Ethics of making several offers - opinions?

Running_Horse

jonewer wrote: »

Can I ask why?

Of course you can.

Having experienced the pain and hassle of two sales falling through due to timewasters, I have developed a radar for these people. The sort of people who put in an offer then change their mind without having the decency to tell anyone. The sort of people who demand a £20,000 reduction for £2,000 worth of work. If someone offered 15% below on my house and told me I was in a price reduction bidding war with two other sellers, I would assume their actual desire to buy my house was zero, tell them to get stuffed, and wait for a serious buyer.

We came off the market for a few months, did the £2,000 of work, and got a full asking price offer on day one from a couple who obviously loved the place. We also refused any more viewings and offers, telling the agents we wanted that couple to have it. The OP may not like to hear the truth, but I would reject their first offer, and any subsequent improved offers.

Strapped

merlinthehappypig wrote: »

I'd be interested in people's views on this.

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I'm considering making the same offer on all three, around 15% below asking price, making the agents aware that we are doing this and that we will buy the house whose price is closest to our offer.

To my way of thinking this is just the same as buyers are expected to do in Scotland, only in reverse. If the sellers think that they have one shot at selling the house to us, then my reasoning is that they will come back with the lowest price that they are prepared to take.

Clearly it's perfectly legal for us to do this, but it's not something I've read about or considered before.

Any comments, good or bad, would be welcomed.

As a vendor who has been messed around by "buyers" before, it would be important to me to know that an offer came from buyers who really loved the property and were commited to making the transaction happen. House buying and selling is stressful enough even when this is the case.

If I knew that you were offering on several properties simultanously, then I would be very wary of accepting ANY offer from you. I would expect you to pull out somewhere along the line and in a falling market it's especially true that time is money.

However, fair play to you for trying it; you never know, you may strike lucky with someone desperate enough to bite your hand off.

pink_muppet

Having done this myself (as from my earlier post) although not simultaneously I can honestly say I am not a timewaster

the 2 properties we loved (after viewing loads) we really couldn't decide between, both were in different villages and of completely different styles (one an old cottage, the other brand new), both had their good and bad points but we really would have been happy in either house, so what else could we use to decide for us if not the best price we could get it for?

we told each EA straight away the situation and offered on the cottage first, saying if our offer was rejected we would then offer on the new house, which is exactly what we did

we eventually settled on the cottage and are in the process of purchasing that, all this happened just before xmas, interestingly, the EA for the new hose phoned last week stating the vendor is now very keen to sell and would be willing to accept £225k (our offer of £215k on £245k was rejected and we were told they would go no lower than £235k which was too much for us)

So yes we are serious buyers, if our current sellers had thought we were timewasters and kept rejecting our offers, well they would still be on the market now wouldn't they?

dannyboycey

What happens when all 3 accept your offer?

merlinthehappypig

Personally, given that the offers were all 15% under asking price I would have been delighted.

Sadly, for us, this approach didn't work. In this instance it was simply because none of the vendors have to sell. We managed to pick out a group of sellers who are simply testing the water and not that serious about selling.

I accept that some people might think that we are timewasters - each to his own. Like pink muppet we are not. We are renting currently and ready to buy and will buy if the right house comes along at the right price.

To me someone who has their house on the market and who is not serious about selling is just as guilty of timewasting as we might be considered to be by some. They, after all, didn't have to travel 200 miles to view the house.

We did increase our offer on one house quite substantially. The sellers have no plans at all if the house sells and are sticking out for the full asking price.

The agent telephoned me back an hour ago to say that they have given notice to terminate the contract with the seller as they felt our offer was 'more than the seller could realistically be expected to achieve in this climate' and that 'as they hadn't accepted it they were wasting everyone's time'. The agent actually advised us not to increase our offer and to walk away!

selectcase

As a seller I would not be offended by this offer as long as I was not going to get messed about further along the line. Hopefully my new buyer is doing it the right way as he negotiated a healty discount at the start - one agreed he is moving things quickly. (hoping i am not proved very wrong here in the near future)

I would far rather say give 15% off at the start and thats it so - no messing about over the survey (unless something major like subsidence or new roof) or later in in the process.

Its the parties on both sides that faf about after everyone has spent money and pull out or try to re-negotiate late in the day, gazunder, gazup etc that mess it up for everyone. We had a chain break on us due to parties further down quarraling about curtians for gods sake £150 dam quids worth of curtains