How to know if an Estate agent is giving you accurate bid offers

allibastor

Hi All,

Just a quick question. One thing that bugged me recently in a house buy (which has since not gone through yet) was that every time I put in an offer the offer on the other side was raised.

This went on for about 5 round turns until I said this is my final offer and am not going a cent higher, then my offer was accepted.

Is there anyway to find out if there were actually offers from another bidder or was it just a hoax to get me to increased my offer

Gasherbraun

I believe that the agent is obliged under new PSRA regulations to formally record all bids and make them available to the regulator if requested - for instance if someone makes a complaint.

Obvious problem with this is that fabricating bids is not beyond the capabilities of most people if they are inclined to do so and neither is making a record of them. Second problem is that the process would take so long that the property would be long sold by the time the facts get assessed by the regulator.

Personally I always think that if someone is interested in a property then it obviously has some merits so it is not out of the realms of possibility that there may be another party also interested and counter bidding. Realistically you are never going to know quickly enough if other bids are genuine or not so you almost need to discount them and just work with the figure you are happy to pay and not exceed it.

It remains a stressful minefield however and it is much easier to sit on a forum and discuss it logically rather than be in the midst of it so I sympathise with you; I was where you are last Christmas.

P. Breathnach

You'll never know for sure. Even if there were genuine competitive bids, you can't be sure that the bidder would have been in a position to follow through if the bid was accepted.

It's best not to think about such things, because all you will succeed in doing is annoying yourself. The only question to ask is if the property is worth as much to you as the price you agreed to pay for it.

Ritchi

In my, limited, experience, every time an EA has said there was a bid, there was a bid, as we found out from the PPR afterwards. The risk is too great for them, all an EA wants is a sale, no matter what price, so if they say there's a bid, I'd take them at their word.