Identity of counter bidder

Sleeper12

1641 wrote:

Although fully refundable, it does mean something. Generally the EA will require it to declare the property "sale agreed" and to stop actively marketing it.

Generally the estate agent will continue to show the property after you pay the deposit & despite paying said deposit someone else might offer a higher price & you might loose the sale.

The deposit might actually cause a buyer to not get the property as they think it's their's but with their eye off the ball it gets stolen from under them. They spend the next 6 months crying that they had a deposit meanwhile someone smarter moves into their dream house.

It's a cruel world we live in.

Bob24

davo10 wrote: »

But it's the seller who accepts the winning bid. It would be naive to think a cash bid has equal appeal when compared to a financed one. The appeal for the seller should be obvious.

Sure it is obvious, my point simply is that I strongly suspect the agent didn't follow the rule they had laid out to me and simply used that last bidding step to extract more from the preferred bidder even though my so called final offer was probably higher than their so-called final offer.

If you read my initial posts again, it has been my point from the start that agents will play tricks anyway and even having the name of another bider wouldn't prove that nothing funny happened, so what matters is being happy with the price agreed upon:

Bob24 wrote: »

TBH there will always be tactics and getting a name won't guarantee nothing dodgy happened. What matters is that she thinks the price is right, how it came to that price is irrelevant.

One personal bad experience: [...]

davo10

Bob24 wrote: »

Sure it is obvious, my point simply is that I strongly suspect the agent didn't follow the rule they had laid out to me and simply used that last bidding step to extract more from the preferred bidder even though my so called final offer was probably higher than their so-called final offer.

If you read my initial posts again, it has been my point from the start that agents will play tricks anyway and even having the name of another bider wouldn't prove that nothing funny happened, so what matters is being happy with the price agreed upon:

Ok, the EA's rule was highest final bid wins, yours wasn't the highest bid, what is suspicious about this? Seriously. Even if both bids were the same, the seller can pick whichever bid he/she wants, if one is cash, happy days.

snowcat

davo10 wrote: »

I've bought and sold a lot of property, I am 100% certain I could not achieve the price an EA does. Yes they are slippery, but I always know they are acting in the best interest of the seller when I buy, and me when I sell.

The only way i would use an EA is if they charged 10% (like the US) and actually actively marketed the property and not took a few dodgy photos and stuck it on daft.ie myhome.ie. The digital age has rendered estate agents obsolete.

Mike3549

davo10 wrote: »

10k isn't 1% of 1m?

Im pretty sure you misunderstood what he meant by saying "10k to them".
He meant the increase in price, but you thought about the actual commisions of 10k

Bob24

davo10 wrote: »

Ok, the EA's rule was highest final bid wins, yours wasn't the highest bid, what is suspicious about this? Seriously.

I won'y give the actual figures, but an example with the same idea.

Imagine the asking price for a property is 500000 and the first time you go see it you are told the seller is time pressured and needs a quick sale.

Over a month later, you have been in a bidding war for weeks with another party with both parties using increments of 1000 or 2000, and you have reached an offer of 531000.

Now the EA tells you the seller wants to close within 24 hours and both parties should offer a final bid by 2PM the next day and the highest one will be selected.

You offer 548200.

You're told your offer was the lowest.

A fee weeks later you see on the PPR that it sold for 548300.


Now I am asking you just one serious question: statistically, what were the odds these 2 vastly increased offers being within 100 euros of each other assuming the rules laid-out by the agent were followed? (especially since all previous offers were multiples of 1000)


I am of course not saying the odds are 0, but I am saying the are *very* low, and low enough to raise suspicions about the integrity fo the process (especially when you know that the seller was looking for a quick sale and the timeframe for the transaction to show on the PPR means there could not have been a mortgage involved while you were a mortgage buyer).



Can't be more clear than that in explaining it ...

1641

Sleeper12 wrote: »

Generally the estate agent will continue to show the property after you pay the deposit & despite paying said deposit someone else might offer a higher price & you might loose the sale.
.

Actually, no. Generally when you pay the booking deposit the EA will list the property as "sale agreed" and will stop actively marketing or showing the property. This does not prevent someone else making a bid if they insist and the EA is obliged to pass on all bids to the vendor.

It may happen, but it would be most unusual for the EA to continue to actively market after "sale agreed" (unless they had reason to suspect the purchaser was not likely to follow through). The EA wants the sale to close as quickly as possible once the vendor has accepted an offer.

It can be a cruel world though.:)

davo10

Mike3549 wrote: »

Im pretty sure you misunderstood what he meant by saying "10k to them".
He meant the increase in price, but you thought about the actual commisions of 10k

Nope. The poster said the EA is only interested in the sale and and extra €10k makes no difference to the EA therefore there is no point in using an EA.

My point being, that even if an EA gets 10k more than the seller would get if they market it themselves, it still makes more sense and is more profitable for a seller to use an EA.

For example, a seller sells a house themselves for €500k. An EA sells it for €510k. Then at 1% commission (ex vat) the EA gets €5.1k meaning the seller gets €504.9k which makes the EA worth while using. The only way the extra €10k isn't worth while is if the seller was able to sell their own house for €1m in which case the commission makes the extra €10k an EA would get negligible. Most houses sell for far less than this, so the extra €10k an EA can get is worth while for the seller.

Yes, I applied it in reverse to show how using an EA pays for itself even if they get an extra €10k for your house.

Snowcat, only using an EA if they charge 10%? Wow, they would love to see you coming.

April 73

Bob24 wrote: »

I've already explained the situation clearly and what my suspicions are given the very low probability of this happening randomly (never said I had proofs or I was sure).

Feel free to disagree with my analysis of the situation.

Your insistence on cash buyers being more attractive only reinforces my point though. Based on the biding rule laid out be the agent being a cash buyer should have had absolutely no relevance in how the winning bid was picked, and you both outlined it is an important criteria (which I agree with and is one ready I don't think the agent told me the full story).

If I read your posts correctly you bid €15,000 more than your last bid & didn’t go for a rounded number. The winning bidder paid €100 more than your bid. Previous bid increments were 1k or 2k. That’s more than a coincidence.

Edit - sorry posted this before I read the next post with the number examples. Definitely fishy as I said before.

Bob24

April 73 wrote: »

If I read your posts correctly you bid €15,000 more than your last bid & didn’t go for a rounded number. The winning bidder paid €100 more than your bid. Previous bid increments were 1k or 2k. That’offer. s more than a coincidence.

Yes you’re reading it correctly. I cannot remember the exact figure as it was a few months ago but it was something like an extra 13600 and the final selling price on the PPR ended-up being just 100 over our final offer.

While 2 posters here seem to disagree, I also think it is very unlikely to be a coincidence.

But of course since only the EA has all the information I can’t prove anything. All I was saying is that EAs will do dodgy things and you can never be sure the final price you reach is based on a fair bidding process. So the only thing that matters is being happy with that price.

I have purchased another property anyway, but I have to say I was quite annoyed when I saw the figure on the PPR (as much at the agent as at myself for assuming everything had necessarily been done as per the set rules).

the_pen_turner

Bob24 wrote: »

Yes you’re reading it correctly. I cannot remember the exact figure as it was a few months ago but it was something like an extra 13600 and the final selling price on the PPR ended-up being just 100 over our final offer.

While 2 posters here seem to disagree, I also think it is very unlikely to be a coincidence.

But of course since only the EA has all the information I can’t prove anything. All I was saying is that EAs will do dodgy things and you can never be sure the final price you reach is based on a fair bidding process. So the only thing that matters is being happy with that price.

I have purchased another property anyway, but I have to say I was quite annoyed when I saw the figure on the PPR (as much at the agent as at myself for assuming everything had necessarily been done as per the set rules).

i dont see anything either that would make me believe something dodgy hapened.
ou went with an odd number. so did the other person. 50 / 50 odds. lots of people bid on stuff with odd numbers

kaymin

the_pen_turner wrote: »

i dont see anything either that would make me believe something dodgy hapened.
ou went with an odd number. so did the other person. 50 / 50 odds. lots of people bid on stuff with odd numbers

Some people here don't seem to have a notion about odds and statistics. I'd put the chances of this happening by chance as close to zero.

Graham

Bob24 wrote: »

Yes you’re reading it correctly. I cannot remember the exact figure as it was a few months ago but it was something like an extra 13600 and the final selling price on the PPR ended-up being just 100 over our final offer.

While 2 posters here seem to disagree, I also think it is very unlikely to be a coincidence.

You could be right.

Agent may well have gone back to a cash buyer, told that buyer the current highest offer and given them an opportunity to beat it.

Cash buyer adds a €100 to the current bid, vendor agrees, job done.

In similar circumstances (particularly where time is of the essence) you could well have seen the property sold for an amount lower than your final offer.

GingerLily

kaymin wrote: »

Some people here don't seem to have a notion about odds and statistics. I'd put the chances of this happening by chance as close to zero.

Then you don't understand odds or statistics either.

Bob24

the_pen_turner wrote: »

i dont see anything either that would make me believe something dodgy hapened.
ou went with an odd number. so did the other person. 50 / 50 odds. lots of people bid on stuff with odd numbers

This is completely missing the point.

What is statistically very improbable is that after such a lengthy bidding process in 1000/2000 increments, significantly increased offers from both parties end up within 100 euros from each other by chance.

There is nowhere near a 50/50 chance of this happening.

Sleeper12

1641 wrote: »

Actually, no. Generally when you pay the booking deposit the EA will list the property as "sale agreed" and will stop actively marketing or showing the property. This does not prevent someone else making a bid if they insist and the EA is obliged to pass on all bids to the vendor.

It may happen, but it would be most unusual for the EA to continue to actively market after "sale agreed" (unless they had reason to suspect the purchaser was not likely to follow through). The EA wants the sale to close as quickly as possible once the vendor has accepted an offer.

It can be a cruel world though.:)

Yet estate agents do still show the property after a deposit is paid. I caught an estate doing it on a property I paid a deposit on. Bottom line is the deposit means nothing till contracts are signed but that is usually a month or two after you gave the deposit.


The deposit has no legal meaning till contracts are singed. In the months between paying the deposit & contracts signed it's little more than a gesture to show that you are genuinely interested. It's not binding. Buyer & seller can pull out at any time despite the deposit or indeed continue to show the house.

1641

Sleeper12 wrote: »

Yet estate agents do still show the property after a deposit is paid. I caught an estate doing it on a property I paid a deposit on. Bottom line is the deposit means nothing till contracts are signed but that is usually a month or two after you gave the deposit.


The deposit has no legal meaning till contracts are singed. In the months between paying the deposit & contracts signed it's little more than a gesture to show that you are genuinely interested. It's not binding. Buyer & seller can pull out at any time despite the deposit or indeed continue to show the house.

Indeed, the deposit does not give any legal guarantee of sale to either side - either can pull out if they wish. It does have some legal standing, ie, that it is fully refundable on demand.

You indicate that you "caught" your EA showing a house after a deposit was agreed. So it was clearly not kosher for The EA to be doing so. Did the EA declare the house "sale agreed" once the deposit was paid? This should have happened. I think most people would pull out if the EA was still actively marketing a house after "Sale Agreed". I certainly would - but I have never experienced it.

amdublin

Bob24 wrote: »

TBH there will always be tactics and getting a name won't guarantee nothing dodgy happened. What matters is that she thinks the price is right, how it came to that price is irrelevant.

One personal bad experience: after bidding for some time on a place, an EA told us there was just one other bidder and the seller wanted to go sale agreed quickly, so they were asking each party to give there maximum offer by a certain deadline and the highest offer would be accepted.

We submitted our offer and were eventually told it was the lowest one so we moved on. A few weeks later we saw the selling price on the property price register and it was clear we had been taken for a ride: the price was just 100 euros over our offer, for a property going for several hundred thousands and where the bid increments had been 1000 or 2000 euros. No way it could have happened by chance and clearly for whatever reason the EA wanted to sell to the other bidder but wanted first to generate a significantly increased offer from us to submit it to them and get them to pay that price.

I fail to see your point. What the estate agent told you would happen, did happen.
I.e. make your max offer - you got to choose what you offered/felt the house was worth. Highest bid would be accepted. No one forced you to go up in 1000s or 100s or indeed even bid at all

The estate agent has been hired by the seller to sell at the highest price which they did.

Bob24

amdublin wrote: »

What the estate agent told you would happen, did happen.

Unless you are that agent you don’t know that as there was no transparency in the process. How can you possibly know for sure that the max offer was indeed selected without going back to the other bidder to give them an additional opportunity?

davo10

And apparently the fact that the other bidder was , Bob thinks, a cash buyer shouldn't matter. Even if Bob was €10k higher, I'd still go with the cash buyer on a €500k house.

Sleeper12

1641 wrote: »

Indeed, the deposit does not give any legal guarantee of sale to either side - either can pull out if they wish. It does have some legal standing, ie, that it is fully refundable on demand.

You indicate that you "caught" your EA showing a house after a deposit was agreed. So it was clearly not kosher for The EA to be doing so. Did the EA declare the house "sale agreed" once the deposit was paid? This should have happened. I think most people would pull out if the EA was still actively marketing a house after "Sale Agreed". I certainly would - but I have never experienced it.

This was early 90s. I had put a booking deposit on sale price of £83K. I reduced my offer by £2k when I caught him. Not just showing the house but advertising it in the paper. There was a Mexican stand off. I won, not because I was the better businessman but because he didn't have another cash buyer. It was as much luck as anything but I still class it as a win.


I have encountered estate agents showing property after the deposit has been paid many times since. I always try to stress here to first time buyers that the deposit means nothing till contracts are signed & the house isn't yours till you get the keys. It can fall through at the last minute.


I get young people ringing me to quote for a new shower. II ask when can I have a look. "Oh I'll try get the estate agent to let us in". I just walk away. Wasting my time & the estate agents time. One woman had curtains made to suit all the windows in the house & the sale fell through.

Bob24

davo10 wrote: »

And apparently the fact that the other bidder was , Bob thinks, a cash buyer shouldn't matter. Even if Bob was €10k higher, I'd still go with the cash buyer on a €500k house.

Either you haven't read my posts fully or you are voluntarily misrepresenting what I said. Which is:
- of course being a cash buyers makes you more attractive
- in the final bidding stage as laid out by the EA it should have made no difference to be a cash buyer or not, if it did the agent didn't follow the rules they had laid out

DONTMATTER

It's the world we live in unfortunately. People will try to fleece you for every penny just to make extra profits themselves. Dubious behaviour or low morals doesn't come into the equation with these people. It's all greed.
Can an independent board not be set up? Estate agents have to send details of the sale process and this board checks that everything was done correctly. Would seem fair.

davo10

Bob24 wrote: »

Either you haven't read my posts fully or you are voluntarily misrepresenting what I said. Which is:
- of course being a cash buyers makes you more attractive
- in the final bidding stage as laid out by the EA it should have made no difference to be a cash buyer or not, if it did the agent didn't follow the rules they had laid out

Dear God, it's the seller who makes the decision, not the EA, of course cash matters, it always matters. The "rules" on bids are not legally binding, you make your final offer for consideration, this is not an auction. Jesus wept.

Was one of the rules that all bids, financed and cash will be considered equally? If it wasn't, then there are no rules on this.

Bob24

davo10 wrote: »

Dear God, it's the seller who makes the decision, not the EA, of course cash matters, it always matters. The "rules" on bids are not legally binding, you make your final offer for consideration, this is not an auction. Jesus wept.

And as I have said numerous times, the fact that people shouldn't assume EAs have done things by the rules just because there is another bidder's name is my exact point from the start.

amdublin

If I may I think its actually wise of the ea to continue to show the property right until contracts are signed.

Hard on the agreed buyer I know - But gives an impetus to get those contracts signed.

If I was selling my house and have an agreed buyer and that falls through it would be good not to have to start from scratch at that point.
However I agree it is heart breaking for a buyer when they are gazumped- particularly when they are like "hey we had an agreement". Which unfortunately means nothing until the contracts are signed

The estate agent is working for the seller (and themseves interest) at the end of the day.

Sayng all that. I think our whole system SUCKS and would prefer a different way of doing things.

bren2002

The seller is under no obligation to sell to the highest bidder. In fact you could see the PPR after the sale and see it was sold for less than the highest bid (if you bid more). An auction is the only way to get the visibility you're looking for.

Sleeper12

bren2002 wrote: »

The seller is under no obligation to sell to the highest bidder. In fact you could see the PPR after the sale and see it was sold for less than the highest bid (if you bid more). An auction is the only way to get the visibility you're looking for.

I'd take a lower bid from a cash buyer. Especially someone that's bought property before. Usually a quicker sale with less hassle. I'd never sell to a council. It can add months to the sale

1641

amdublin wrote: »

If I may I think its actually wise of the ea to continue to show the property right until contracts are signed.

Hard on the agreed buyer I know - But gives an impetus to get those contracts signed.

If I was selling my house and have an agreed buyer and that falls through it would be good not to have to start from scratch at that point.
However I agree it is heart breaking for a buyer when they are gazumped- particularly when they are like "hey we had an agreement". Which unfortunately means nothing until the contracts are signed

The estate agent is working for the seller (and themseves interest) at the end of the day.

Sayng all that. I think our whole system SUCKS and would prefer a different way of doing things.

But your buyer is quite likely to walk away from the "deal" if and when they discover that "sale agreed" means nothing to you and you are actively trying to gazump them.

A buyer will normally check to see that the property is listed as "Sale Agreed" once they pay the booking deposit. Actively marketing after this is not illegal and may sometimes still happen, but is risky and considered dodgy. Most reputable EAs will avoid nowadays - in an attempt to clean up past public perception. But if a potential buyer insists they are obliged to pass on any bids to the vendor.I reckon they would much prefer for the sale to proceed through once "sale agreed" so that they get paid.

Sleeper12

1641 wrote:

But your buyer is quite likely to walk away from the "deal" if and when they discover that "sale agreed" means nothing to you and you are actively trying to gazump them.

Showing a house that is sale agreed is still common practice.

It's all well and good saying that you will walk away from the sale but the reality is that in the current market very few will walk away away