Bidding on a house - what to do?

Brendan Burgess said:

There are a few problems with this strategy.

1) You might be overpaying for the house if they have a lower figure in mind. If they have a higher figure in mind, you are not going to get the house.

2) No estate agent will believe you. They will be used to this sort of talk and will tell the seller that this is common place and that it's really just your first offer.

Negotiating the price is a game with a few ritual steps in it.
You put in an offer which is below what you are prepared to pay. You know that. The seller knows that. The estate agent knows that.
They will usually reject that offer or say that they will think about it or tell you that they now have a higher offer, whether they have or not.
You offer a bit more.

Knockout, take it or leave it offers, do not work in this market unless the property is worth about €500k and you are prepared to pay €700k because you want this house and don't care about the price.

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Worked for me and and I now live in my home for life. It was everything I wanted, and I was prepared to pay for it as well.

Door stopped the owner as well and had a chat with them - the estate agent wasn't impressed but he said you have balls when I collected the keys.

My 3rd house purchase I wasn't messing around, I also submitted evidence of that to the estate agent and my buying power to make sure I got the sale, I was in a chain and they choose me over a cash buyer.

It's possible you just need to have the paperwork, determination and a bit of luck.

Sarah Ryan said:

Door stopped the owner as well and had a chat with them - the estate agent wasn't impressed but he said you have balls when I collected the keys.

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Fair play, in my case things went uber quick as the seller had gone sale agreed on another house. (In fact I think they had already moved and desperate to get the other house off their hands) We had a couple of viewings, we're thinking we like this place and location.

Was told there was asking price offers and if interested register on the EA portal to see offers. Duely did so of course having to upload proof of funds etc. Then I kind of parked it as following week I was travelling abroad for work.

While travelling the EA kept calling and texting me, so called them back and was told can you complete quickly I said yep have deposit A.I.P. etc. Was told buyer wants to complete in 8 weeks at which I laughed and said well the buyer can dream wait until the solicitors get involved. Anyway was asked if I wanted to bid said yes and verbally bid slightly above asking put the bid in their portal and 24 hours later bid accepted sale agreed.

Then organising solicitors, surveyors, lender etc. I was getting near daily calls from the EA to push things along I almost blocked their calls got super super pushy. However it all worked out sale agreed May, keys in mid August.

Unsure what would have happened if I door stepped the seller probably a black eye lol.

Anyway as per my experience it all depends on the Sellers position.

Wandering_Dazed said:

Unsure what would have happened if I door stepped the seller probably a black eye lol.

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It was a risky move alright but when you want something so bad you need to make sure you have done all you can do, there is no room for....I should have.

We knew the house was for sale it was on daft but there was no sign outside, our friend also lives in the estate, my husband has always wanted to live there from all the years of visiting him, we knew the area and that it was good and that we would have no issues, no new building around etc well established estate.

May have told the lady selling that we were having issues trying to contact the estate agent handling the sale and, we wanted to make sure it was still for sale before we made it our business to try and meet him direct to discuss putting in an offer.
I had all my paperwork ready to discuss with her if we got that far but we just had a friendly chat and said we would go down to the estate agent and she said she would call him as well.

He then replied to my messages straight away, he wasn't impressed but I got his attention. A phone call and email unanswered after 3 days is not good enough for me when I want to spend a lot of money so I just put a rocket under him and it worked.

He then replied to my messages straight away, he wasn't impressed but I got his attention. A phone call and email unanswered after 3 days is not good enough for me when I want to spend a lot of money so I just put a rocket under him and it worked.

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Not sure why he wasn't impressed, I bet he still got his percentage without having to do much!

myate said:

Not sure why he wasn't impressed, I bet he still got his percentage without having to do much!

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People don't generally like when you go behind their back.
You don't want your client ringing you saying, I have somebody at my door asking me about the house you are meant to be selling for me.

I was being very cheeky but hey we all got what we wanted, I got my house, he got his paycheck and she got to move back to where she wanted to live. Job done!

but hey we all got what we wanted

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That's the main thing. If you sat around waiting on the agent, you probably wouldn't have got the house. From multiple experiences with them (both buying & selling a few times) most of them do not do a lot. Not like American realtors working for their 6%!!

What I did to get our house now, much different to you, but it involved a seller only wanting a valuation from the estate agent then they said they'd sell it themselves as they wanted someone to live in the house, & not to become a holiday home, and wanted to stay under Capital Acquisition Tax threshold, no matter what the agent said in relation to how much over valuation they could get!