Bidding for a house

I did do that this morning and the EA told them that the house had now gone to €385k. i'm sure that doing that actuallly told me anything. It was a house that would easily have gotten that sort of bid quickly...this one just wasn't meant to be!
 
Just wanted to reply with some positive thoughts for you... have been going through the same thing myself for the last 1year+ and it was always hard to know what way to bid (emotions often get in the way!)

We were outbid time and time and time again using so many different tactics that we eventually came to the conclusion that all other bidders will go as high as they can / are willing to pay, no matter how tactical you think your bids are.

I got a lot of good advice on here - stick to your upper limit, bid with your head and not your heart, be focussed & confident and the right house WILL come along for you in the end. Hey I am proof, we just got Sale Agreed on the best house of the whole lot we bidded on, and it was relatively easy, only a few quid over the asking price.

And keep looking on AAM, priceless advice.. (fingers crossed I don't get gazumped!)
 
ninsaga said:
dmkelly.......do not do to others what you would not like done to you..... this is totally unfair on other bidders.. if you have no real intent on buying, then all you are doing is driving up the cost & potentially driving others out of their dream home.

I have been a recipient of that particular tactic and it is not pleasant
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I guess you are right ninsaga, it's just a bit tempting when builders and EA's often seem to have no scruples.

I notice your sympathy did not extend to the above two groups who would be equally unfairly treated by my proposed methods!
 
Thanks for the postivism kaiserpiggy

We have found a house guiding €345k and currently have a bid in at €355k. We have an upper limit of €381k and will go to that if necessary but I just wonder at what point are you actually bidding more than the house is worth. I mean in the greater scheme of things, I would continue to rent as opposed to paying way over the odds for a house which I will possibly not get the same return on?
 
Game Theory describes this scenario pretty well. It's whats known as 'The Winner's Curse'.
 
We (Myself and the missus) are about to close on a house. We are FTBs and my conclusions about the bidding process are that once you have an upper limit defined, be prepared to pay it. If you get a good property for less then thats a bonus.

Do not go above your upper limit. In most cases you will not be able to do this anyway (hence the term upper limit!)

IMHO, the upper limit should be based on what you can repay, not what you can borrow, stress tested to at least a 1% increase in rates above the current ECB rate.

And remember, in Dublin in particular, there is a large element of luck involved. No matter how much money you have, there are plenty of people out there with more and they can outbid you without batting an eyelid. The day you get sale agreed is the day that your bid was accepted due to no one else bidding on that particular house. Maybe it wasn't suitable, maybe they didn't know about it, maybe you're an FTB and the vendor is in a chain. To this end, perseverence and research are the key. Good luck.
 
I appreciate all the positive comments but it's very hard to keep the chin up. I'm not sure if anyone else has noticed but people are actually jumping to the €381k mark on houses before the first viewing...I dont particularly want to go into the 6% bracket but it does look like it might be inevitable at this point!

We have a bid of €388k currently on a house which has to date had 2 viewings. I know it's up to the EA's discretion but normally how many viewings will there be?
 
The EA can have as many as they want - it all depends on how quickly the vendors want to sell.

When we were buying we were top bid for 3 weeks!!!! Very frustrating, and it's harder when you are top bid after the first viewing. We also ended up upping our bid out of sheer impatience (which I don't regret, mind, because I think the sellers were holding out for a particular price).
 
Second what Sarah said about getting another party interested. We're currently bidding for a site. Our offer of 287 was already well above the asking price of 250 and EA called the hubbie to let him know there was another offer of 290 on it, so I rang myself as an independent party and was told the highest offer at the moment is 288... have the sneaky feeling we've been bidding against ourselves, mind you, it only came on the market last week so it's early days. I reckon they're expecting for it to reach the 300 mark and will keep playing the game till they get it....

Do EA have any respect for the value of money and the need of housing? boils my blood!!!

Isa.
 
Just another thing to take into account: if you are going up in increments of 1K it can sometimes be worth a try to jump up in a bigger increment because (a) it might scare off another bidder and (b) it can ensure that the other party will be the one who has to go over 380 first, not you.

Also, as one who has experienced selling a home, I too started out with the idea that EAs put in phantom bids etc but, once I had seen it from the other side I realised that most of them don't have that much imagination. They are basically out to earn their commission for as little work as possible and don't forget that a few grand on the price makes little or no difference to what they earn, but might delay it into the next accounting period and make their results look bad!

As a buyer (admittedly two years ago) I got the distinct impression that some EAs did not want to show homes to us as a potential new bidder because they knew the vendor was about to agree to the current highest offer and they wanted to close the deal. (Being a FTB is a big advantage to you in this context because you can potentially close faster and they will get their commission faster- remember they want what is best for THEM, not for the vendor (and certainly not for you!))

(Usual apologies to any EAs reading- sure you are the exception to my cynical observations...)
 
I feel the need to reply to this for other people in the same boat..

I mentioned before that I felt everyone was racing towards the €381 marker straight after the first viewing and it meant that many houses were out of our range before we had even finished looking at the garden!

Anyway, as much as it bugged me that people were doing this, we felt it was the only way to stay in the race so when we lat viewed a house (1st viewing admittedly), it was guiding €360 and we went straight in with a bid of €381k. The second viewing is tomorrow so please god, no one else will come in above that. It does appear to be the only way to stay in the competition!
 
golden mean said:
Also, as one who has experienced selling a home, I too started out with the idea that EAs put in phantom bids etc but, once I had seen it from the other side I realised that most of them don't have that much imagination. They are basically out to earn their commission for as little work as possible and don't forget that a few grand on the price makes little or no difference to what they earn, but might delay it into the next accounting period and make their results look bad!

...remember they want what is best for THEM, not for the vendor.
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I'm beginning to believe this is true. We are currently selling for the first time in Ireland and are not sure that the EA is acting in our best interests.

House on market for €275,000, within a week two interested parties had gone up to €295,000 and €296,000. We accepted the lower offer as they had loan approval and the higher bidder was in a chain and had only just gone sale agreed. The EA took the property off the market, i.e. off myhome.ie and told people calling that the property was sale agreed, but didn't get a deposit from the buyer. The buyer pulled out a week later and when the other bidder was contacted, he dropped his offer back to €275,000.

I got a friend to call the EA today with an enquiry about the house and they got the whole long convoluted story that there were two bidders, the price was up to €295,000, one pulled out and the price is back at €275,000 again. I think this is very unprofessional / negative of the EA to tell potential new buyers that it had been sale agreed and the sale fell through - why didn't they just say that it's new to the market and there is a current bid of €275,000?

Is it also normal practice to take a house completely off the market when just a verbal offer has been received? Surely this wouldn't be wise if a deposit hadn't been paid?

We've gone with a large nationwide EA and are astounded at the way in which the sale is being handled - although, never having sold in Ireland before - perhaps this is the norm?
 
delgirl said:
Is it also normal practice to take a house completely off the market when just a verbal offer has been received? Surely this wouldn't be wise if a deposit hadn't been paid?
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I wouldn't have thought so. A house isn't 'sale agreed' until the deposit has been paid. I take it they didn't alter the 'For Sale' sign at that stage?

We've gone with a large nationwide EA and are astounded at the way in which the sale is being handled - although, never having sold in Ireland before - perhaps this is the norm?
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If it's the large, nationwide EA I'm thinking of, I wouldn't be surprised. From my experience there's a particular one which seems to be far worse than any of the others, although obviously that's not the kind of thing that can be proven (so no names!).
 
Before placing another bid it's very easy to ask for proof of the other bidder. If the estate agent is honest they'll have no problem doing this.
 
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