Anyone have any experience of being in a bidding war?

skintandscared_2

My boss is currently selling a flat in London and it went to sealed bids. Every property they have wanted to put an offer on in the last 3 weeks has gone to sealed bids. There are areas of London at the moment where properties are reaching £25k-£40k above asking price. I have no idea whether that is mirrored in any other parts of the country, but I do know for a fact it is happening.

fannyanna

The other people are in the same position as us apparently.

Mr_Thrifty

About this property... do you have a rightmove link?

fannyanna

Mr_Thrifty wrote: »

About this property... do you have a rightmove link?

Yes, but I already have one competitor and the irrational part of me doesn't want to share the link

Thrugelmir

zappahey wrote: »

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.

There was a house sold near Marlborough not so long ago. The guide was in the region of £2.5 million. In the end 18 separate parties expressed an interest. With the result that property was eventually sold for £3.85 million.

Many properties are unique. So its a question of how much you are willing to pay.

Bluemeanie_2

skintandscared wrote: »

My boss is currently selling a flat in London and it went to sealed bids. Every property they have wanted to put an offer on in the last 3 weeks has gone to sealed bids. There are areas of London at the moment where properties are reaching £25k-£40k above asking price. I have no idea whether that is mirrored in any other parts of the country, but I do know for a fact it is happening.

It's not happening in Leicester from what I can see. I've checked the new houses coming on the market for the last year and there's hardly anything that I would even consider looking at. In fact it's that bad vI think I'll put mine on the market, but my stuff in storage and see if we can live with my Mum or his Grandma for a while until we find somewhere, so we are no under pressure if/when ours sells.

PasturesNew

I was recently involved in a bidding war, as the seller. Had loads of offers from people without theirs even on the market, then two on the same day that were proceedable. Neither were offering an amount we'd have accepted even if they'd been the single offer. As it was, the bidding war brought it just up to our acceptable amount to accept.

Davesnave

It's very difficult. When we found what we wanted, this happened. It was so tempting to add £xxk just to try and make sure, but in the end we decided not to.

"You could put yourself in a better position," said the agent.
"We're already in a great position!" we replied.:p

There was another person, but we were genuinely proceedable, and in the end that counted for more than ££. They also liked us. :A

Just as well really, because we were horribly picky over the shambolic legal paperwork, which mirrored the state of the property.

In your heart of hearts you know what it's worth to you. Don't go above that.

evansmummy

I've been in the same situation.
Even though some people would have you believe it's only 'down south' that the market is buoyant it's not.
We're trying to buy in an area where houses which are priced correctly sell within the week and unfortunately we're in the bracket with all the other families desperate to get the children into a good school.
Anyway our first house 'buy' we made an asking price offer as there was a lot of interest, we thought it was priced right and most importantly we loved the house.
I think naively we showed our hands by being so eager and we ended up paying 6k over asking. It did seal the deal but in retrospect I think we should have stuck firm at the asking price.
The sale fell through and looking back I'm glad it did as it wasn't the perfect house I was just trying to make myself believe it was cause it was in my budget.

My advice is, don't just buy the house just because there aren't many houses that come onto the market in your price range. Make sure it's because you like the house and it works for you.
If you're definate that it is 'the one' figure out what price you would be happy to pay and what your cut off is. It's so tempting to just offer an extra 1k here or there. Plus there will be a stage where you'll start to feel cheated if you pay more than you think is fair.

Good luck from one frustrated house buyer to another :rotfl:

Cash-Cow_3

Play 'em at their own game. Tell the EA you have had an offer accepted on another property for a few grand less and you're withdrawing your offer.