No new bids for a week, then 2?

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 may not be an advice, but this is what, I'd do:

I'd search say 5 houses [say h1, h2...h5] n start bidding [under bid] them no matter what...In each of the houses I'd say I have 4 other houses bid, so the one who comes early I'd go in for that...

What am trying to say is that, you probably have to put the pressure back on the EA with a given limited time say a weeks time. If they dont get back to you then genuinely there is some serious bidding going on, and u may wanna re-think if u wanna go for it. If u wanna seriously go for it, hang on for the second week call her up again n see what the bid is gonna be like...

The reason am winding a long story is, am kinda guessing that the EA has smelled that you are desperate for the house, may be u wanna pull out or give him a deadline...

I'd do that....I guess...

Remember, the EA is working for the seller - his job is to get the best (ie highest) price for the property. Admittedly it isn't very fair, as he has much more information about the market for the property than you have.

Have a friend ring up and enquire about the bids and act ike they are interested, and see what he has to tell them ?

Same has happened to me. I've had a bid on a house for almost three weeks with no new offers coming in. I was told that the vendor would make a decision by the end of this week. Low and behold I got a call yesterday saying that a higher bid had come in... So I said, ah well, never mind... I don't think I want to pay more, I'm a the stamp duty cut-off at 381.5 and the house is in need of repairs, so I'll just wait and see. I'm getting a friend to ring on monday to see what they're telling her, but I think I'm half prepared to walk away as I don't really want to engange in a bidding war, especially after having had to wait for almost three weeks and getting hopeful about getting the place...

Before you get into a bidding war, pick a figure that you can afford and that you think the house is worth and that you are willing to pay. Begin bidding but only go up to that amount. As soon as you get to that figure you are out of the running for that house. It was not the house for you. You do not want to pay any more than this figure because the house is not worth that amount to YOU. If someone else wants to pay higher, fine, let them.

Hmm, we are applying for our mortgage approval so we can go searching for a house, and this is the part that actually worries me the most...all this bidding thing... If I see a house on the market for 'region 300,000', or 'excess 300,000' what do the sellers actually want, and what does the region/excess thing actually mean...

I know what u mean, Snape. We went to look at a house 2 wks ago - asking price was 465k.
We bid 490k and no higher. The following week it sold for 565k !!!
I heard later that just 2 bidders were battling it out. A similar property nearby went for 530k (also asking price 465k). So a word of caution - DON'T get caught up in a bidding war, as it can become a battle of attrition and you'll might end up bidding higher than you can afford. As Brodiebabe said, pick a figure that its worth to you and stick to it.
Region/excess, in my opinion, is totally meaningless.

I just found as a rule of thumb that you can easily add a good 20-30K to the asking price to get a more realistic idea of where the price will be heading. That was the case for all houses I've looked at so far, probably around 20-30 houses all in the pricebracket between 325K-380K.

I think you should keep bidding for the craic until you are the only one left and then when they are looking for a deposit, pull out of the sale.

It would serve them right for wasting your time and being rude to you when you rang to enquire after your bid.

Some people are so greedy that they will hang on until the last possible second for another 1k. That goes for the house owner as well as the agents selling for them.

When I sold my own house, I took the house off the market as soon as I got a bid that was good for me and slightly higher than I expected. Sure I could have held out and got another 3-5k but I also would have expected to add at least another month to the whole sales process

I would play them at their own game. It may be too late for this house though. Get a mate to view a property as well as you and get them to bid higher than your bid, way higher even. The EA will come back and hope that they say that there are 2 bidders , you and your mate. If so you are in. You go one more bid and they go way higher and they get house for overinflated price and YOU PAY the deposit. They look for long closing and then pull out and they get deposit back. EA returns to you and you offer a lower amount and see what happens. This can work if time is on your side and a good mate who is willing to deal with the hassle. I know a guy who did this but with 3 of his mates - so there were 4 bidders and it worked very well because the EA didnt try to drum up further viewers because they though they had 3 interested parties ! The difference with a home and BTL for an investor is they are willing to walk away or play the waiting game.

Lots of great advice there, thanks everyone!

Last night DH and I decided to stick with our original max price which is a little higher than current price, but we decided we'd wait till after the w/e. EA said yesterday that she thought they'd go sale agreed beg of next week, but I don't believe anything she says anymore (last week she said it'd be end of this week). Then a friend of mine rang EA and found out they're still showing the house, so we're definitely not placing another bid at this point.

EA rang today to ask if she'd rung me about the other bid yesterday (yeah, right - like she'd have forgotten). Then she said, "you don't have a house to sell, do you" and she commented on how that would "stand to us". So, she's trying to get us to bid again, making us think we're almost there - fine, that's her job. But I didn't say much at all other than answer her questions with yes's and no's.

What I've learned :

• DON'T bid early in the process. It's like ebay, where early bidding ups the price
• Don't fall in love with a house or imagine it as yours - keep all houses open as options.
• Max price is essential
• Don't ring the EA (giving him/her the impression you'll do anything to get it)

So, we may get this one, we may not. We'd like to but we're not going to get into a bidding war when the house is not worth (to us) more than our max.

What a long road we're on - and this is just the start... I feel so much calmer tonight, like I've seen the light!
Thanks again everyone, it's fantastic having all this advice

Yep... its a crappy process... I've been recently outbid on 2 properties..they just shot way over the asking when I ceased in each case.

I rather like the bidding process they have in Scotland.. which is a sealed bid process....& the bid is also a contract to purchase.

ninsaga

ninsaga, I agree - we were in the US for a while and it's like that there too. It means that people don't bid just for the hell of it on loads of properties at once, so everyone's driving up the price on everyone else. In addition, you can find out what properties have sold for in an area recently, and that's really good to let you know what something is "worth". The current bidding process (IMO) doesn't work well in Ireland at the moment because of the frenzy - I'm sure it was fine in the past when things were more "normal".

Its a sellers market..so until the circumstances change then this is going to be life as we know it.

The 'only' other way I know around this is if the EA just happens to be a buddy of yours.... then you will probably get the 'true' inside view and certainly will not be up against a phantom bidder...in which case the EA may not be working fully in the seller's interest!

ninsaga

ninsaga said:

Its a sellers market..so until the circumstances change then this is going to be life as we know it.

The 'only' other way I know around this is if the EA just happens to be a buddy of yours.... then you will probably get the 'true' inside view and certainly will not be up against a phantom bidder...in which case the EA may not be working fully in the seller's interest!

ninsaga

Click to expand...

I have always been paranoid about EA knocking a house down to their mates. It must go on. And they probably do the same to Property developers - good clients and all that.