Bidding on a house - ask for proof of another bid?

r93kaey5p2izun

I had a suspicious experience a couple of months ago when bidding. The EA uses an online bidding platform and requires proof of funds to access bidding - redacted figures or solicitor letters not accepted. There was a bit of a bidding war over a period of a week and eventually I bid my max amount according to the documents submitted to the EA. Within 20 minutes the EA phoned to say my offer was accepted as the other bidder wouldn't be going any higher. I just wasn't comfortable with the whole scenario of my max amount miraculously ending the bidding within 20 minutes, so I withdrew my bid and decided to look elsewhere. It might have all been above board but the house is still for sale.

Abba987

Braylen Itchy Packaging wrote: »

I had a suspicious experience a couple of months ago when bidding. The EA uses an online bidding platform and requires proof of funds to access bidding - redacted figures or solicitor letters not accepted. There was a bit of a bidding war over a period of a week and eventually I bid my max amount according to the documents submitted to the EA. Within 20 minutes the EA phoned to say my offer was accepted as the other bidder wouldn't be going any higher. I just wasn't comfortable with the whole scenario of my max amount miraculously ending the bidding within 20 minutes, so I withdrew my bid and decided to look elsewhere. It might have all been above board but the house is still for sale.

I sold and bought through the same EA and everytime my house was bidded on the one i was chasing went up. Could be all quiet for a few days then suddenly one after the other again.

limnam

Like any "profession" there's good and bad.

Good and bad companies, good and bad people working in them.

trigger26

I got mortgage approval in February and have been involved in 3 properties this year

-first house was outbid and then saw on price property register it sold for 23k less than my final bid, EA said issue with title deeds led to reduction but I heard from a neighbor the house has dry rot.
-second house, went sale agreed and 3 months later we withdrew as no movement, vendor says they could not locate deeds
-third house, we are sale agreed 2 months ago after bidding war and still no contracts exchanged. Rang EA today to say we found out there's no percolation area and concerned septic tank too close to well, he says he didn't know anything about this and let solicitors sort out

3 different EA's and cant say I've enjoyed dealing with any of them, particularly the first one. TBH I'm exhausted with the whole experience of buying and trying to work out if house is suitable/good value. My feeling now and from reading these threads is to take no more nonsense and put time limits on bids. Also house in the country seem to have a lot more to consider than the normal 3 bed semi:) Rant over!!

Lumen

Braylen Itchy Packaging wrote: »

I had a suspicious experience a couple of months ago when bidding. The EA uses an online bidding platform and requires proof of funds to access bidding - redacted figures or solicitor letters not accepted. .

That's weird

This idea that people will pay every bit of money they can lay their hands on is absurd. Does Bill Gates spend tens of billions on everything he buys?

You have to break this psychology in dealing with EAs. When I was buying I had money in a company that I could extract to part fund the house. Was I going to hand over company bank statements to an EA? Hell no. So the mortgage approval amount was irrelevant.

I think I gave the EA a price range and got her to show me round everything in that range she had on the books, in one day.

I ended up paying substantially less that the top of that range. I'm not a negotiating god and probably ended up paying more than the property was worth to most other people, but it was certainly less than all the money I had. But we had been looking for years and wanted to get it done before a new school year started.

Nonetheless you have to anchor the bidding on what you think the property is worth to you, not just whether you can afford it, and walk away when the price becomes bad value, not when you run out of money.

Wildly Boaring

Sold our house this year.

Our estate agent invented a bid.

We had a late bidder who he didn't believe was serious. So he told them a higher figure than the top bid to "stop their messing about"

I got him to ring and say bid was pulled and give real figures.

There were a few more bids regardless and it went well over their initial first bid.

House is sold. Wasnt the only porky he wanted to tell purchasers.

lola85

Have heard of people getting their friends to bid on houses to keep upping the price.

mickdw

Braylen Itchy Packaging wrote: »

I had a suspicious experience a couple of months ago when bidding. The EA uses an online bidding platform and requires proof of funds to access bidding - redacted figures or solicitor letters not accepted. There was a bit of a bidding war over a period of a week and eventually I bid my max amount according to the documents submitted to the EA. Within 20 minutes the EA phoned to say my offer was accepted as the other bidder wouldn't be going any higher. I just wasn't comfortable with the whole scenario of my max amount miraculously ending the bidding within 20 minutes, so I withdrew my bid and decided to look elsewhere. It might have all been above board but the house is still for sale.

To be expected when they know how much you can spend.

riclad

Maybe do business with an agent who simply accepts bid,s ,
what is the point of an online bidding platform ?
doe,s it help the potential buyer in any way,
doe,s it record all bids on a property ?

When there are now app,s to do almost anything,
It would be nice to have a app for bidding on property ,
if it showed all the bids, and made bidding more open and fair .
So no one could just invent phantom bidders .

riclad

riclad wrote: »

Maybe do business with an agent who simply accepts bid,s ,
what is the point of an online bidding platform ?
doe,s it help the potential buyer in any way,
doe,s it record all bids on a property ?

When there are now app,s to do almost anything,
It would be nice to have a app for bidding on property ,
if it showed all the bids, and made bidding more open and fair .
So no one could just invent phantom bidders .

Sounds great, you could be like eBay and bid on 50 houses at the same time, just what the market needs. You could be a phantom bidder on 49 of them.

r93kaey5p2izun

riclad wrote: »

Maybe do business with an agent who simply accepts bid,s ,
what is the point of an online bidding platform ?
doe,s it help the potential buyer in any way,
doe,s it record all bids on a property ?

When there are now app,s to do almost anything,
It would be nice to have a app for bidding on property ,
if it showed all the bids, and made bidding more open and fair .
So no one could just invent phantom bidders .

It shows all the bids but they are anonymised as Bidder 1, Bidder 2 etc. You have no way of knowing whether another bidder is real or not. Avoiding this system is extremely difficult in certain areas - the vast majority of houses in the area I wanted are sold through that particular EA, and by avoiding them you would be left with only a handful of houses. They are the leading EA in the town.

riclad

An online platform would have to show bidder 1 ,bidder 2 etc ,
the data protection act would probably not allow their names to be used
on a public app or website .
if you are buying in a small town your choice of agents to deal with is limited .
I,m just wondering what is the point of the platform,
does it help the seller ,or is it just to make things easy for the agent in regard to taking bid, s .
if your bid is not accepted will the agent delete your data
after the house is sold .

accensi0n

Sorry, slightly old thread but thought this question would make sense here.

Let's say you are making counter offers back and forth on a property with one other buyer. The agent tells you that your most recent offer was accepted.
You query whether the other buyer stopped at their most recent offer or if they fully removed their interest from the property.
If it turns out that the other buyer was no longer interested in the property, would it be reasonable to revise your offer all the way back to your original offer?
Or would that be taking the piss?

Also, is the agent even obliged to tell you the reason why your offer was accepted and not the other buyers?

Wildly Boaring

accensi0n wrote: »

Sorry, slightly old thread but thought this question would make sense here.

Let's say you are making counter offers back and forth on a property with one other buyer. The agent tells you that your most recent offer was accepted.
You query whether the other buyer stopped at their most recent offer or if they fully removed their interest from the property.
If it turns out that the other buyer was no longer interested in the property, would it be reasonable to revise your offer all the way back to your original offer?
Or would that be taking the piss?

Also, is the agent even obliged to tell you the reason why your offer was accepted and not the other buyers?

You're bidding with your money.
You can bid what you want.
Just don't 3xpect the seller to accept it

accensi0n

accensi0n wrote: »

Sorry, slightly old thread but thought this question would make sense here.

Let's say you are making counter offers back and forth on a property with one other buyer. The agent tells you that your most recent offer was accepted.
You query whether the other buyer stopped at their most recent offer or if they fully removed their interest from the property.
If it turns out that the other buyer was no longer interested in the property, would it be reasonable to revise your offer all the way back to your original offer?
Or would that be taking the piss?

Also, is the agent even obliged to tell you the reason why your offer was accepted and not the other buyers?

The agent isn’t obliged to tell you anything about the other bidder, but I’m sure the other bidder would be delighted to hear you are revising your bid down, they can buy the house at their last bid, or, the property would be open to other bidders starting again at your opening bid.

bipedalhumanoid

Agents should be compelled to get proof of funds before allowing bidding. Most do anyway. In fact recently I wasn't even able to view places until the approval came through.

Given the bidding wars we've witnessed lately, bidders should also have to prove an IQ above 40.