Anyone have any experience of being in a bidding war?

fannyanna

We’ve been searching for a property for a while now and in the past few months the market seems to have dried up – which in turn has pushed asking prices up a bit.

We saw a property at the weekend that had just come on the market and put an offer in on the same day. A few hours later we had a call from the estate agent to say that someone else had made an offer which exceeded ours.

This morning we’re now at the point where we’ve increased our offer to the asking price but I think the other people will probably go above the asking price.

I know it’s all going to come down to how much we want the property and what we’re prepared to pay but I can’t help but feel a little sorry for myself. It’s just typical that we’ve found ourselves in this position.

I don’t think my nerves can take the suspense

DPJames

Are you sure these people are real?

Bufger

You may have just fell for a standard EA trick.

'somebody has put in a higher offer'

You need to decide what you think its worth, go in with an initial bid of Worth - X% and then work up to what you want to pay. Never go over the amount you want to pay and be firm because at the end of the day they will use tricks to get money out of you and commission for themselves and its your job to stay firm and get what you want

sirmosh

In the current market, unless the house you're after is very unique or you live in London then most of the time you don't need to get into a bidding war, just move on to the next house.

fannyanna

There's no way of me validating that these other people are real.

Similar properties are coming onto the market £10k more than this property and in our opinion this property is much nicer.

So whilst there is part of me that thinks the EA is having us on there is also a part of me that believes there is genuinely someone else as interested in the property as us.

DPJames

Well it's uncanny how often a house can be on the market without a single bid for months, even years. Then when you put your bid in, a shock new interested party have also put in an offer, on the exact same day, but slightly higher than yours.

Just tread carefully. You've offered asking price (or close to), I'd leave it at that for now, and if you're in a good position then let them know that too. And also mention you will be viewing other houses this week as well.

zappahey

DPJames wrote: »

Well it's uncanny how often a house can be on the market without a single bid for months, even years. Then when you put your bid in, a shock new interested party have also put in an offer, on the exact same day, but slightly higher than yours.

This I agree with, however, where we are, there are so few houses coming on that there is huge interest in anything decent that comes on, so genuine competing offers are not so rare in this circumstance.

fannyanna

We saw the property on the first day of viewings. I hadn't even seen a picture of the property when I agreed to view it.

In this area I've seen properties that come onto the market and sit there for a while and then I've seen properties that come onto the market and sell within days.

We've missed out on a couple of properties where we've left it too late to make an offer. Now the market has started to dry up it does seem feasible to me that there is more competition for the right properties.

irishcol

fannyanna wrote: »

We saw the property on the first day of viewings. I hadn't even seen a picture of the property when I agreed to view it.

In this area I've seen properties that come onto the market and sit there for a while and then I've seen properties that come onto the market and sell within days.

We've missed out on a couple of properties where we've left it too late to make an offer. Now the market has started to dry up it does seem feasible to me that there is more competition for the right properties.

You've answered your own question! You have seen other, less nice, houses with an asking price of £10k more sell pretty quickly. That suggests to me you'd be happy to pay up to £10k more for this one. At the minute, your bid is for asking price.

I would stick to that - maybe put a deadline of close of play tomorrow for the vendor to accept it.

If/when you get outbid, then have another think about what you can afford to pay.

hazyjo

First of all, ask the position of the other interested party. Are they proceedable? FTBs? Somewhere to sell still? Cash buyers?

If they're not even proceedable, I wouldn't be paying asking price as you're only bidding against yourselves.

Of course, as mentioned, this 'other offer' is a common tactic by EAs and I feel very twitchy and peed off reading this wondering if they're real in this case. Making me mad on this forum hearing this line again and again - and the 'other buyer' often seems to disappear when the buyer says to the EA 'okay, no worries, we don't want to get into a bidding war so good luck to them'.

Also, don't take any notice of lines such as 'you'll be the more favourable buyer if you see our financial adviser who can clarify you're in a great position to buy' blah blah blah. Utter tosh.

Jx

ognum

I have been on the other side and sold houses that result in a bidding war, one went to sealed bids, the other the price continued up until the offers stopped and both sold 10s of thousands over the asking price.

One of these was in the heart of the property slump and outsold any other house in the street ever.

those who say the other party doesn't exist maybe right but they may also be wrong. Gauge the value of the property to you, both of the houses in my experience had bidders that wanted that particular property for a particular reason and they were prepared to pay what it took to secure it.