We're trying to buy a house. This is a REALLY frustrating process (like that's news to anyone) and it's so hard to know whether you're being told lies or what.
This house went on the market 2 weeks ago and we saw it during the first viewing. We were told there was a bid at 20k below the asking price. Next day they said 410, then 2 days later 415. We then viewed it again, and we put a bid on the following day. The advice we had from someone who buys a lot of investment properties and makes good purchases was to ask the agent what she thought they'd accept and bid at that. Big mistake, I know that now. We bid 430. That evening she came back and said there was a bid of 435. We waited 24 hrs and came back with 437.5k. That was last Thurs, and the EA had said they were hoping to close at the end of this week. I rang a couple of times this week, and each time heard there were no new bids - and she was really dismissive of me on the phone, like i was wasting her time by ringing. Completely unlike her enthusiasm when she rang me to say there was a new bid
.
Today we were going to ring and say we we going to withdraw tomorrow if there was no movement. Instead, I heard from the EA (ALL enthusiastic) to say that there was a bid of 445k. Said there had been another bid and then when she went back to one of the underbidders from last week, they upped it.
My question is, why would a bidder who was seriously interested in a house wait a week before bidding again? Do people ask EAs to only come back to them when they're about to finish up? Or would it be that they were bidding on somewhere else that had gone too high for them? This happened to someone else I know recently too (different EAs) - the price was static till the last day before the sellers wanted to go sale agreed. I am going to ask a friend to ring tomorrow to find out what the current price is before making any moves. We have a little more leeway, but not much, and houses in this area are scarce at the moment. We're afraid that if we leave this one, by the time we find another the prices will have skyrocketed further.
Also, the EA told me to keep bidding on other houses - what a scam that all is, if you have 4 couples in one price bracket all bidding on the same houses in an area, of course all the prices will shoot up. That should be illegal - you should only be allowed to bid on one house at a time. Don't know how it would be monitored, but anyway.
Grrr... any advice would be appreciated (but please don't point out the stupidity of the 430 bid - we haven't done this before)
Thanks
This house went on the market 2 weeks ago and we saw it during the first viewing. We were told there was a bid at 20k below the asking price. Next day they said 410, then 2 days later 415. We then viewed it again, and we put a bid on the following day. The advice we had from someone who buys a lot of investment properties and makes good purchases was to ask the agent what she thought they'd accept and bid at that. Big mistake, I know that now. We bid 430. That evening she came back and said there was a bid of 435. We waited 24 hrs and came back with 437.5k. That was last Thurs, and the EA had said they were hoping to close at the end of this week. I rang a couple of times this week, and each time heard there were no new bids - and she was really dismissive of me on the phone, like i was wasting her time by ringing. Completely unlike her enthusiasm when she rang me to say there was a new bid
.Today we were going to ring and say we we going to withdraw tomorrow if there was no movement. Instead, I heard from the EA (ALL enthusiastic) to say that there was a bid of 445k. Said there had been another bid and then when she went back to one of the underbidders from last week, they upped it.
My question is, why would a bidder who was seriously interested in a house wait a week before bidding again? Do people ask EAs to only come back to them when they're about to finish up? Or would it be that they were bidding on somewhere else that had gone too high for them? This happened to someone else I know recently too (different EAs) - the price was static till the last day before the sellers wanted to go sale agreed. I am going to ask a friend to ring tomorrow to find out what the current price is before making any moves. We have a little more leeway, but not much, and houses in this area are scarce at the moment. We're afraid that if we leave this one, by the time we find another the prices will have skyrocketed further.
Also, the EA told me to keep bidding on other houses - what a scam that all is, if you have 4 couples in one price bracket all bidding on the same houses in an area, of course all the prices will shoot up. That should be illegal - you should only be allowed to bid on one house at a time. Don't know how it would be monitored, but anyway.
Grrr... any advice would be appreciated (but please don't point out the stupidity of the 430 bid - we haven't done this before
)Thanks