first house purchase

As a seller in Dublin who went sale agreed only yesterday after a number of months, I really find it hard to believe that any house at the moment would go for even 1K over the asking price!

We expected to get at least 30K over our asking price on EA's recommendation. Low asking price was supposedly to drum up interest for viewings etc.

We had three bidders as follows:

Bidder 1: 35K under AP
Bidder 2: 20K under AP
Bidder 3: 10K under AP

EA called us last week to say that the highest bidder had had an offer accepted on another property but just wanted to check one final time if there was any chance that we could strike a deal with the offer they had made to us.

Partner and I talked about it long and hard and said enough is enough, this ain't going to happen the way we originally expected and decided it was time to wave goodbye to our expectations and hammer out a deal. We finally settled for 5K under AP yesterday.

If the bidder had not contacted the EA last week to say another bid she made elsewhere had been accepted, we would still be up for sale. It was the move that she made to the EA that put the push on us to decide what we were doing and face up to the fact that house prices have dropped.......Maybe this is something you could do also?
 
thanks for the input :)

i don't actually for a fact know how many bids there have been on the house. all i know is the first bid that i heard mentioned was already €10k over the asking, so either someone didn't know what they're doing, or it's a falsie.

either way, it means that we're stuck to out-bidding people who have already gone above the asking price by a factor of €13k :(

so i dunno, all the other bidders could be non-existant as far as i know, but sure what can i do. if the vendor agrees to my bid, then i'm happy. i've got no control over what other people bid and whether they're even authentic. nature of the game, huh.

d.
 
You could get a friend (as they probably will recognise your voice) to call the EA enquiring about the property and asking what bids if any are on the property at the moment. There is nothing wrong with doing this. The EA may only tell you what the highest bid is but from what I can remember, this is what you want to know?

Our EA told us that in the last few weeks our viewings were few and far between due to the fact that when parties rang to enquire about viewing our property and heard there was a bid in on it for 10K under the AP, they decided against viewing.

An EA is not going to say that a bid is in higher than the highest actual bid as they will want to get more viewers into the property............
 
i think i'll definately go with the "friend-a-phone" option. thing is, afaik i AM the high bidder at the moment, and i guess if i was outbid that they would let me know, seeing as it's in their own best intrest to first of all get the house off their books, and second of all get the highest price => comission on the sale.

well if people are ringing up the EA now, and being told that there are already several bids, would that put people off? it kinda sparks the idea of a bidding war which most people woudn't want to get involved in (i would guess). for all i know, my bid could well be the only authentic one!

funny thing is, the EA made reference to the fact that the first bidder (the one that bid €10k over the asking price) is "still interested", even though, as i see it, they've been outbid by over €3k. she mentioned this bidder on 3 occasions over the 30 minutes we were viewing the house. i would have thought that if this other bidder really *was* "still interested", that they would have pipped up after a week of a higher bid...
 
if this was me, as you're already the bit leader, unless your situation (maybe kids on the way?) means you're really after this house, I'd sit tight.

If the other bids are real, the vendor isn't going to sell without giving the other sellers a chance to up their bids.
If the bids are made up, the EA would need to be v bold to try drag up your bid again, and really, there's nothing extra to speak of for him in this.

By waiting, if there are no other bids, chances are the EA won't even have the other bidders to call on after a month or so, so then you can then try to force the situation with the, I've an offer accepted on another place, are you sure they won't sell at this price. This plus the prospect of having to readvertise for another 1k or so, might tip it your way.

All you'd be doing by offering more to take it off the market now, is preempting a bid from one of the others, that realistically may not come anyway.

Besides, if more bids do come along, the EA will be sure to let you know and you can reconsider options.

hope this analysis helps...
just hope it's correct.
 
hehe, i hope it's correct too ;)

nothing's written in stone really, and no-one is 100% right. i know that everyone here is speaking from experience, and i really appreciate all the help, but the fact is that every EA is different, and every sale is different.

so i reckon i'll wait and see if anyone else bids, not looking forward to a nerve-wracking few weeks though :(

that seems to be the general concensus. if the vendor gets scared by all this bad news on the property front (house prices dropping etc...) he/she might be worried that they might never get what they want for the house => they'll just have to take the highest offer if they want to get rid of it.
 
It could be for a lot of reasons that the other bidder hasn't got back yet but no matter what the reason, the EA should keep you in the loop.

In our case the EA kept all bidders in the loop and updated us regularly as to what was happening.

Bidder 1 bid 35K under AP.

Bidder 2 came in the at 20K under the AP.

EA got back to bidder 1 who then increased their bid to 10K under the AP.

EA then went back to bidder 2 who decided straight away that they were out - the bid they made was as high as they could go.

This left bidder 1. They left there bid on the table but kept viewing and making bids on other properties. Both EA and myself were aware of this. Bidder 1 did not either increase or withdraw their bid. Viewings still went on (we have had over 40) and all involved were aware of this.

Bidder 1's bid remained for approx 12 weeks. Nobody outbid them. It was only when their bid elsewhere was accepted that they contacted our EA again. We said we were interested in finalising a deal and asked if they could increase in any way at all. It took 6 days for them to get back to us. The reason was simple......they were waiting on an answer from their lender as to how much more they could get.

If the other bidder in your situation has expressed an interest still but hasn't come up with the goods yet, this could be the reason why.

Also going back to a few things you said earlier.........we had 2 parties bring builders with them to viewings and neither even made a bid so don't get disheartened by that :)

Another thing you asked was about how many parties were attending viewings. The most we had at any viewing was 4 parties. If a house is on the small side, an EA will not want too many parties viewing together as it will make the house look tiny. Some of our viewings only had 1 party, most had 2 parties.
 
great reply aoileen, it's brilliant to see a sale from a vendor's point of view i must say. well i guess the good thing is that the bid we made wasn't at the edge of our affordability, and we left ourselves some headroom for this kind of situation. if the other bidder comes back with another bid, sure then we'll see what happens.

i'd like to push the EA though, as i don't want to be waiting for ages paying rent when i could be paying a mortgage (silly as that sounds) for the next X number of weeks.

i'll leave it another few days, and see if other said mystery bidder comes back with a bid. until then, i shall keep ye all informed :)
 
Good Luck with it all so, hope it works out well!

Remember though, even if the other bidder comes in higher than you, that dosen't mean you are out of the picture. Ask the EA what position the other bidder is in.

I'm only speaking for myself here but if it was just a case of a few thousand in the bid differences, I would definately go with the FTB bid as completion of a quick sale would be more guaranteed. The last thing sellers want is to be part of a messy chain :)
 
The other thing that has happened here is that you have only increased upped the previous bid by €500. If I were 1st bidder I would be wary of you because you may just add €500 to their next bid aswell i.e they don't want to do all the running. everybody in the loop is probably thinking along the same lines ( I wonder am I the only real bidder). Its best to keep in focus what you are willing to pay and be guided by that rather than what you can never find out. If you can get it for less than your willing to pay all the better.
 
I think it's probably the same deal, since the house wasn't sold. But according to the stats on IrishPropertyWatch (another thread pointing to it) there are a huge number of house price drops so I think asking the same as they did in June is probably a bit optimistic of them. So I wouldn't go upping my bid without a fight.
 
all the better indeed MrMan.

the €500 initial bid was moreso to register our intrest, so to speak. we'll wait to see if/what others bid before we consider what increment to go with next, it really all depends on the other bidders actions. as you say, no-one knows whether any other bidders are real or not.
still, it's early days, and with only 3 bids on the house so far, afaik, it's anyone's guess as to who's authentic and who's not.
 
thanks trish,

yeah, i wasn't considering upping the bid if/until anything else happens. i've put what i consider to be a very reasonable bid, with the ability to move quickly pending acceptance of said same bid. it really is up to the vendor and other bidders at this stage, but hopefully it'll all work out in the end anyway (in my favour that is ;)

...
 
hmm, a bit of bad news.

first of all, one of the previous bidders upped the ante. went €1,500 above our bid.

second of all, a new bidder jumped in 10 minutes later, added €5,000.

the price of the house is now quickly approaching the edge of our budget, and unfortunately if either of these parties bid again, we're out.

there's 4 bidders now (including us) being kept in the loop, so whether to bid at all is the question....
 
If its close to your ceiling price i would sit back and see where the other bidders take it. If it goes to high it might end up falling through and in time the EA may come back to you to see if your original price still stands. Its only a small possibility though.
 
MrMan said:
If its close to your ceiling price i would sit back and see where the other bidders take it. If it goes to high it might end up falling through and in time the EA may come back to you to see if your original price still stands. Its only a small possibility though.
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this is what happened to a friend of mine...she bid on a house up to her max budget...eventually went sale agreed about 45K above what she had bid...6months down the line the EA rang her wondering if she would still be interested...bought it for 20k less than she had originally bid
 
i'll keep the ol' fingers crossed then :)

1 problem though, the current high bidder has just gone sale agreed on their current house, so i guess there's less chance of it falling through.
 
djr said:
hmm, a bit of bad news.
first of all, one of the previous bidders upped the ante. went €1,500 above our bid.
second of all, a new bidder jumped in 10 minutes later, added €5,000.
the price of the house is now quickly approaching the edge of our budget, and unfortunately if either of these parties bid again, we're out.
there's 4 bidders now (including us) being kept in the loop, so whether to bid at all is the question....
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Oh dear god would you ever give it up, the EA is playing you for an eejit. There are tens of thousands of properties on the market and most do not appear to be selling, there's no reason for you to get into a bidding war which is probably between you and the EA's imaginary friends. I wouldn't answer the phone to the EA for 24 hours and go look at some other houses, it's a buyers market.
 
Oh dear god would you ever give it up, the EA is playing you for an eejit. There are tens of thousands of properties on the market and most do not appear to be selling, there's no reason for you to get into a bidding war which is probably between you and the EA's imaginary friends. I wouldn't answer the phone to the EA for 24 hours and go look at some other houses, it's a buyers market.
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unfortunately you may find that there is no set rule for which house sells, of course there is a slowdown, but this doesn't equate to the bonanza for buyers that many posters seem to allude to, there are individual cases that will be differnet from the general market. It is a buyers market, but this wont apply to every house on the market
 
got it in the end... we were far outbid by someone who (according to the EA) had a "condition" attached to the bid. we had essentially given up on the house, and were moving on. a week later, the vendor rejected the high bidder and went with us.

yay :)

sale agreed.
 
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