Auctioneer won't submit my Offer

WhaDaFu

I would appreciate any advice or direction on this. I recently viewed a property. The Estate Agent informed me that it was been Sold by a Vulture Fund, and that normally they are sold after 30 days to the highest bidder. The Asking Price is €265,000. I have submitted an Opening bid (verbally) of €200,000. My Bid is noted on the file.

It is now 19 days into the 30 day process, and the Estate Agent confirmed that mine is the only firm Offer she has received. I asked her if she had formally submitted my Offer. She said she had not, as the vendors are hoping to get closer to Asking Price.

Is there any way I can get her to formally take my Offer seriously, as in 11 days, I may be the only Buyer left standing?

Any pointers will be very much appreciated.

Thanks in advance.

mad m

This is tactics by Auctioneer they are there to get as much as possible for their clients and the more they get the more commission. Are you really set on this place?

Give a deadline. Say if you have not heard by end of week then you withdraw the offer. But you are the highest and only bidder so you have the upper hand so far.

Tow

It is being sold by a professional company who want to maximise their return and chances are they are in no rush to sell. The offer is well below the asking price, there is still a week + to go. In these situations the person in charge of the sale within the company would quickly get pissed off if their agent(s) contacted them over each such offer. They would wait the month, then contact the agent to find out the story. They may at that point accept the offer, come back to you looking for more money or quite happy wait another month+ for better offers. It is after all the middle of the summer.

P. Breathnach

mad m wrote: »

...
Give a deadline. Say if you have not heard by end of week then you withdraw the offer. But you are the highest and only bidder so you have the upper hand so far.

Not a good idea. At this point, your offer is not high enough for the EA to consider it a good one, so if you withdraw it, she might not be bothered.

There is a possibility that the vendor and EA are unduly optimistic, and that your offer is indeed good. Wait it out.

Hannibal_Smith

They don't have to take your offer seriously and can reject it, whether there is no one interested after the 30 days or not. I cant imagine the auctioneer will put your offer to the client as a serious offer at all yet. 19 days into the marketing process and all they've got is an offer 65k below the asking price? They have the luxury of not being in a chain, so if they're not getting close enough to what they've asked they can continue to market it, if they think they can get a better price in Sept. Or they could try their luck at getting a better price at auction.

Like mad m said, you could try play them at their own game and say come back within 7 days, or I'm walking. But use everything in your favour, are you a cash buyer? Are you loan approved? Are you in a chain? How quickly can you close?

Cloudio9

P. Breathnach wrote: »

Not a good idea. At this point, your offer is not high enough for the EA to consider it a good one, so if you withdraw it, she might not be bothered.

There is a possibility that the vendor and EA are unduly optimistic, and that your offer is indeed good. Wait it out.

Yeah people who've never bought more than a breakfast roll are always on these threads saying give a deadline or even better- lower your offer

It doesn't do anything for you other than limit your options.

mloc123

Extremely unlikely that anyone... Even if desperate to sell would accept 25% under asking after just 3 weeks on the market.

There seems to be an idea that repossessed property, vulture funds etc.. will accept low ball offers in order to shift the property quickly... I would suspect the opposite. These type of properties are costing the company nothing, their only focus is financial gain. They will happily sit it out for months imo.

WhaDaFu

Hannibal_Smith wrote: »

They don't have to take your offer seriously and can reject it, whether there is no one interested after the 30 days or not. I cant imagine the auctioneer will put your offer to the client as a serious offer at all yet. 19 days into the marketing process and all they've got is an offer 65k below the asking price? They have the luxury of not being in a chain, so if they're not getting close enough to what they've asked they can continue to market it, if they think they can get a better price in Sept. Or they could try their luck at getting a better price at auction.

Like mad m said, you could try play them at their own game and say come back within 7 days, or I'm walking. But use everything in your favour, are you a cash buyer? Are you loan approved? Are you in a chain? How quickly can you close?

That's the point, I am a cash buyer, no chain, no loan approval required plus we have a daughter starting Leaving Cert cycle in less than 30 days, so need to get her situated in her new school... so I cannot afford to be messed about. Most of the properties for sale in the area are Bank Sales and EA admitted that over 50% of property on the market cannot close as properties are built with serious planning irregularities, or technical problems such as not meeting septic tank regulations. Its a nightmare...

Graham

WhaDaFu wrote: »

I asked her if she had formally submitted my Offer. She said she had not, as the vendors are hoping to get closer to Asking Price.

That's not unusual in these circumstances, there's every chance the EA won't submit ANY offers during whatever marketing period they've agreed with the client. It's likely even a full-asking offer wouldn't be immediately put forward.

Unlike a traditional vendor, the vendor in cases like this doesn't really have much of an interest in how the offers are going. The important figures are maybe the top 2 or 3 offers at the end of the process.

Best advice I could think of. Sit back and wait. Don't start bidding against yourself, the EA should tell you fairly sharpish if you've been outbid.

Hannibal_Smith

WhaDaFu wrote: »

That's the point, I am a cash buyer, no chain, no loan approval required plus we have a daughter starting Leaving Cert cycle in less than 30 days, so need to get her situated in her new school... so I cannot afford to be messed about. Most of the properties for sale in the area are Bank Sales and EA admitted that over 50% of property on the market cannot close as properties are built with serious planning irregularities, or technical problems such as not meeting septic tank regulations. Its a nightmare...

If they already know that, I'd keep looking. They don't have to accept your offer at all. No offer is binding until Contracts are signed, so you can keep your offer there and keep looking at the same time, if you want.

I understand your point about the planning and septic tank issues. There are a lot like that and it is very annoying.

SteM

If it's being sold by a vulture fund then they want to maximize returns. They'd prefer to keep it empty and market it again in 6 months than accept 65k less than asking now. They might have overvalued it at their current asking price but it's unlikely. Even if your 200k bid is the highest at the end of this process they won't sell to you at this price imo. Best of luck.

davo10

When selling properties op, I tell EAs not to even bother contacting me about bids below a certain threshold. They are mostly made by time wasters who are deluding themselves that in a rising market, a vendor will accept a bid way way below asking price.

Op, most purchases from banks/receivers/VFs are painfully slow, they don't do "quick sales" because they sell on a huge scale and are not reliant on the funds to buy another property. VFs buy distressed properties to make a profit, not sell at 25% below asking price.

orchidsrpretty

we were in a similar situation a before christmas. Viewed the house which was valued at 110k. We offered 90k. Cash buyers ready to go. no other offers on the property. EA strung us along for a couple of weeks until eventually telling us that even though there was no other offers on the property and it had been on the market for over 1 year, they would not be accepting offers under 110k. We had to walk away as there was no way the property in our view was worth that much. It is still on the market today.

antoinolachtnai

WhaDaFu wrote: »

Hannibal_Smith wrote: »

That's the point, I am a cash buyer, no chain, no loan approval required plus we have a daughter starting Leaving Cert cycle in less than 30 days, so need to get her situated in her new school... so I cannot afford to be messed about. Most of the properties for sale in the area are Bank Sales and EA admitted that over 50% of property on the market cannot close as properties are built with serious planning irregularities, or technical problems such as not meeting septic tank regulations. Its a nightmare...

It is going to be very difficult to close anything in anything like the timeframe you are talking about.

The 'magic words' to use in this situation for a quick sale are 'what offer would you need to take the property off the market?' You might not get a straight answer but it would move things on. But there is no point saying this unless you are prepared to offer the asking.

The bank and agent are not just acting on their own behalf. They also have a duty to the original owner to try and get as much money to him as possible.

t is not the case that these properties cannot be closed. The problem with them is that a lender will not accept them as collateral for a mortgage.

If you are buying with cash, you could always buy a problem property and then resolve the issues. This is not for the faint hearted but it could be done.