Making offers on more than one property at the same time

alexprokop

I'm a first time buyer in North London and wanted opinions on whether it's acceptable to make offers on more than one property at the same time. I know that this has been discussed before as in this thread (I can't post the url here as a new user but Google "is it ok to put an offer in on multiple properties uk" and it's the first result on this forum). But there are a few things about our situation that weren't touched upon:

The London property market and in particular in N1 is going crazy. We're viewing a flat on Saturday and the agents have told us they have 35 appointments for that day and have had to take the ad down to avoid any more. They have told us "not to get our hopes up".

While I would generally agree it isn't really right to offer on multiple properties, we are seeing a second flat on the same day which will also have a huge amount of interest.

On paper we are interested in both places, the first probably more so. There is a strong chance that we will end up with neither even if we were to offer more than the asking price on both.

Do you think in this situation if would be fair to make offers on both places (assuming we actually like them when we see them)

duchy

With the same estate agent ?

They'd tell their clients (the vendors) that you are timewasters and to go with a more committed purchaser.

Turn it around - Would you consider it fair if a vendor accepted both your offer and the offer of another buyer and dangled you both on a string until you reached exchange ?

ognum

The problem in today's market is the amount of time it takes to decide on an offer.
I saw a property two days ago, I was the first viewer, I offered asking price, no mortgage, but seller wants to keep it viewing over the weekend with last viewers booked for Monday.
The likelyhood is I won't get the property, this is not London, last property I offered on went to sealed bids! I won't offer more than is viable for me.
I will offer on another property if I see one I want before the result of my current offer is concluded.
Go for it, it may be the only way especially if it takes a week to get a result from an offer.

bouicca21

I'm house hunting in London too. Frankly the speed at which offers are put in - after a 15 minute viewing and with no chance to have a really good look on a second or even third viewing, means that I'm with the OP, thinking that it is actually necessary to be prepared to make multiple offers (though not through the same estate agent, lol).

The one offer that I have made was on a house where the EA made it clear no second viewing would be possible until an offer had been accepted. They wanted proof of funds and only then did they put the offers to the vendor - who rejected mine in favour of a chain free ftb. This took about 10 days. If during that 10 days another house that I liked came up, I'd have been very tempted to cover myself by offering on it.

ging84

duchy wrote: »

With the same estate agent ?

They'd tell their clients (the vendors) that you are timewasters and to go with a more committed purchaser.

Turn it around - Would you consider it fair if a vendor accepted both your offer and the offer of another buyer and dangled you both on a string until you reached exchange ?

The OP has only mentioned making 2 offers, not proceeding with 2 offers that have been accepted. If when one offer gets accepted they update the other seller to tell them the offer is now withdrawn there is no problem

alexprokop

The flats are not through the same estate agents and to be honest I don't feel good about potentially doing this, I personally feel the way things are right now it may be the only way of securing anything half decent.

@duchy I do agree with you. The thing is with the amount of interest going on there's no way the vendor isn't going to sell their property whether or not I put in an offer. If the market was slower I wouldn't consider it.

@bouicca21 I think I'm with you and it has to be the way to go!

Does anyone have any experience regarding offers over the asking price? We're considering offering slightly more, but would obviously prefer not to have to! If we offered the asking price and someone else offered more, is it likely we would have the chance to counter offer?

Mrs_Z

Whilst I would normally say only to make 1 offer at any one time, given the crazy market in London (and SouthEast) - I think you will have to go for it if you see a property that you like.

As you say, the chances are that your offer will not get accepted anyway. With that many viewings, the vendor will hold on for the best price and the property is likely to go for sealed bids.

We have been house hunting since March/April - seen about 15 properties, found 1 that ticked all the boxes (ours and evidently other people's too). It went onto sealed bids and we offered £5,5k over the asking price which was not enough. In hindsight we should have offered £10k more - it would have been totally worth it to me. We just did not appreciate the competition. Gutted.

So if you see something that you like - you need to fire with all barrels. It's sellers market out there. Our problem is the lack of decent property on the market in our price bracket.

Wish you luck.

eddddy

alexprokop wrote: »

The flats are not through the same estate agents and to be honest I don't feel good about potentially doing this, I personally feel the way things are right now it may be the only way of securing anything half decent.
...

Hi alexprokop

I really don't think you have anything to feel bad about.

Tell the relevant EAs that you are offering on two properties simultaneously, and you will proceed with the one that is accepted first. It might even encourage the vendors to respond to you more quickly.

I wouldn't even worry if both properties were with the same EA.

(The EAs want an excuse to make vendors move quickly, and the more offers they pass on to each vendor, the better they look.)

MGCP

I'm in London and had 2 offers on the go at one point - didn't even occur to me to question doing that. In both cases there was lots of competition, and as soon as one was accepted we withdrew the other and left the other potentials to fight it out.

As for the offer that was accepted, we exchanged contracts yesterday. Good luck.

DRP

I'm with edddy.

I'd have absolutely no problem doing this as long as you don't string anyone along once you have an offer accepted.

The market sounds crazy at the moment for buyers. We were lucky enough to sell in a v popular area but buy in a much less busy market... Saved my blood pressure quite a bit of agitation I reckon....

googler

... as long as you don't have a problem with owners accepting more than one offer at a time ...?