Offers In Excess Of

OnlyAlan

I have just (6 months ago) bought a property on an offers in excess basis. This how I did it...

I decided what was the most I would pay.

I asked the selling agent when the deadline for offers ended - she told me.

30 minutes before the deadline I called the EA again and asked her how much I needed to offer to have the highest offer. She told me the amount of the highest offer received at that point.

I offered £1000 more and bought the house.

I ended up paying £5000 less than my maximum.

Of course this only works with 'informal offers' and a helpful EA (and, even then, if you believe they are telling you the truth).

Surrey_EA

OnlyAlan wrote: »

I have just (6 months ago) bought a property on an offers in excess basis. This how I did it...

I decided what was the most I would pay.

I asked the selling agent when the deadline for offers ended - she told me.

30 minutes before the deadline I called the EA again and asked her how much I needed to offer to have the highest offer. She told me the amount of the highest offer received at that point.

I offered £1000 more and bought the house.

I ended up paying £5000 less than my maximum.

Of course this only works with 'informal offers' and a helpful EA (and, even then, if you believe they are telling you the truth).

However, another way of looking at this would be that the EA has just cost their client £5000. If you were the seller, and you find out your EA was disclosing other bids in order to assist a potential buyer you may not have been too happy!

tiernsee

Recently had an offer accepted on a property that was OIEO, offered 5% less than asking price, this was rejected and advised they would accept half way between. Negotiated some extras and agreed on price 2.5% less than OIEO sum, seller happy, buyer happy, fingers crossed all proceeds smoothly......

tightasagnats

If you do offer the £1M you will very likely get it

OIEO is a way for EAs to say to people "don't bother with a low offer" but as everyone has says, it all depends. But if it's just gone on the market, or if they have an open day planned, then low offers are a bit pointless at this stage.

In my area, the OIEO tend to be put on more desirable properties expected to fetch over the asking price. But, I just bought a house for 15K less than it was on as OIEO because it had been on for a month with no offers. I've watched this market for over a year now, so was patient and got a (relative) bargain. Anything that's been on for a few weeks may be seen as "stale" in a lively market, so watch out for these. Sometimes it's because the price was too ambitious, or finance has fallen through for someone for example.

Chat to the agents and get to know them. Be cheeky with your questions, some will reveal best previous offers, some won't.

Good luck!

GingerFurball_2

Depends on the property really.

Couple of properties in the area I'm looking at were probate homes. They were 'offers over' and had been reasonably priced to drive interest. Both homes went to a closing date after a lot of interest, first property was 'offers over £85k, home report £95k, I think I went to £91k and wasn't successful. 2nd home was offers over £79,995, home report was £85k, I offered £88,200 and was 2nd (don't know what it sold for). Both those properties went to a closing date within a week of being placed on the market.

Property I've been sucessful on was offers over £89,995 and had a home report valuation of £95k. Had been on the market for 3 monthswith not a huge amount of interest, seller was keen to sell and indicated at first viewing he would probably accept £91k. Went for a 2nd viewing to scope out the area, make sure property was conveniently located for public transport and spoke to the seller and verbally agreed £89,500, which was accepted on Monday.

GingerFurball_2

Surrey_EA wrote: »

However, another way of looking at this would be that the EA has just cost their client £5000. If you were the seller, and you find out your EA was disclosing other bids in order to assist a potential buyer you may not have been too happy!

No because in this example the seller got £1k more than they would have gotten had the offer not been placed.

shandy1

We've just had an offer accepted on a property. Every property that's half decent has been Offers Over (Edinburgh)
We bid on 3 houses without success. They went for 10-15k over valuation. Crazy money.

glasgowdan

shandy1 wrote: »

We've just had an offer accepted on a property. Every property that's half decent has been Offers Over (Edinburgh)
We bid on 3 houses without success. They went for 10-15k over valuation. Crazy money.

Try Bearsden if you think that's crazy.

brightk9

toc25 wrote: »

My house is about to go on the Market for an o.i.e.o price. I didn't ask for it to be put on for that, my estate agent just didn't seem to be able to commit to a value. She gave me two prices 15k apart and said my house was worth somewhere between those prices.

I am am hoping for an offer somewhere in the middle of the two figures. I'm not convinced it's the right thing to do but I felt that I should take the estate agents advice as she is the expert not me. Hope I'm not making a huge mistake after reading this.

What happened with your sale?

lookstraightahead

Mostly I don't even bother looking at houses stating offers over. It's a fairly new, in my opinion, arrogant approach to negotiation. If I were to look I would see it as "the maximum anyone should be prepared to pay". Means you might lose a potential purchase but there's always others. A house is worth what a buyer is willing to pay for it, and indeed what it's valuation is (very common when bidding wars happen that a valuation comes back lower).