First time buyer bidding war advice

o_johnston

For reference, this is the property:
https://www.propertypal.com/37-deramore-avenue-ormeau-road-belfast/657326

Beeboo23

Looks like a lovely home. Like over posters have said though don’t feel pushed into paying more than you want to pay. 
I lost a few houses by not getting into bidding wars but it all turned out for the best. In the end we ended up with a lovely house that was much nicer than any we’d seen. 
When I put the offer in I went straight in at my max price. The estate agent said they’d had 2 other asking price offers so would I be happy if he kept calling us back throughout the day to add a little bit more on. He called me twice and I said no both times as we’d offered our max. At the end of the day he called me sounding flat out and said the other two sellers weren’t increasing either so we could have the property.  
If it’s for you it will work out, if not there’s probably something better around the corner. 

connors07

It looks a beautiful property. You won't know if the bidding war is real and when I was a FTB (chain free/mortgage accepted to a certain amount due to a breakdown of a previous property) I entered a bidding war where I was positive I was bidding against myself. I called their bluff as I found the EA extremely dishonest. At the beginning I was told all bids are presented to the vendor for their consideration. Upon making my first bid (below asking), the EA took some time to get back to me before saying another bid had been made. I naively asked what had been bid (then told this information cannot be shared). So I upped my offer, then I altered things by example things had gone like 120,124 and then I raised to 125,500. I was then being outbid by £500. Then I was being told the bid I had to beat. Hours prior I was told bids are confidential so I said I will withdraw all previous bids and my interest. I was told "it was unlikely my competition will be bidding again". Then the following day my competition had apparently pulled out completely as well and I was asked if I was still interested and even told the amount the vendor would definitely accept. I feel bad for the vendor as he needed to sell due to various things going on in his life but the EA lost him a sale. The property sold almost a year later for less than my first offer. I had contemplated a note through the door with my offer but refusing to use that EA. 

Things worked out well for me in the end but its a stressful time as it is without EA playing games. If your heart is set on that house offer what you're willing to pay for it and the value you deem it. If you plan to live there a number of years/raise a family there etc its value will be constantly changing on paper. You'll not want to regret missing out on it by a 'few thousand pounds'. Its a tough balancing act of head and heart. I wish you well.

LessThanSte

Its easy to get dragged into constantly increasing price to 'win' the house - but my advice in your situation is to really stress the benefits of them choosing you, i.e. that you could be in very quickly with no chain behind you. Having no chain, vs someone with a lengthy chain, definitely has value. But it would depend how clued up the sellers are and how much of a rush they are in - if for example they have their eye on something they may be more keen for a potential no chain scenario, vs if they havent found anywhere yet they may not value that situation highly.

We had an opposite situation with our (ongoing) purchase. Its a private sale, we know the vendors, so negotiated directly. They'd given us a view of what they wanted to accept, but we had noted that our sale price had been knocked down from what we hoped. Ultimately, we went in £3k below what we'd previously indicated - they accepted straight away. Left me thinking we could have gone in another couple of £ks lower, which may have been successful - but in any event we got the house we wanted at a price we were prepared to pay. 

On that basis, the wider advice on the thread to absolutely be clear on your max for that particular property is key. Think about an instance where you may lose it for slightly over your max. But dont get carried away. Same principle as an auction, i suppose!

P.S. house looks lovely - if only 4 bed houses in Solihull were similarly valued . Maybe i wont move and buy that as a holiday home in Belfast instead

Crashy_Time

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-54908037

amandacat

I never understand bidding wars. I got an asking price offer and cancelled all other viewings. EA actively discouraged me from continuing with the other viewings and starting a bidding war as she said she’d seen it backfire too many times eg. No one else offers and you lose original offer, bidding war causes an overpriced offer and then the survey undervalues the house anyway or the person caught up in winning the bid later releases they’ve bid too much and pulls out...
I once offered asking price on a house, EA said another buyer had offered asking price and asked me to offer more. I walked away, house was still on the market 6 months later before being withdrawn from market. 

badger09

amandacat said:

I never understand bidding wars. I got an asking price offer and cancelled all other viewings. EA actively discouraged me from continuing with the other viewings and starting a bidding war as she said she’d seen it backfire too many times eg. No one else offers and you lose original offer, bidding war causes an overpriced offer and then the survey undervalues the house anyway or the person caught up in winning the bid later releases they’ve bid too much and pulls out...
I once offered asking price on a house, EA said another buyer had offered asking price and asked me to offer more. I walked away, house was still on the market 6 months later before being withdrawn from market. 

I agree. I would never engage in one myself, nor ask potential buyers to do so. We received 2 identical below asking price offers within hours of each other. We declined but told agent to seek best & final offers in 48 hours. Both came back with offers above asking price. We actually accepted the lower (by £4k) offer as we felt they were a more reliable buyer. The rejected bidder then came back with 'if I offered more, would they reconsider' and suggested he might add another £10k. We did consider it briefly, but decided to stick to our agreement. Who knows if we did the right thing? 

o_johnston

So we've been outbid by a cash buyer. Absolutely no point in trying to beat someone who has over 200k in cash.