Estate agent not notifying me of every bid...

J

jan

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I am bidding on a house for the last 2 weeks...
I am only getting told about certain bids..
My bid on Thurs am was 445k... heard nothing all day.. contacted estate agent and still nothing (she had told me that there wer other bidders)..
then fri am she emails to say that the current highest bid was 460k...
I rang her to ask her some questions.. she did not answer so I rang the office.. spoke to her senior who told me about the other bidders and bids..
So, I had bid 445k, then "x" bid 450k, then 'y" bid 455k, then "x" again bid 460k..
So now I wonder, why did EA not contact me when the other 2 bidders had bid after me? and why did she go back to "x" with the most recent bid?
Surely she should have let me have the chance to bid after they had both out bid me? Are there regulations around this?
 
yes it does matter because she went back to X before me - i could have bid 460k, as oppose to having to bid 465..
say 460 was both mine and Xs max, she went to her first, when she should have asked me? get me?
 
but the Q is, why did she go back to X after both her and Y had the chance to bid since me..?
 
Perhaps she sees you as the more rationale bidder and is happy to focus on extracting as high a bid from the other person(s) before turning to you.

jan said:
I rang her to ask her some questions
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Or perhaps the estate agent has you marked as an eager beaver that will proactively contact her so she knows she doesn't have to.
 
1. As others have said, she works for the vendor, and her duties and obligations are owed to the vendor. If the vendor is satisfied with how she is handling the sale, the fact that you are dissatisfied means nothing.

2. The usual EA practice, when they receive a new highest bid, is to go gack to the highest underbidder. But this is not a professional or ethical rule; it's simply based on the calculation that the highest underbidder is the one most likely to be willing to outbid the new bid.

That would ordinarily suggest that, when X bid 450k, she would have contacted you. But perhaps the bid of 455 from Y came before she had an opporunity to do so; perhaps even before she knew of the 455k bid (e.g. she returned from an auction and found both bids. Once the bid from Y came in Y was the highest bidder and X was the underbidder, and at that point she would ordinarily contact X before you — which, evidently, she did, because X then bid 460.

When she contacted you to tell you that the bidding stood at 160, that might indicated she had already contaced the underbidder, Y, and Y hadn't immediately outbid 460. So, if you now outbid 460, there's a chance that Y will drop out of the race and it will between you and X.
 
@TomEdison thanks for that - however going by your explanation, in that case a 3rd bidder could be left out in the cold? if the EA only focuses on the highest bidder and highest underbidder? seems odd to me...
i'm going to ask her on Mon but before I do so, I am going to contact the Property Reg Services Authority... just so I understand the process.. there seems to be a code of conduct..
 
jan said:
but before I do so, I am going to contact the Property Reg Services Authority... just so I understand the process.. there seems to be a code of conduct..
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Seems like a distraction from your presumed priority of buying this or another property... Even if there's a code of conduct that governs the scenario that you describe there's almost certainly no significant penalty for breaching it. You'd be better off focusing on your own priorities in my opinion.
 
I was bidding on a property recently... same sort of bidding, increments of 5K.
Then I went 10k higher... this stopped the outbidding.

The vendor can sell the property to whoever they like.
Sometimes its a family member, and they are only trying to get a market value.
 
jan said:
@TomEdison thanks for that - however going by your explanation, in that case a 3rd bidder could be left out in the cold? if the EA only focuses on the highest bidder and highest underbidder? seems odd to me...
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No, they generally look to the undbidder first because, as I say, he's usually the best prospect, and this is the most efficient way of driving the price up, which is what they want. But if the underbidder dropped out they would certainly come back to others before selling the house.
 
jan said:
i'm going to ask her on Mon but before I do so, I am going to contact the Property Reg Services Authority...
Click to expand...

That is the way to make sure that the estate agent will return your calls and advocate your bids. Report them to the PRSA and maybe the Office of the Data Protection Commissioner while you are at it.

As ClubMan says, focus on winning the bidding auction if you want the house. If you have been outbid, then move on to the next one.
 
i never said I was gonna report here.. only contact them to get info so I understand the code of conduct..
and then I will ask her what happened..
I am continuing to bid.. so I wanna make sure I am treated fairly
 
jan said:
only contact them to get info so I understand the code of conduct..
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Their code of practice is on their website so there's no need to call anyone when you can just read it yourself. At a glance it looks like fairly woolly mom and apple pie stuff to me. I still think that you're wasting your time and letting yourself get distracted by pursuing this but it's obviously your choice/prerogative. But, to be honest, I see bidding wars/auctions as arguably inherently unfair given that the seller and agent will do their utmost to (legally) squeeze the maximum price out of the market by playing bidders off against each other. That's just life/business.
 
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