Am I mad to do this?

SG27

curedham wrote: »

I concur, just bought a place SW London. Plenty of houses/flats gone over the asking price, the good ones anyway. We bid one 10K over and lost. EA indicated that it was gone by multiples of our 10K extra. The one that we got in the end we bid 15K over the asking price.

After we got it, EA told us that we were 5K over the 2nd highest bidder. True/false who know, what I know that we lost a few because of this best and final offer thing and didn't bid high enough.

I can't believe how different things are just the other side of the M25. The house we bought had been on the market 4 months, dropped £10k in price and we paid £20k under that. It was all relaxed no rush. No other bidders. (Although the estate agent did say another couple were going to be offering, but they always say this!)

Some of the houses we viewed had been on the market more than a year and some with multiple price drops.

Lizling

You'll never know what the other bids were and it doesn't really matter. You offered what you thought it was worth (presumably) and that proved to be enough. Congratulations!

In fact, if you offered a small % over what you really thought it was worth, I'd think of it as the fee for getting out of the mad scrum that is the London property market at the moment.

Metranil_Vavin

Is this seemingly 'mad scrum' happening in all London area's. or just the traditionally more highbrow one's?

Lizling

Metranil_Vavin wrote: »

Is this seemingly 'mad scrum' happening in all London area's. or just the traditionally more highbrow one's?

The more upmarket or trendy areas for the open days and going for well over asking price, but there's plenty not making it onto Rightmove even at the lower end (judging by the experiences of 3 recent London FTBers I know and a couple who are still househunting). I also know that a lot of houses around my way aren't even getting as far as the EAs - they're being sold to people asking around on local internet groups, leafleting, word of mouth etc.

I've been keeping an eye on what's going on in my distinctly down-market road, and the only flat I've seen going unsold for more than a couple of weeks seems to be one that's up for 25% more than I paid for an identical one in November. Prices along here have gone up by about 8-9% in the last 6 months (easy to compare, with lots of identical flats) but not 25% :eek: -yet.