House gone sale agreed, highest bidder not alerted

Pick up the phone and call if they don't answer leave a voicemail, even though the estate agent says send emails, i would follow up with email detailing your offer

Fuk the estate agent ,get straight on to vendor ,cut out estate agent completely if he is fukacting

In return for getting 1000 Euro from some fella upping his bids by 1000 Euro a go, you might end up with a lifetime of hassle from a blow-in. The seller might still be in the area or have family beside it. If you were in that position, you might be inclined to take the risk you know rather than the unknown.

Fwiw, if I was the vendor, I wouldn’t deal with anyone who tried to contact me directly.

When buying in a sellers market you are selling yourself as a hassle free person to deal with. Not everyone needs / wants just the higher bidder. How they approach the bid and how the seller / agent thinks they will complete the deal matters too.

I was an unfortunate buyer who took just the highest bid many years ago on a holiday home and I regretted it very quickly. It took 5 months to complete and the feckers even wanted a "water test" on a stream the rang alongside - to confirm it did not contain sewage (this was in a very scenic spot miles form any potential water issue. It was a delay tactic as they came up with another petty request the next week and another the week after.

Looking back they were too eager and kept trumping the other person by 1k.

I've bought/sold a few times since and will do a little research on the buyer before coming up with my own preferred buyer. Likewise, when buying I will make sure I come across as someone who will not delay for petty reasons and provide my solicitor details for the agent / seller to do an off the record check via their solicitor that confirms I do not delay or cause grief. (and I got an absolute bargain a couple of years ago using that with a receiver of a holiday home - he wanted a close within 3 weeks)

So my guess is you did not come across as someone they wanted to deal with and that lost the deal. Remember that the seller is also paying Capital Gains tax of 33%, so your €1,000 increase was only worth €650 (assuming 2% commission)

Even if the estate agent hadn't passed on the bid to you?

Would you not want to know they aren't doing the job you are paying for.

Fair enough if the bids were passed on but given op is cash buyer with no chain it does seem strange that they wouldn't accept their highest bid or even just tell ea they need to raise bid by more than 1k.

There appears to be a lack of communication in either the ea communicating bids to vendor or communicating back to op, either way if I was vendor I would want to know that the ea who I am paying isn't doing their job.

If you are still very interested and are willing to go another 5/10k simply find out the owner .Presuming some local does maintenance /garden work/neighbour would have contacf details and find out the story at least.This looks a bit fishy so you will never know otherwise ,a few hours being nosey might be what it takes ,there is nothing ever handed to anyone on the plate!!!

I've read about families writing a letter to the seller, saying their reasons for purchasing, such as raising a family, connections to the area etc, many people are concerned about their property going to someone they feel is the most deserving, some do it with rental properties, not necessarily the person that pays the most, but the person they feel is in a situation that deserves it.

Contrary to what some people on here claim, not all property owners are concerned only about the mighty buck. There are other things that help them sleep at night.

OP - you are making a lot of assumptions - remember the EA works for the Vendor and as such has no obligation to you at all. By all means send a letter to the vendor but I'm not sure what you expect to achieve.

Interestingly - just over 10 years ago when I was buying we were the only bidder for 4 months - the type of property were were buying just had no market at the time - post 2009 collapse. So for 4 months our offer just was kept in limbo - not accepted but no other bidder. I called up one Thursday evening to enquire about the status of the offer and when the EA called me back the following morning she said a 'cash buyer has just gone sale agreed (5k up on our offer) and full payment will be in bank account on Monday'

I was really annoyed and in the pub that night I mentioned it to some one who put me straight - the new bidder was a buddy of the EA and we were just pawns to set the absolute lowest price the vendors would settle for. So my wife knocked on the door on the Saturday morning and explained the situation to the vendor. The vendor had no knowledge of a second bidder or offer - let alone a sale agreed. They called the EA on the Monday morning to tell them to accept our offer and not to consider any other offers. Getting the keys from EA was a very awkward affair.

Local areas, they want to sell to a local person.

I was bidding on a property in Laois, was highest bidder.

EA told me, the vendor simply wanted to establish the market value.

It was sold to his sister.

What a waste of time.

And you call Irish people borderline racist 🤔

It never ceases to amaze me the amount of people on boards willing to defend the terrible behavior & outright gouging of estate agents that goes on.

It's no wonder the housing market is in the state its in when people are willing to turn a blind eye to the EA behavior that goes on, and the lack of transparency which they operate under.

OP, you have my sympathy.

They are calling you so there is no paper trail, take notes and email them to her asking them to let you know if you've misunderstood any of the facts.