To bid or not to bid...

peterc2609

I went to view a house on Saturday. It is a reposession, and someone has put an offer in which has been accepted.

I would like to put an offer in and the EA has said that I can, but on Thursday a notice will be goin in the paper saying "Mr X has offered £???k for the above property"

Should I put an offer in or wait and see what the other person has offered, and how do I go about it then?

The house was up for 125k, a house over the road is up for 145k. Now from when the offer went in, it took a few days for the seller to accept, as they were thinking about it. Which makes me think it must be quite low.

The offer is also cash, whereas I would be mortgaged, but am FTB so no chain etc.

Help

never_enough

I don't think it matters if you wait or not, AFAIK the bank/building society (or whoever repossessed it) are obliged to accept the highest offer but each time have to advertise the price for 7 days. During that 7 days another person could make an offer that tops yours.

I know a couple of people who've bought repossessions & you have to keep on top of things as they want to complete ASAP. From that point of a view a cash offer may be better than someone who requires a mortgage/survey etc

You can get a bargain with a repossession, but also get a huge hassle. I wouldn't want to incur any costs before I knew the 7 day period was up & mine was the offer they were accepting. It may also be possible for someone to come in with another, higher offer, you would need to check with the EA.

Just don't fall in love with it until you have a key in your hand & don't get involved in a bidding war that takes it over what it's worth. Good luck!

peterc2609

So it would be better to wait till the paper comes out and find out what he has offered instead of offering blind and offering too much, i.e. he might have had 95k accepted and I offer 115k, when i could have just offered 100k

cattie

Remember with repo properties that the banks are interested in a fairly quick sale & expect completion within 28days. A chain free buyer making a lower offer than someone with a property to sell will almost always be preferable to the repossessors. Also a cash buyer is seen as preferable to someone who needs a mortgage to purchase.

peterc2609

If say, I make an offer on Thursday 5k about the current offer....

Will the EA tell the other person how much I have offered, or will they also have to wait, till the Thurs after to find out from the newspaper?

Doozergirl

They may just ask for best and final bids from you botj if the current buyer wants to up their offer again. They won't wait for ads to keep appearing in the paper.

I would wait to see what the offer is on Thursday though so you know then what you're up against.

peterc2609

I have a mate who works for the paper, so may be able to find out b4 then!

Do they definitely need to advertise it in the paper? Nothing has been processed for the paper so far , according to my mate.

I spoke to EA and they said that the person who has had an offer accepted has 14 days to exchange contracts. so what happens if I make an offer b4 thurs but they have already exchanged? Is this against the law?

Doozergirl

They have to put it somewhere. They might put it in a more obscure paper, or in the free ads section of your friends paper, or built in to their own advertising page of the property section.

Friends are quite useful sometimes aren't they!

owner

I've bid on repossessions before and always just asked the estate agent what the other bids are. As it is not a 'normal' sale they have always just told me, have you actually asked them ?

peterc2609

Yeah, they won't tell me.

As I said, I don't want to offer like 110k which is 15k below asking price, get it accepted and then find out that the original accepted offer was only like 98k!

But don't want to miss out as I really like it.

peterc2609

Just managed to get it out of the EA....

The offer was 123k which surprised me as it took so long to accept, yet is was only a few grand less than asking price.

Is it worth offering less?? I was going to offer around 118k.

Will they just thell me no straight away?