How long does an estate agent allow for bidding?

Amber 123

We placed a bid on a house last Tuesday evening. We offered the full asking price. There was an under bidder who had offered €5,000 less than the asking price. We've attempted to contact the estate agent numerous times over the last three days but he's impossible to catch. The receptionist tells us he's at viewings/a conference/in a meeting etc. She insists that he will contact us by close of business and then we hear nothing. The last time we spoke to him was Tuesday evening when we placed our bid. The receptionist did tell me that our bid was still the highest bid on the system. Why might the estate agent be avoiding us like this? Is three days a typical amount of time to allow a bidder to come up with a counter bid? Or could there be something going on with the vendor? I'm surely over analysing but it's an anxious time, we love the house and we're both on edge waiting for the phone to ring!

Sarn

How long has the property been on the market? If it's only up a short while they might want to see if there is any other interest. Unfortunately, just because you've offered the asking doesn't mean the vendor will accept it (frustrating I know). The EA could be getting the run around from the vendor as well, however, they really should provide you with an update.

Amber 123

It's been up for over a year. I think you could be right about the vendor. I can't help but feel that the EA's behaviour is so frustrating but I don't know how to handle it. We've just been polite and accommodating because I feel we don't have any other choice but I wish we could be kept in the loop a bit more.

Juwwi

"We've attempted to contact the estate agent numerous times over the last three days"

I don't have much advice other than you seem to eager in my opinion , you bid 3 days ago , he mightn't of gone straight back to the under bidder the same day ,they then might have said give me a day or 2 to think about it .

While it's frustrating and l agree a returned phone call just to update things should of happened by now l would be careful about looking too eager.

riclad

give the agent a week to reply to you,
he asks the seller ,do you accept this bid.
The agent could be away for a few days,
ring back in 4 days ,re whats going on with my bid.?
or the seller could be gone away for a few days.
you don,t want to seem to eager anyway.

Thestones

I think it's unacceptable to not at least call you back even if it's to say sorry the seller hasn't given me an answer yet. I would keep looking at other properties to keep your options open. Good luck.

4ensic15

You are showing yourself to be too anxious. The EA will play you like a fish. Send in your offer in writing keeping proof of postage. After that forget about the house until you hear from the EA again. The EA may be trying to get more from the underbidder (if there is an underbidder) and will not talk to you until he is satisfied that the underbidder will not budge.

Amber 123

Thanks for all the replies and advice. We are looking at other properties and I understand that adequate time needs to be given to the vendor and to the under bidder but I think the lack of communication is woeful customer service. Quick question; how could eagerness be used against us? We're serious buyers, we have the finances sorted and we've made a decent offer. Playing hard to get with an estate agent seems sort of ridiculous. Perhaps I'm not cynical enough.

LirW

Keep looking. If the EA doesn't get back to you a week after you made your bid you can just call and tell them you're looking for an answer as soon as possible or you withdraw your bid on day X. No need to tell them why. You're serious but you don't wanna be played with.

LiamoSail

4ensic15 wrote: »

You are showing yourself to be too anxious. The EA will play you like a fish.

As with phantom bids, I think this sort of thing is a bit of a myth.

Most estate agents just want the property sold asap, they're not hugely concerned about adding a few k to the price.

Assuming they're on 1%, even a 10k increase in the bid as a result of their antics is hardly worth the hassle of the additional correspondence, viewings etc. if it's only earning them an additional €100 before tax. They want properties sold asap and their commission paid imo

th283

There seems to be no standard time frame for estate agents to get back to you. I'm in the same position as you with finances sorted etc, I've put offers on 3 houses with 3 different estate agents this year - one got back to me within a day to let me know I'd been outbid, another took 2 weeks to get back to me, the third only got the offer yesterday so fingers crossed they won't wait too long.

On a side note offering the asking price is no guarantee your offer will be accepted- I offered asking price on the first 2 houses and they ended up selling for 35 and 42 thousand euro over the asking prices

Amber 123

It's interesting to hear that the wait time can vary so much. I guess we just assumed it would move more quickly. We've just sold our own house and the bidding moved very quickly so I suppose we were judging by that but we need to remember that every case is different.

I know that offering the asking price is not a prerequisite to going sale agreed. Will just have to wait and see what happens.

The very best of luck with your most recent bid, I hope it works out for you.

4ensic15

Amber 123 wrote: »

Quick question; how could eagerness be used against us? We're serious buyers, we have the finances sorted and we've made a decent offer. Playing hard to get with an estate agent seems sort of ridiculous. Perhaps I'm not cynical enough.

You have given them an incentive to hold out for more money, from you or from someone else. The agent doesn't want to talk to you in case he has to accept your offer in the future but at the moment he is trying to build on it. Neither the owner nor the agent are under any obligation to react to your offer within any time frame. Weeks might pass before an owner accepts that there is no more money out there.

4ensic15

LiamoSail wrote: »

As with phantom bids, I think this sort of thing is a bit of a myth.

Most estate agents just want the property sold asap, they're not hugely concerned about adding a few k to the price.

Assuming they're on 1%, even a 10k increase in the bid as a result of their antics is hardly worth the hassle of the additional correspondence, viewings etc. if it's only earning them an additional €100 before tax. They want properties sold asap and their commission paid imo

Agents want to get another house in after they sell one. If the neighbours think they didn't get top dollar the neighbour will not instruct that agent. Agents hate the name of one who sells too cheap.

CeilingFly

Don't be so pushy - agent will reckon you can bid higher with your enthusiasm.

Remember many estate agents are as trustworthy as a used car salesman.

Also if house has been on the market for a year, then that suggests problems either with the house, the vendor or possibly neighbours.

Check it all out before committing - keep level headed. Don't be thinking of decor or changes you will make until contracts are exchanged.

Possibly arrange a viewing of another property the agent has - this will show you are still looking around.

Heart Break Kid

Id say 20-30 days with at least 3 open viewings.

Cloudio9

Meanwhile in another thread: Just put in an offer on a house 5k under asking that's been on the market for over a year. The EA comes back a few days later with another "offer" at the asking price. Clearly a phantom bidder. All EA's are bent. What do I do Boardsies ? :pac:

LirW

You never really know what's the deal with it if there's maybe a genuine other party. You can ask a relative to call the EA and ask where the bidding stands. If the house is only worth the amount you offered then move on. If not, put a higher bid in as your final offer.

Amber 123

Quick update; didn't contact the EA yesterday and heard nothing. OH rang today and was told he would ring us back within the hour. That was two hours ago. It's a week since we made our bid and we haven't heard one bit of feedback with regards to it. The saga continues...

kwat

Agree it's a frustrating process, but at the end of the day the EA owes you nothing - they're working for the vendor only.

Have been through 3 bidding processes in Dublin 12 over the past 4 months, each with different EA's and different timeframes. First bidding process went on for over a month - took almost a week to get feedback on our bid each time as vendor was hanging on for best price. Eventually got outbid. Next two were much quicker with the prices jumping way about the asking prices within a few days. Got down to final two on both houses but were eventually outbid.
Had all but given up hope but a house we saw earlier in the summer that had gone sale agreed fell through at the last minute. Vendor was looking for a quick sale in order to close on their new house, so accepted our offer of previous sale agreed price. That was a month ago - contracts have just been exchanged and are hoping to close in 2 weeks.
Its a very frustrating process but stick with it - hopefully will all work out!

fg1406

Amber 123 wrote: »

Quick update; didn't contact the EA yesterday and heard nothing. OH rang today and was told he would ring us back within the hour. That was two hours ago. It's a week since we made our bid and we haven't heard one bit of feedback with regards to it. The saga continues...

I went through the same process earlier this year. Bid on a property. One other bidder. EA would take anything between 1-2 weeks to get back to us. He told us at the viewing the vendor needed a quick sale due to relocating for work but on the other hand, she was holding out for x amount over asking. After dragging out the process for 2 months we withdrew as it was going nowhere. EA was impossible to contact. We were successful on another property in an adjacent estate 2 weeks later. The original house is still up for sale, and has been now since early May.

Amber 123

Lovely to hear such success stories! I hope we will be in a similar position in the months to come. We are keeping our options very much open at this point; looking at other properties etc. Can I assume the EA's aloof behaviour is all tactical then? He's holding out for additional money but wants to string us along to be certain of our bid? I wasn't sure if it was tactical or just a woefully incompetent EA but am starting to understand it's probably the former.

fg1406

I'm not sure. Over the period of our house hunting we bid on 3 houses and he was the only EA that didn't engage with us. The others did. The easiest ones to deal with were the ones that we were successful with. They kept in touch with us the whole way through from viewing to the date we were successful which was less than 2 weeks.

For the laugh, I got one of my sisters to call the EA on that house we withdrew from and ask if there was any interest on it. We had withdrawn on a Thursday morning with our offer of €220k. The only underbidder was at €216k. The EA told my sister on Friday that it was at €220k. So either a 3rd bidder appeared overnight where there wasn't one for weeks and weeks on end, or he was lying through his backside.

MIKEKC

Amber 123 wrote: »

Thanks for all the replies and advice. We are looking at other properties and I understand that adequate time needs to be given to the vendor and to the under bidder but I think the lack of communication is woeful customer service. Quick question; how could eagerness be used against us? We're serious buyers, we have the finances sorted and we've made a decent offer. Playing hard to get with an estate agent seems sort of ridiculous. Perhaps I'm not cynical enough.

The EA knows that you are eager, so could easily bring in a phantom bidder. An experienced bidder would place their bid and wait for the EA to get back to them

CeilingFly

MIKEKC wrote: »

The EA knows that you are eager, so could easily bring in a phantom bidder. An experienced bidder would place their bid and wait for the EA to get back to them

I never understand the "phantom bidder" story. Op has offered asking price, even if ea got extra 10k, it only extra €100 or so on commission.

I'd understand if bid was 50k under ask, but at or near ask there's no real advantage for ea and huge cost if caught - 10k fine and loss of licence.

Amber 123

Is there anyway at all that someone could investigate if they thought that there was a phantom bidder? How on earth would you ever prove it?

dRNk SAnTA

Best of luck with your bids, I've just been through it myself.

I found Estate Agents very difficult to deal with. We were always being outbid, right at the deadline. I was paranoid. I tried everything - applying serious pressure, taking laid back approach. I can't say anything really worked.

And some Estate Agents will call you back, others will avoid you. We had one guy who wanted proof of funding with every bid (something I have no objection to, at least it makes things more difficult for time wasters).

We made a bid and I sent him a Solicitor's letter next morning verifying funding, and he emails me backing saying "oh, actually the biddings gone up another 40k since we spoke yesterday". He had no intention of actually informing us, he said "if I had to call all underbidders about new bids, I'd be all day on the phone". He was a joke.

I realise this is getting a little longwinded but what ended up happening is we went to "Best and Final Offer". We gave it a good shot, but asshole estate agent tells us we didn't get the house.

Probably 10 days later I get a call from him: The winning bidder has pulled out "for family reasons" and we were next underbidder. The winning bid was 35k higher than ours (crazy money really - even we had gone a bit mad in our bid). He said "the vendor would like to know if you would be interested in matching the highest offer".

Luckily I had gone sale agreed on another place at this stage, so I was able to turn around and say "the ****ing cheek of you to ask for an increased offer after Best and Final round - we've gone sale agreed so I have no interest. You can go down to the next highest bidders and see what they think of your proposal".

I can't wait for the place to appear on Property Price Register so I can see what it ultimately went for.

CeilingFly

Amber 123 wrote: »

Is there anyway at all that someone could investigate if they thought that there was a phantom bidder? How on earth would you ever prove it?

Yes, if you had serious concerns you can make a complaint - but you would need to have a little more than just a slowly responding agent

http://www.psr.ie/website/npsra/npsraweb.nsf/page/whatwedo-investigation-en

Unlike other bodies, these guys do investigate and have taken serious action against rogue agents incuding fines in excess of 10k and withdrawal of licence.

All agents have to have a record of each bid and the bidder - usually its email or text or a written record of a phone conversation.

Amber 123

Of course, I know this EA is not actually doing a thing wrong and I would never dream of making a formal complaint unless I was absolutely certain of untoward behaviour. Just wondered what the protocol was.

I wish it could all be a bit more transparent. I thought getting mortgage approval would be the difficult part but the fun has only just begun it seems!

fg1406

The bit afterwards isn't any fun either. My life assurance is being held up because I had an MRI on my foot last year. I have to attend orthopaedic OPD in the local acute hospital for a letter to state that basically I'm not gonna die. Trying to get someone to facilitate me is like trying to eat bricks.

gezz36

fg1406 wrote: »

The bit afterwards isn't any fun either. My life assurance is being held up because I had an MRI on my foot last year. I have to attend orthopaedic OPD in the local acute hospital for a letter to state that basically I'm not gonna die. Trying to get someone to facilitate me is like trying to eat bricks.

Just sorting life insurance and I did'nt mention I had an MRI for neck pain last year as the scan was clear and no issues since. Did you mention the MRI? Hope this does'nt delay me!!