Softening house market?

Take sale agree to closing and then and add 6 weeks for stamp duty to be paid. That would be 4 to 5 months typically. Add in the period of time the property was on the market before that and you are looking at the latter end of last year as the time of the bidding war. The methodology may be sound but it lags the market by between 6 and 9 months. The outbreak of the Ukraine war didn't stop people bidding in any event, noir would it have resulted in sellers dampening their expectations immediately on it happening. Evidence of a softening market will only show in the statistics long after the market has turned. In 2006, the market turned in early summer but the statistics continued to show rising prices into 2007 and no significant fall in orices until 2008. By the time the statistics show a trend it will have been well under way for about 9 months.

You can have a decent solictor, but if the other partys one is a gobshite, then your powerless. You can always try to threaten to pull the sale if it doesnt proceed in a timely manner, but would need to be prepared to take your chances going back to market.

Might be off-topic, but what exactly is a cash buyer these days?

Is it someone who has the cash in the bank, or someone who has no chain (they don't need to sell another house for the initial purchase to succeed.)

Hi nullzero. Out of interest, are you a current buyer or do you have some other involvement in the market. I've seen you giving a couple of interesting updates recently

I wonder is it referencing people who go sale agreed for over 3.5x and are subsequently denied the requisite exemption? I know that's not what it says but it would make more sense.

Current buyer.

My experience is that the market is extremely mixed and there are people who lost out during the peek of last years market who are coming back now with the money they've saved since last year and pumping the prices up again somewhat artificially.

At the same time some properties are receiving little or no interest from anybody. The vendors in those situations seem happy to wait it out.

The drop off that was being seen in selling prices is in one area I'm looking at, is now being reversed a little but the majority of other people I'm seeing at viewings aren't willing or able to pay the 2021 prices the outliers are offering to take houses off the market in one or two situations.

If everything stays the same I'd say it'll be next year before vendors expectations come in line with reality. There's a lot of vendors happy to have a house up for as long as possible to get that dream offer but most properties are nowhere near their expectations in terms of current bids.

A few are going sale agreed only and coming back on the market because the buyers couldn't secure finance. A number of people seem determined to win bidding wars but lack the actual capacity to pay for the house when push comes to shove.

Your point about sellers being happy to wait it out match up to my initial experiences, have an offer in under asking that I think is a decent one. I would go a little higher, but sellers are saying they wont even talk below asking, so right now I just have to let it sit with them. I've heard from local agents that there will be more houses than usual coming to market in the september selling season so that might motivate a few vendors to make previously undesirable decisions. Having said that, when banks start doing exceptions again for Q4 it could ramp up prices all over again.

This is the worst, really immature behaviour and so inconsiderate. I intentionally have avoided bidding near the fringes of my budget because I know I'm just driving up the price for the next guy who will actually see it through, as well as setting a new high water mark on the property price register. We are competing against each other for available stock but there should be some level of consideration for others involved

I've seen this a few times as well. In Ireland, there is no penalty for going sale agreed and then not going ahead with the sale because you cant back it up. In other states like NZ and Australia, if you bid at the auction for a house and then you cannot get finance, you have massive penalties for wasting people's time. Therefore there, if you bid, you best be damm sure you can back it up with proper finance.

Here in Ireland, people can bid up the price and pull out, no questions asked. It's all a bit odd tbh because the market was/is so tight with supply.

The only thing I can see breaking these 'bids for the sake of it' is more supply which seems to be happening looking at numbers on daft and myhome.

I thought that too, but some people I know mentioned that a FTB with AIP and a healthy deposit is also a cash buyer because they are ready to go, with no chain.

So as long as banks a) only enter into discussions about exemptions after SA, and b) are limited (10% i think) in how much of their book can be exempted purchases, this will persist i'm afraid.

I guess in Australia/NZ auctions are much more common, so you have to have your wits around you.

Here because of the shortage of housing and lots of covid cash about the place, the bidding process is kind of like an auction by proxy, without the safeguards and due process.

Currently buying and I'm seeing the same craziness as above. That gaff I viewed in Inchicore (few pages back), opening bid was 485k and current highest bid is 695k. Asking was 495k. In my mind, the house itself is maybe just about worth the asking, but the current highest offer is completely wild. For example, the bathroom has no external window, it was added later (an outhouse originally given the house's age) and the window from it opens out on to the stairs. There's no way to extend the building either and it's only 100m2 or there about.

The interesting thing is watching the bidding war unfold. It seems there's two interested parties. The first one bids in small increments, but the second does so in increments of 10-20k. For example, bidder 1 offers 2k over last bid, then bidder 2 goes 10k. And so on. All was quiet at 670k for weeks, then bidder 1 offered 675k, which was immediately countered by 685k.

France is the same neither party can back out and for kicks and giggles, if you offer the asking price the seller has to take it.