"Offers Over" selling etiquette

Slithery

JGB1955 said:

Greymug said:

Kace2022 said:

Why would you not just accept the highest bid?  It's scenarios like this that make the process of house buying so unpleasant.

Would you accept 100k if you knew you could get more just by waiting a little longer?

If you are the executor of an estate, and know you can get more just by waiting a little longer, you HAVE to wait, otherwise you're failing in your role.

Unless of course the beneficiaries would prefer getting their funds quicker rather than a higher amount.

Greymug

movilogo said:

Why would you not just accept the highest bid?  It's scenarios like this that make the process of house buying so unpleasant.

Because sellers are greedy. Hopefully few more interest rate hikes will return some sanity in the market. 

In your lifetime, sometimes you're a buyer, sometimes you're a seller. Sometimes you give and sometimes you take so it's just fair to be wanting to be greedy when you were subjected to someone else's greed in the past.

SavingPennies_2

Greymug said:

SavingPennies_2 said:

You asked for offers over and got 4 offers over, so why not just pick the buyer you want to go with? I think playing them off each other, by disclosing the highest bid, is poor form but that's just my opinion.

Why? Because selling a house is not charitable work. If there is a strategy to make more money out of selling your house, then it would just be dumb not to follow that strategy.

And pushing for the highest offer may not be the best strategy. Some may pull out because they don't want to get into a biding war. Some will overbid just the win the property, only to come back later with a lower offer or pull out because the valuation came back lower and they can't afford it or theyve had second thoughts, they are threads about this on here all the time... There's more to what makes someone the best buyer than how much they offer in such a complicated transaction as buying and selling a house.

Kace2022

Greymug said:

Kace2022 said:

Why would you not just accept the highest bid?  It's scenarios like this that make the process of house buying so unpleasant.

Would you accept 100k if you knew you could get more just by waiting a little longer?

Then list the property when you're ready to sell, to the highest bidder. 

lookstraightahead

Greymug said:

movilogo said:

Why would you not just accept the highest bid?  It's scenarios like this that make the process of house buying so unpleasant.

Because sellers are greedy. Hopefully few more interest rate hikes will return some sanity in the market. 

In your lifetime, sometimes you're a buyer, sometimes you're a seller. Sometimes you give and sometimes you take so it's just fair to be wanting to be greedy when you were subjected to someone else's greed in the past.

Whereas I don't disagree with this sentiment, I don't think it helps much when selling a house. Sometimes the wealth is in the moving on. Depends how much you value your time over money.

'Greed' has a way of slapping you in the face. At present it might be a turn in the market, or a 'down' valuation, or even buyers knowing the games being played and some won't succumb to getting involved, or they offer higher then pull out when they realise that they might just have been a bit hasty.

Bidding wars are designed to make people act irrationally. They do often then see more clearly in the cold light of day.

some see the cold light of day straight away and don't even get involved in viewing certain properties.

Kace2022

Greymug said:

movilogo said:

Why would you not just accept the highest bid?  It's scenarios like this that make the process of house buying so unpleasant.

Because sellers are greedy. Hopefully few more interest rate hikes will return some sanity in the market. 

In your lifetime, sometimes you're a buyer, sometimes you're a seller. Sometimes you give and sometimes you take so it's just fair to be wanting to be greedy when you were subjected to someone else's greed in the past.

Ok.  Let's all hope nobody takes too much from you in the future.  

Greymug

Kace2022 said:

Greymug said:

movilogo said:

Why would you not just accept the highest bid?  It's scenarios like this that make the process of house buying so unpleasant.

Because sellers are greedy. Hopefully few more interest rate hikes will return some sanity in the market. 

In your lifetime, sometimes you're a buyer, sometimes you're a seller. Sometimes you give and sometimes you take so it's just fair to be wanting to be greedy when you were subjected to someone else's greed in the past.

Ok.  Let's all hope nobody takes too much from you in the future.  

I've been on both sides, just like everyone else will be at some point in their life.

Flats in Scotland, and specifically where I lived (Edinburgh) are all sold using the offers over/closing date system. I paid 10k above the home report valuation, after I made an offer of 5k above valuation which got rejected. Fair enough, I said, that's the game.

Fast forward 4 years and I sold the flat using the closing date system (closing date...best and final offer...whatever you want to call it) and I got 25k above the home report valuation. Before I decided to go to a closing date, the best offer on the table was 12k above valuation.

So, I overpaid for the flat, but so did the person who bought it from me, and so will the next person that will buy it from them. It's a game and you have to play.

Call it greed, call it business acumen. Without it I wouldn't have made an extra 13k of profits, and that's all that matters to me