm sure the EA would be very happy with the result.

April 73

slowjoe17 wrote: »

Why would it be bad?

If OP were to bid on two properties with different estate agents, no-one would know. This is if anything more ethical.

Phone the agent and say that you'll probably proceed with the first property to go sale agreed. S/He can pass that on.

What's bad about it is that two sellers are led to believe they have an offer & a potential buyer. Only one sale can proceed.
That's ok if the EA is also up front with his two clients & they under stand the situation. In fact it might focus them to do a deal quickly.

The other possibility is that the EA uses both bids to set the price on both houses. Bidding on two houses in an active market where there are other bidders, potentially drives the price up for other buyers. That's irrelevant to the OP but creates a false market for others.

o1s1n

I had three offers going on apartments with the same estate agent at one time.

The only down side I saw to it is that it lets the agent kind of know how much you have.

So if you bid 115k on one place for example and go 'that's my highest offer' - then it's kind of odd when you bid 125k with them on another place.

My way of dealing with that was letting them know that a current offer was my highest offer on that one individual apartment.. (not necessarily the max amount I'm able to spend) was still a little tricky though.

P. Breathnach

April 73 wrote: »

What's bad about it is that two sellers are led to believe they have an offer & a potential buyer. Only one sale can proceed.

On the other hand, the EA might be dealing with several potential purchasers for a property, knowing that (at most) only will of them will buy it.

That's ok if the EA is also up front with his two clients & they under stand the situation. In fact it might focus them to do a deal quickly.

I'd see that as working to OP's advantage. One of the vendors might be more willing to make a deal if OP is a strong bidder, and there is a perceived risk that he or she might go for the other property.

The other possibility is that the EA uses both bids to set the price on both houses. Bidding on two houses in an active market where there are other bidders, potentially drives the price up for other buyers. That's irrelevant to the OP but creates a false market for others.

The only bids that really impact on the market are the successful ones.