Advice on bidding for a home

macgrub

I'm looking at placing a bid on a (second hand) house and hoping to get some advice from anyone who has been in a similar position.
I've reviewed the Property Price register for similar properties and it's a difficult gauge since few similar properties have been sold in the past 18 months in the street. There aren't any others for sale either so I don't have a bar to compare prices.

Is there strategy worth following when bidding? When do you know when to offer the asking price, or above or below the asking price?

liam7831

Bid what it's worth to you

4ensic15

macgrub wrote: »

I'm looking at placing a bid on a (second hand) house and hoping to get some advice from anyone who has been in a similar position.
I've reviewed the Property Price register for similar properties and it's a difficult gauge since few similar properties have been sold in the past 18 months in the street. There aren't any others for sale either so I don't have a bar to compare prices.

Is there strategy worth following when bidding? When do you know when to offer the asking price, or above or below the asking price?

You need an accurate valuation before you can begin to formulate a strategy. talk to some estate agents who operate in the general area.

macgrub

4ensic15 wrote: »

You need an accurate valuation before you can begin to formulate a strategy. talk to some estate agents who operate in the general area.

Good advice.
Can you just approach any agent in the area for advice or how does that work?

4ensic15

macgrub wrote: »

Good advice.
Can you just approach any agent in the area for advice or how does that work?

Some are approachable, some are not. I would usually go and ask what properties they have in the area and what you might expect to pay on the street you are interested in. Most will at least give some kind of ballpark.

jimmycrackcorm

liam7831 wrote:

Bid what it's worth to you

But way above the asking price with a time limit for acceptance.

househero

macgrub wrote: »

I'm looking at placing a bid on a (second hand) house and hoping to get some advice from anyone who has been in a similar position.
I've reviewed the Property Price register for similar properties and it's a difficult gauge since few similar properties have been sold in the past 18 months in the street. There aren't any others for sale either so I don't have a bar to compare prices.

Is there strategy worth following when bidding? When do you know when to offer the asking price, or above or below the asking price?

Prepare not to 'win'. Don't tell the agent your a virgin or you will be played. You will be played anyway.

You might get the third or fourth house you put a serious bid in on, if you are lucky.

We had an offer accepted 60k under asking, around 5%

1641

Do not give ultimatum bids unless they reflect your genuine position, eg, "this is my final bid", etc.

Some advice on this site:

http://www.buyersagent.ie/tips.html

Captain Flaps

Just finished our first round of real bidding (we were successful).

Advice that was given to me which I found helpful: you don't want to do anything to make the vendor think their property is worth more than it is. Don't offer asking, go under. Never seem to eager and don't bid unless you've viewed twice (this shows that you're a serious bidder but also lets the agent know you're not someone who rushes into things, so no point trying to work you for higher bids later)

In a bidding war, never place more than 1 bid in any 24 hour period - this puts other bidders in panic mode and drives the price up, also lets the vendor know that they can still go higher. Bid low, also; the people we were bidding against kept going up by 10k, my biggest bid was 5k but usually I went 2.5k. I had plenty of breathing room left to bid but I wanted to make it seem like I was approaching the top of my budget.

THe house we're buying went up to 50k above asking (was undervalued initially imo) and the agent put up the asking and arranged another viewing with the higher asking price. I said I wouldn't be bidding any further until after that viewing as I felt our bids had been used to leverage a higher asking price, so that effectively shut the process down for over a week. Our next (2.5k increase) offer was accepted the day after the viewing.

Good luck! It's a tense, awful exciting process.

macgrub

Captain Flaps wrote: »

Just finished our first round of real bidding (we were successful).

Advice that was given to me which I found helpful: you don't want to do anything to make the vendor think their property is worth more than it is. Don't offer asking, go under. Never seem to eager and don't bid unless you've viewed twice (this shows that you're a serious bidder but also lets the agent know you're not someone who rushes into things, so no point trying to work you for higher bids later)

In a bidding war, never place more than 1 bid in any 24 hour period - this puts other bidders in panic mode and drives the price up, also lets the vendor know that they can still go higher. Bid low, also; the people we were bidding against kept going up by 10k, my biggest bid was 5k but usually I went 2.5k. I had plenty of breathing room left to bid but I wanted to make it seem like I was approaching the top of my budget.

THe house we're buying went up to 50k above asking (was undervalued initially imo) and the agent put up the asking and arranged another viewing with the higher asking price. I said I wouldn't be bidding any further until after that viewing as I felt our bids had been used to leverage a higher asking price, so that effectively shut the process down for over a week. Our next (2.5k increase) offer was accepted the day after the viewing.

Good luck! It's a tense, awful exciting process.

50K above asking :O
Did you go much below the asking to begin with?

GingerLily

macgrub wrote: »

50K above asking :O
Did you go much below the asking to begin with?

50k above asking is pretty standard in mature areas of Dublin.

CreativeSen

We viewed a house three times in total, we spoke to the estate agent, spoke to the neighbors (were seen by the EA to speak to them). We monitored the bidding from a distance, called the EA once, maybe twice a week to check the price. We did not bid on the house, just monitored the price.

When the price leveled off and it seemed that there was only one other party left in the process we placed our one and only bid and it was accepted.

The EA knew that we were genuine bidders from the level of interest that we were expressing. However, as interested as we were in it we didn't want to participate in the bidding as we could have added to the excitement level and ended up pushing the price above what we paid. Conversely, we could have gone in on the bidding earlier and placed a big bid and scared people away....whats the right way to do it and the wrong way to do it is entirely up to you, but do not go above your budget no matter how caught up in the process you become.

We purchased late last year and we were told to expect certain properties to go over the asking price by as much as 20%. In the end, the house we bought went over the asking price by 10%.

macgrub

CreativeSen wrote: »

We viewed a house three times in total, we spoke to the estate agent, spoke to the neighbors (were seen by the EA to speak to them). We monitored the bidding from a distance, called the EA once, maybe twice a week to check the price. We did not bid on the house, just monitored the price.

When the price leveled off and it seemed that there was only one other party left in the process we placed our one and only bid and it was accepted.

The EA knew that we were genuine bidders from the level of interest that we were expressing. However, as interested as we were in it we didn't want to participate in the bidding as we could have added to the excitement level and ended up pushing the price above what we paid. Conversely, we could have gone in on the bidding earlier and placed a big bid and scared people away....whats the right way to do it and the wrong way to do it is entirely up to you, but do not go above your budget no matter how caught up in the process you become.

We purchased late last year and we were told to expect certain properties to go over the asking price by as much as 20%. In the end, the house we bought went over the asking price by 10%.

This is a good insight. I'm beginning to wonder if any houses for asking price anymore!

macgrub

Captain Flaps wrote: »

Just finished our first round of real bidding (we were successful).

Advice that was given to me which I found helpful: you don't want to do anything to make the vendor think their property is worth more than it is. Don't offer asking, go under. Never seem to eager and don't bid unless you've viewed twice (this shows that you're a serious bidder but also lets the agent know you're not someone who rushes into things, so no point trying to work you for higher bids later)

In a bidding war, never place more than 1 bid in any 24 hour period - this puts other bidders in panic mode and drives the price up, also lets the vendor know that they can still go higher. Bid low, also; the people we were bidding against kept going up by 10k, my biggest bid was 5k but usually I went 2.5k. I had plenty of breathing room left to bid but I wanted to make it seem like I was approaching the top of my budget.

THe house we're buying went up to 50k above asking (was undervalued initially imo) and the agent put up the asking and arranged another viewing with the higher asking price. I said I wouldn't be bidding any further until after that viewing as I felt our bids had been used to leverage a higher asking price, so that effectively shut the process down for over a week. Our next (2.5k increase) offer was accepted the day after the viewing.

Good luck! It's a tense, awful exciting process.

Thanks!
Was your EA fully transparent about how many bids there are or how much they are?

Seth Brundle

macgrub wrote: »

Thanks!
Was your EA fully transparent about how many bids there are or how much they are?

When we bought in 2015, I asked the EA what the sequence of bids was (who, when and how much). At this stage there had been about six or seven bids from about four or five people. I was able to build up a kind of profile of the bidders, what the bid increments were and from this rule out all but one couple (who were the people who kept going until the end).
I felt that it was very valuable insight at the time.

cruizer101

macgrub wrote: »

This is a good insight. I'm beginning to wonder if any houses for asking price anymore!

Two houses near me recently gone for 5% under asking price, and that's in North County Dublin so popular enough place. It just depends on the house and the ea, some underprice some over.

grogi

cruizer101 wrote: »

Two houses near me recently gone for 5% under asking price, and that's in North County Dublin so popular enough place. It just depends on the house and the ea, some underprice some over.

It simply depends how much under or over the asking price was...

Captain Flaps

macgrub wrote: »

50K above asking :O
Did you go much below the asking to begin with?

By the time we viewed it was already 10k over asking. Our budget was actually almost 70k over the initial asking price but we were shopping in that range assuming we'd have loads of space to counter and the rest to spend extending/improving. Was actually a steal (comparatively speaking) for what we're paying, even the bank valuer said we'd done well.

Captain Flaps

macgrub wrote: »

Thanks!
Was your EA fully transparent about how many bids there are or how much they are?

Yes, she was from one of the big ones and she was able to tell me there were 2 other parties and rang me each time a bid had been placed to see did I want to counter. To her credit she was fairly low on the bullsh1t scale and didn't seem to be pulling any funny business.

Actually, that's another one - always wait 24 hours to counter! Again you don't want to start a frenzy. It did happen that I'd make an offer on Thursday, get the call to say I'd been outbid on Friday, I said I'd let them know on Monday. I knew full well I'd be countering but as soon as you bid the EA will be straight back on to the (now) underbidder, you want to keep momentum as low as possible!

theboringfox

I wouldn't overly focus on asking alone. In my experience houses that were done up were priced low with aim to get bidders in to see it and hope they fall in love with it and start bidding with hearts not heads. Doer uppers etc priced at upper end or over priced as it's almost the agent trying to tell people it should achieve at least this price.

Zenify

theboringfox wrote: »

I wouldn't overly focus on asking alone. In my experience houses that were done up were priced low with aim to get bidders in to see it and hope they fall in love with it and start bidding with hearts not heads. Doer uppers etc priced at upper end or over priced as it's almost the agent trying to tell people it should achieve at least this price.

In South Dublin I'm finding doer uppers way underpriced to get people interested and end up spending all the do up money on the house itself.