"Offers Over" selling etiquette

theoretica

Telling potential buyers what the offers are, should only be done if the buyers were told this would happen when they made their offer. 

Either go to all the buyers and tell them you are choosing between 5 offers and would they like to increase theirs, or just make up your mind.

Wkmg

My in-laws have just sold and bought in Belfast. It seems to be standard practice to put houses on for offers over then tell everyone the top bid. This led to their house going for a six figure sum more than it was marketed for and a similar story for the house they bought. They even advertise what the current top bid is on their website.

steampowered

I thought it was completely normal to tell people what others have offered?

"We have another bidder who has offered £110k, so you need to beat that to get the property" is a completely normal conversation!

Personally I would instruct the agent to ask for people's best offer, but I think they should tell people that someone has offered 107%. 

kazwookie

Goodness what a load of nonsense.

What price are you happy to accept?

What are the buyers circumstances? ie do they have cash in the bank, need to sell, also have a mortgage offer etc.

Talk about making it complicated.

IMO your agent is talking rubbish.

hpsauce86

In my experience as a buyer estate agents won’t tell people offers unless you have a bit of a relationship with them. They may tell you someone has offered higher, but I’ve not come across anyone giving the actual amount. 

We’ve been in many situations like the estate agent is suggesting to you. Best and final normally generates the offers you’ll be after, those serious will up their offer if they want it badly.  

Personally I think it’s pretty awful to try and force people to offer over what the house is actually worth. Unless they are a cash buyer they have no chance to be able to afford it if it gets downvalued by the lender. 

It comes across as slightly greedy in my opinion but then it is a sellers market. 

robatwork

You seem to be focussed on the price, but selling a house in a low-stress way depends entirely on the attitude and "proceedability" of the buyer.  30 minutes on this forum will show you the horror stories of people lying/pulling out/gazundering and countless other nightmares.

If you're more than happy with say 105%, then just pick the best buyer from that number above. Going to another stage of offers is a bit of a !!!!!! move IMHO.

lookstraightahead

I'm so looking forward to the market calming down 

Jenniefour

steampowered said:

I thought it was completely normal to tell people what others have offered?

"We have another bidder who has offered £110k, so you need to beat that to get the property" is a completely normal conversation!

Personally I would instruct the agent to ask for people's best offer, but I think they should tell people that someone has offered 107%. 

I think that's how it used to be with only a couple of interested and serious potential buyers. Probably still is. Very likely the OP is in an area where there's a big shortage of properties to sell and it's common to receive multiple offers. Around here it's normal to arrange three block booking days to accommodate a large number of interested people usually well into double figures and sometimes over twenty.  A friend has just put her house on the market and agents have said, based on selling similar houses in last few months, they expect to receive seven or eight initial offers. They will then make sure, as far as they reasonably can, that all those potential buyers can actually proceed before asking for best and final offers. Crazy market. 

Sandtree

hpsauce86 said:

In my experience as a buyer estate agents won’t tell people offers unless you have a bit of a relationship with them. They may tell you someone has offered higher, but I’ve not come across anyone giving the actual amount. 

We’ve been in many situations like the estate agent is suggesting to you. Best and final normally generates the offers you’ll be after, those serious will up their offer if they want it badly.  

Personally I think it’s pretty awful to try and force people to offer over what the house is actually worth. Unless they are a cash buyer they have no chance to be able to afford it if it gets downvalued by the lender. 

It comes across as slightly greedy in my opinion but then it is a sellers market. 

There is a strong logic as to why they wouldn't say how much... if you offer £499,000 and get told there is already a higher offer on the table you may bump it to £505,000 whereas the higher offer may simply be £499,500 in which case you have over stepped by more than you needed to.


What do you think is "how much a house is worth"? The normal definition is really what a buyer is willing to pay for it. The intrinsic value of the bricks, tiles etc is likely to have very little correlation to the value of the building... in some areas the build cost will be vastly more than the property's worth and in others a tiny proportion. There is no Glass guide equivalent for homes which says a 4 bed detached in WR3 is worth £300k 


There certainly can be an issue with a lender deciding the property is worth less than the highest bid but that can happen in any mechanism of sale. Trying to maximise your sale price isn't really trying to get people to overpay, in many cases people think the highest bid is notably below what their property is worth but just reiterates what a property is worth what someone is willing to pay for it.

lookstraightahead

A house is only worth what those with the money are willing to pay. Those buyers needing to use someone else's money (ie the banks) sometimes get ahead of themselves.

high bids mean absolutely nothing if a buyer can't get the funds.