Thanks very much everyone for the replies. Gerry, you make many similar points that friends / family have said to me too!
A few other points to note...
- The house was originally listed on Daft at €259. A few weeks later it was cut to today's asking of €229.
- Some of the pictures on Daft are very out of date which we think is odd. For example, in the pictures there's a cheap looking timber garden shed. Today there's a nice b-built shed. In other words, several "home improvements" have been made since the photos were taken. Odd?
- When we initially tried to declare interest we found it difficult to make contact with the vendor. Several unanswered phone calls. Eventually when we did make contact we felt that everything went on their terms... e.g. "I'll have to check if that suits" when we tried to schedule a viewing and generally not over-enthused to accommodate us on viewing times. Having said that when we did view it, the house was presented immaculately and the vendors were very pleasant people.
- All communication from the vendor (e.g. lastnight's news of the latest bid) has been via text messages. It's like trying to communicate with a potential new date
We feel that a phone call would be more appropriate in these circumstances!
My gut feeling is still to go with a final offer of €230k. If the other bidder exists, I feel it might spook them as we're making a bigger jump and exceeding the asking price. If they outbid us after that, then it's not for us. If the other bidder doesn't exist at all, I still would feel like we are getting a lovely house in an area we like for €230k, so I wouldn't necessarily feel "cheated".
Joe.
EDIT: An important point to make, one which has me somewhat persuaded that the other offer is actually genuine.
When she informed us of the €220k offer, it was like she was being very courteous to us, as she suggested in her text that maybe we'd want to cancel our 2nd viewing based on that news. This suggested to me that the other bidder is very serious and she was happy to risk telling us and completely put us off the process. Again, a bit strange I thought.