Currently buying/selling a house? How is it going? READ MOD NOTE POST #1

morrissey1307

RichardAnd wrote: »

I called an estate agent last week to ask this question, and I was told that they were not yet doing viewings. The lady I spoke to said that they had heard nothing from "the regulator".

As I understand it, this virtual viewing nonsense began last March in the first restriction period. When did physical viewings return in 2020?

Interesting to see who's calling the shots on this. There are several EA's doing viewings. Whether it's above board or not, who knows. Whether its a legal grey area or not, who knows.

But the one I was at, even though there was a lot of people there, it was very co-ordinated and only one allocated slot allowed in at a time. Not sure about 2020 as I've only started actually pursuing this year but it seems to be down to the individual EA and what they want to do

Sweet.Science

RichardAnd wrote: »

I'd say that it would be a safe bet that physical viewings will return some time in May, based on this.

However, even when they return, there may be agents who don't immediately allow them to happen. I'm sure that many estate agents are perfectly content to allow people to bid themselves white on a Youtube video, and they may not easily give that up.

Yeah one person can drive the price of 5 houses up from the comfort of their sofa . At least when you have to view to bid it might cut all this out

givyjoe

morrissey1307 wrote: »

Interesting to see who's calling the shots on this. There are several EA's doing viewings. Whether it's above board or not, who knows. Whether its a legal grey area or not, who knows.

But the one I was at, even though there was a lot of people there, it was very co-ordinated and only one allocated slot allowed in at a time. Not sure about 2020 as I've only started actually pursuing this year but it seems to be down to the individual EA and what they want to do

The only way viewings are supposed to happen is when a property has been sale agreed and contracts are drawn up. Obviously that's completely ludicrous for all parties, so some have taken a more practical approach, which requires bending those rules.

RichardAnd

Sweet.Science wrote: »

Yeah one person can drive the price of 5 houses up from the comfort of their sofa . At least when you have to view to bid it might cut all this out

Quite, but I don't think the possibility of physical viewings will stop this as the supply will still be limited, but it will help.

givyjoe wrote: »

The only way viewings are supposed to happen is when a property has been sale agreed and contracts are drawn up. Obviously that's completely ludicrous for all parties, so some have taken a more practical approach, which requires bending those rules.

I doubt that anyone who dreamed up that rule was/is in the process of buying a house.

Reins

RichardAnd wrote: »

I called an estate agent last week to ask this question, and I was told that they were not yet doing viewings. The lady I spoke to said that they had heard nothing from "the regulator".

As I understand it, this virtual viewing nonsense began last March in the first restriction period. When did physical viewings return in 2020?

Put my place up for sale the week before covid began (March '20) and didn't sell until Jan '21
(thank you covid)

Twice sale had fallen through - third time successful.

All the while viewings took place in person (one at a time with masks etc) I was also attending viewings in person with same conditions as above.

My understanding is the online bidding came in to operation when the current level 5 started again just before Xmas.
Estate agents had 2 weeks off for Xmas and when they were to return in Jan they were to work remotely.

RichardAnd

Reins wrote: »

Put my place up for sale the week before covid began (March '20) and didn't sell until Jan '21
(thank you covid)

Twice sale had fallen through - third time successful.

All the while viewings took place in person (one at a time with masks etc) I was also attending viewings in person with same conditions as above.

My understanding is the online bidding came in to operation when the current level 5 started again just before Xmas.
Estate agents had 2 weeks off for Xmas and when they were to return in Jan they were to work remotely.

That's mad. Is your home in Dublin, if you don't mind my asking?

The last time that I physically saw a house in Dublin was just before Christmas 2020. I've asked a few times since, but it's always been either a flat no.

Online bidding for a house is ridiculous. I don't even like to buy clothing that I've not tired on!

Ladybird25

Guys, after reading the whole two last pages I need to ask. How do you know the house has been sold out ofr 15 , 20 % more than the asking price? As far as I know, you cannot check this info unless you are bidding yourself until last moment and EA tell you what the last offer is. Am I missing something here?

JimmyVik wrote: »

As an obvious start point for doing your homework on a house you would like to buy, you might as well check what is your own realistic max price you will pay for it.
That way the start price makes no odds to you, just what the house is worth to you.
So for example say you look at that house and decide it is worth €500k to you. Let the bidding start at €330K and then watch for a while. Only start bidding yourself when there are no more bidders at a price lower than the value you put on the house.
So if the bidding goes up to €450k and there are no more bidders, then you make your bid at €455k. Work your way up and if it goes past your max then bow out.



I can understand taking a fee of people who want to bid though, to remove time wasters.

Or do you mean like start with a bid so you're in the loop and can jump back in at any time?

Podge10

I doubt that anyone who dreamed up that rule was/is in the process of buying a house.[/quote]

Or gave it more than 3 minutes thought. Some EAs have applied the common sense that should have been applied in the first place IMO. Blind bidding and then paying a solicitor to draw up contracts just to get in for a viewing is crazy.

But it’s sort of the story of doing business in Covid. Those who are willing to bend or beak rules have an income stream, those who are not suffer.
You only had to walk around an estate in jan and feb to spot extensions and attic conversions in full swing. While large construction sites were all closed down.

ElBastardo1

Ladybird25 wrote: »

Guys, after reading the whole two last pages I need to ask. How do you know the house has been sold out ofr 15 , 20 % more than the asking price? As far as I know, you cannot check this info unless you are bidding yourself until last moment and EA tell you what the last offer is. Am I missing something here?



Or do you mean like start with a bid so you're in the loop and can jump back in at any time?

Well I presume it's easy to check what a house has been sold for the as the PPR give all sale prices. Bit late to think about jumping in when a house has been sold. If you call an estate agent and ask what the "Sale agreed" price is they can give you that and you can ask will they consider if you make an offer.

morrissey1307

Ladybird25 wrote: »

Guys, after reading the whole two last pages I need to ask. How do you know the house has been sold out ofr 15 , 20 % more than the asking price? As far as I know, you cannot check this info unless you are bidding yourself until last moment and EA tell you what the last offer is. Am I missing something here?



Or do you mean like start with a bid so you're in the loop and can jump back in at any time?

Here's an example. I was looking at a house in Dublin 5 for 275k. Got onto the estate agent asking about viewings / bids etc. and he said they received an offer of 310k. That's an increase of 12% or so above the asking price. That was the last I heard of it.

Sure the buyer could have pulled out and brought it down to the next highest bid, but it also could have been up at 320k, or 330k, or whatever the person with the deepest pockets is prepared to pay for it.

Benzino

Ladybird25 wrote: »

Guys, after reading the whole two last pages I need to ask. How do you know the house has been sold out ofr 15 , 20 % more than the asking price? As far as I know, you cannot check this info unless you are bidding yourself until last moment and EA tell you what the last offer is. Am I missing something here?

Saw a house on Daft, in which the agent seemed to be updating the price based on bids. Started at 380k, currently at 497k.

hold my beer

I sold an apartment a few years ago and was told by the auctioneer that we should start low and watch as the bids go up and up. He was right. It went from €225k asking to €295k selling. We would have sold it for anything over €260k. It seemed stupid to me then, and still does now. I'm guessing they're now afraid to put them up at the actual asking price in case potential buyers think it's going to go up the 30% + from this point

random_banter

Ladybird25 wrote: »

Guys, after reading the whole two last pages I need to ask. How do you know the house has been sold out ofr 15 , 20 % more than the asking price? As far as I know, you cannot check this info unless you are bidding yourself until last moment and EA tell you what the last offer is. Am I missing something here?

Or do you mean like start with a bid so you're in the loop and can jump back in at any time?

If you're a really pedantic person and have the will, you could go all out crazy (like me) and do something like this ...

I started a spreadsheet at the start of 2020, and populated it with houses for sale that were of interest - there's a bit of variety on there, for example a number of localities near each other in Dublin, and also a stretch in the asking prices - because I think it's worth having a broader view of the market other than what's happening at your budget level. So I have some listings of interest that are way over budget, and some way under budget too.

I have different columns with basic info - e.g. locality, address, asking price, no. bedrooms, transport proximity, URL to listing, etc.

Then every couple of weeks I click on the URLs to see if there is a change to the listing like a change to the price, gone sale agreed, etc. I mark the status in a new column, with the asking price on that date. If the listing is gone, it's often because the EA wants it to look new or change the price upwards/downwards, but by having all the address details I can quickly search and check it myself - this bit sounds like it's arduous but it only takes 10 minutes to quickly click through them all every couple of weeks.

Once it's a long time sale agreed or the listing is totally gone I mark it sold unless I see it re-listed later (it's happened maybe twice).

So I keep adding new columns (marked with the current date) when I have new listings to add to the spreadsheet.

Then I check the PPR every couple of weeks too, a very quick scan in the areas that I'm interested in, if I see an address I recognise from the spreadsheet I update it in a column marked "sold price" and I have a little formula to tell me how far % wise under/over it went.

If I can't find the info and it's a house I was very interested in, I usually have been talking to the EA if it's one we viewed or enquired about. When you have formed a relationship with the EA they will generally be happy to share with you what the current offer or sold price is.

It sounds like a time consuming process to do but it's actually not that bad, and it's worth it to organise your thoughts and keep records and form your view of the market you're looking to buy in. So far I have just over 100 houses on the spreadsheet, of that around 80 have been sold or have been removed from for sale status, which leaves me with 15-20 to watch at any one time.

In general the last 4 months have been insane with bidding wars for properties in poor condition, so we have stayed away from bidding and only viewed ones we are very interested in.

I'm seeing a bit of a pick up in the last couple of weeks with more properties coming on stream than before, hopefully a sign of slightly better conditions to come. Has anyone else noticed this? (South Dublin for us).

ElBastardo1

hold my beer wrote: »

I sold an apartment a few years ago and was told by the auctioneer that we should start low and watch as the bids go up and up. He was right. It went from €225k asking to €295k selling. We would have sold it for anything over €260k. It seemed stupid to me then, and still does now. I'm guessing they're now afraid to put them up at the actual asking price in case potential buyers think it's going to go up the 30% + from this point

I wish it was like that for me, started off at 235K and went for 210K in the end:(

AhhHere

random_banter wrote: »

If you're a really pedantic person and have the will, you could go all out crazy (like me) and do something like this ...

I started a spreadsheet at the start of 2020, and populated it with houses for sale that were of interest - there's a bit of variety on there, for example a number of localities near each other in Dublin, and also a stretch in the asking prices - because I think it's worth having a broader view of the market other than what's happening at your budget level. So I have some listings of interest that are way over budget, and some way under budget too.

I have different columns with basic info - e.g. locality, address, asking price, no. bedrooms, transport proximity, URL to listing, etc.

Then every couple of weeks I click on the URLs to see if there is a change to the listing like a change to the price, gone sale agreed, etc. I mark the status in a new column, with the asking price on that date. If the listing is gone, it's often because the EA wants it to look new or change the price upwards/downwards, but by having all the address details I can quickly search and check it myself - this bit sounds like it's arduous but it only takes 10 minutes to quickly click through them all every couple of weeks.

Once it's a long time sale agreed or the listing is totally gone I mark it sold unless I see it re-listed later (it's happened maybe twice).

So I keep adding new columns (marked with the current date) when I have new listings to add to the spreadsheet.

Then I check the PPR every couple of weeks too, a very quick scan in the areas that I'm interested in, if I see an address I recognise from the spreadsheet I update it in a column marked "sold price" and I have a little formula to tell me how far % wise under/over it went.

If I can't find the info and it's a house I was very interested in, I usually have been talking to the EA if it's one we viewed or enquired about. When you have formed a relationship with the EA they will generally be happy to share with you what the current offer or sold price is.

It sounds like a time consuming process to do but it's actually not that bad, and it's worth it to organise your thoughts and keep records and form your view of the market you're looking to buy in. So far I have just over 100 houses on the spreadsheet, of that around 80 have been sold or have been removed from for sale status, which leaves me with 15-20 to watch at any one time.

In general the last 4 months have been insane with bidding wars for properties in poor condition, so we have stayed away from bidding and only viewed ones we are very interested in.

I'm seeing a bit of a pick up in the last couple of weeks with more properties coming on stream than before, hopefully a sign of slightly better conditions to come. Has anyone else noticed this? (South Dublin for us).

I've been tempted to do something similar in the past few weeks and youve inspired me. Excellent shout looking beyond your price range to follow behaviour. I'll be stealing the idea

DataDude

random_banter wrote: »

If you're a really pedantic person and have the will, you could go all out crazy (like me) and do something like this ...

I started a spreadsheet at the start of 2020, and populated it with houses for sale that were of interest - there's a bit of variety on there, for example a number of localities near each other in Dublin, and also a stretch in the asking prices - because I think it's worth having a broader view of the market other than what's happening at your budget level. So I have some listings of interest that are way over budget, and some way under budget too.

I have different columns with basic info - e.g. locality, address, asking price, no. bedrooms, transport proximity, URL to listing, etc.

Then every couple of weeks I click on the URLs to see if there is a change to the listing like a change to the price, gone sale agreed, etc. I mark the status in a new column, with the asking price on that date. If the listing is gone, it's often because the EA wants it to look new or change the price upwards/downwards, but by having all the address details I can quickly search and check it myself - this bit sounds like it's arduous but it only takes 10 minutes to quickly click through them all every couple of weeks.

Once it's a long time sale agreed or the listing is totally gone I mark it sold unless I see it re-listed later (it's happened maybe twice).

So I keep adding new columns (marked with the current date) when I have new listings to add to the spreadsheet.

Then I check the PPR every couple of weeks too, a very quick scan in the areas that I'm interested in, if I see an address I recognise from the spreadsheet I update it in a column marked "sold price" and I have a little formula to tell me how far % wise under/over it went.

If I can't find the info and it's a house I was very interested in, I usually have been talking to the EA if it's one we viewed or enquired about. When you have formed a relationship with the EA they will generally be happy to share with you what the current offer or sold price is.

It sounds like a time consuming process to do but it's actually not that bad, and it's worth it to organise your thoughts and keep records and form your view of the market you're looking to buy in. So far I have just over 100 houses on the spreadsheet, of that around 80 have been sold or have been removed from for sale status, which leaves me with 15-20 to watch at any one time.

In general the last 4 months have been insane with bidding wars for properties in poor condition, so we have stayed away from bidding and only viewed ones we are very interested in.

I'm seeing a bit of a pick up in the last couple of weeks with more properties coming on stream than before, hopefully a sign of slightly better conditions to come. Has anyone else noticed this? (South Dublin for us).

Sounds eerily similar to a spreadsheet I have! Also primarily South Dublin but also some North Wicklow thrown in. Started in March 2020. Price ranges €800-€1.3m. You might be interested in some of my stats:

110 properties. 43 have hit PPR. 24 sold below asking. 17 above. 2 at asking. Average difference of sale price to asking sale price 0.5% higher! Although 3 massive outliers where sale price was €300k+ over asking skew that. Remove those and average sale is 2% below asking.

Unfortunately it's a tale of two periods. Incredible market weakness from March 2020 - July 2020. Of the first 22 house I tracked that sold, 19 went below asking. This then changed around July/August last year. Since that time it's been 14 above asking and only 5 below.

Supply is undoubtedly increasing over the last 2 - 3 weeks. Even at a high level the number of houses on MyHome bottomed out at 11,800 at the end of March and is back to 12,300 now (still incredibly low). Hopefully a sign of things to come!

Just as an FYI, something I do which is a little less manual than your PPR checking. You can download the database every week into excel. Quick Index/Match to identify new entries from the previous weeks download. Pivot to see all the new entries in your price range and county. It's not perfect, but it saves searching individual addresses!

Reins

RichardAnd wrote: »

That's mad. Is your home in Dublin, if you don't mind my asking?

The last time that I physically saw a house in Dublin was just before Christmas 2020. I've asked a few times since, but it's always been either a flat no.

Online bidding for a house is ridiculous. I don't even like to buy clothing that I've not tired on!

Yes Dublin

It's been a crazy time!

cubatahavana

givyjoe wrote: »

At some point last summer they re-commenced, June or July I think and only stopped again in January.

We started looking at houses last July. We were able to see them no problem. They were using covid measures, but viewing were allowed no problem

pleh

The seller has countersigned the contract so the sale is legally binding. We don't have a closing date yet but we're nearly there.

JimmyVik

Ladybird25 wrote: »

Guys, after reading the whole two last pages I need to ask. How do you know the house has been sold out ofr 15 , 20 % more than the asking price? As far as I know, you cannot check this info unless you are bidding yourself until last moment and EA tell you what the last offer is. Am I missing something here?



Or do you mean like start with a bid so you're in the loop and can jump back in at any time?

No, just dont bother bidding until the initial frenzy is over with, then jump into the bidding yourself.

odyssey06

JimmyVik wrote: »

No, just dont bother bidding until the initial frenzy is over with, then jump into the bidding yourself.

The initial frenzy might put it outside your budget so dont waste a bid. Makes sense.

coinflip

DataDude wrote: »

Sounds eerily similar to a spreadsheet I have! Also primarily South Dublin but also some North Wicklow thrown in. Started in March 2020. Price ranges €800-€1.3m. You might be interested in some of my stats:

110 properties. 43 have hit PPR. 24 sold below asking. 17 above. 2 at asking. Average difference of sale price to asking sale price 0.5% higher! Although 3 massive outliers where sale price was €300k+ over asking skew that. Remove those and average sale is 2% below asking.

Unfortunately it's a tale of two periods. Incredible market weakness from March 2020 - July 2020. Of the first 22 house I tracked that sold, 19 went below asking. This then changed around July/August last year. Since that time it's been 14 above asking and only 5 below.

Supply is undoubtedly increasing over the last 2 - 3 weeks. Even at a high level the number of houses on MyHome bottomed out at 11,800 at the end of March and is back to 12,300 now (still incredibly low). Hopefully a sign of things to come!

Just as an FYI, something I do which is a little less manual than your PPR checking. You can download the database every week into excel. Quick Index/Match to identify new entries from the previous weeks download. Pivot to see all the new entries in your price range and county. It's not perfect, but it saves searching individual addresses!

Noble work! I'm lazy so I wrote a program to collect the data... Contains almost every sales listing on Daft in the last two years. Matched about 15k of these to the PPR when I had a look towards the end of last year. Planning to throw the data into a web app at some stage this year. This is the sort of data captured

url, address, area, county, first_published, last_published, longitude, latitude, eircode, property_type, surface_area, ber, bedrooms, bathrooms, number_of_images, facilities, features, seller_name, seller_type, selling_type, property_description, original_asking_price, final_asking_price, sales_price

RichardAnd

DataDude wrote: »

Sounds eerily similar to a spreadsheet I have! Also primarily South Dublin but also some North Wicklow thrown in. Started in March 2020. Price ranges €800-€1.3m. You might be interested in some of my stats:

110 properties. 43 have hit PPR. 24 sold below asking. 17 above. 2 at asking. Average difference of sale price to asking sale price 0.5% higher! Although 3 massive outliers where sale price was €300k+ over asking skew that. Remove those and average sale is 2% below asking.

Unfortunately it's a tale of two periods. Incredible market weakness from March 2020 - July 2020. Of the first 22 house I tracked that sold, 19 went below asking. This then changed around July/August last year. Since that time it's been 14 above asking and only 5 below.

Supply is undoubtedly increasing over the last 2 - 3 weeks. Even at a high level the number of houses on MyHome bottomed out at 11,800 at the end of March and is back to 12,300 now (still incredibly low). Hopefully a sign of things to come!

Just as an FYI, something I do which is a little less manual than your PPR checking. You can download the database every week into excel. Quick Index/Match to identify new entries from the previous weeks download. Pivot to see all the new entries in your price range and county. It's not perfect, but it saves searching individual addresses!

A data-dude indeed! Thank you, sir.

DataDude

coinflip wrote: »

Noble work! I'm lazy so I wrote a program to collect the data... Contains almost every sales listing on Daft in the last two years. Matched about 15k of these to the PPR when I had a look towards the end of last year. Planning to throw the data into a web app at some stage this year. This is the sort of data captured

url, address, area, county, first_published, last_published, longitude, latitude, eircode, property_type, surface_area, ber, bedrooms, bathrooms, number_of_images, facilities, features, seller_name, seller_type, selling_type, property_description, original_asking_price, final_asking_price, sales_price

Would be really interested in seeing this when it's ready, as I'm sure many would!!
I was hoping I wouldn't be house hunting long enough to justify anything elaborate...but alas, here I am over a year later!

Markitron

In a bit of a weird spot. As I mentioned last week my sale fell through cos BOI just wouldn't issue my loan offer for no particular reason and the seller got fed up of waiting. EA called me the other day and asked if I was still interested as the house is going back on the market, I said I was and that I would proceed with the sale if my new applications to KCB or ICS were issued. Now the place is back up on daft but they still have my booking deposit.

Even though I still want the place should I have asked for it back there and then? I'm expecting news this week or next on my other applications so was just going to wait and see what happened with them before asking for it back.

JimmyVik

Markitron wrote: »

In a bit of a weird spot. As I mentioned last week my sale fell through cos BOI just wouldn't issue my loan offer for no particular reason and the seller got fed up of waiting. EA called me the other day and asked if I was still interested as the house is going back on the market, I said I was and that I would proceed with the sale if my new applications to KCB or ICS were issued. Now the place is back up on daft but they still have my booking deposit.

Even though I still want the place should I have asked for it back there and then? I'm expecting news this week or next on my other applications so was just going to wait and see what happened with them before asking for it back.

You might as well get it back while you are waiting in case you see something else you like. You can always just give it back to them if you get approved again and they accept your bid.
If there is one thing ive learned from the pandemic it is dont let nay company hold on to your money if you can help it.

Markitron

JimmyVik wrote: »

You might as well get it back while you are waiting in case you see something else you like. You can always just give it back to them if you get approved again and they accept your bid.
If there is one thing ive learned from the pandemic it is dont let nay company hold on to your money if you can help it.

I probably would have done but the odds of me finding something to suit my needs in the next week or so is extremely low. What I am not sure about is if, lets say I do get approved in the next week, will it be for the original agreed sale price? If they get another offer in the meantime I may have to bid on this house again despite them still having my booking deposit.

givyjoe

Markitron wrote: »

I probably would have done but the odds of me finding something to suit my needs in the next week or so is extremely low. What I am not sure about is if, lets say I do get approved in the next week, will it be for the original agreed sale price? If they get another offer in the meantime I may have to bid on this house again despite them still having my booking deposit.

Why does the EA still have your deposit if you're no longer sale agreed? Get that back asap, no guarantee any of these agents will still exist in the medium term.

Markitron

givyjoe wrote: »

Why does the EA still have your deposit if you're no longer sale agreed? Get that back asap, no guarantee any of these agents will still exist in the medium term.

Like I said, I still want to go ahead with the sale. It fell through because my lender would issue the loan offer to finalise the sale, I'm in the process of getting it elsewhere.

givyjoe

Markitron wrote: »

Like I said, I still want to go ahead with the sale. It fell through because my lender would issue the loan offer to finalise the sale, I'm in the process of getting it elsewhere.

Yes, but as far as the vendor is concerned its not going ahead (with you), hence its back up on daft? You're taking an unnecessary by leaving your money with them. It's probably not a high risk right now, but still.