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

kippy

Lumen wrote: »

The most important bit that they didn't do? They shouldn't have accepted any bids without proof of funds.

Indeed - although they work for the seller - so in essence accepting these bids right through to the end game increased the price of the house for other "genuine" buyers.

Dav010

Lumen wrote: »

The most important bit that they didn't do? They shouldn't have accepted any bids without proof of funds.

It is the EAs job to pass on bids to the vendor, only the vendor can decide whether a bid is accepted. I doubt you could make it a legal requirement that a bidder must provide proof of cash/finance to support a bid, so saying the EA shouldn’t accept a bid is a bit silly.

Naos

Dav010 wrote: »

It is the EAs job to pass on bids to the vendor, only the vendor can decide whether a bid is accepted. I doubt you could make it a legal requirement that a bidder must provide proof of cash/finance to support a bid, so saying the EA shouldn’t accept a bid is a bit silly.

Why couldn't you?

That sounds exactly like something you should have to do.

Dav010

Naos wrote: »

Why couldn't you?

That sounds exactly like something you should have to do.

You would have to ask your local TD, vendors/EAs can’t make laws so making it a legal requirement isn’t within their power.

EstateAgent

Would be great if people stopped making offers on properties that they can't afford, just a thought.

The amount of hassle we get when asking people for proof of finance is ridiculous. People are so afraid to give us a bank statement or copy of mortgage approval in case we see they have even more money than their bid. We hardly think they're planning to spend every bloody penny they have.

And yes you can say that a letter from a solicitor or something should work but is that really reliable? A solicitor mate giving a letter to buy you time while you actually scramble around to get your finances together.

You just can't win with some people. People are so quick to blame EA's for anything but the bigger issue is why are people making offers if they can't actually afford it? Or worse why are people bidding on more than one property at a time even though they only intend to buy one? Those people are doing far more harm to the market than any EA out there

elizunia87

We bid on many house till we get the right one. Every time Agent asked us for proof and we never gave saying that the proof will be given by lawyer after the bid is accepted. I am not gonna hassle my Lawyer to send proof every week.
Also I would never bid on a house I can not afford. Why would I do this to myslef?

EstateAgent

elizunia87 wrote: »

We bid on many house till we get the right one. Every time Agent asked us for proof and we never gave saying that the proof will be given by lawyer after the bid is accepted. I am not gonna hassle my Lawyer to send proof every week.
Also I would never bid on a house I can not afford. Why would I do this to myslef?

Some people make offers on properties while also going through the mortgage approval process. I have no doubt that they think they will be able to afford it but anything can go wrong and they may not get approval for the amount they need or get approval at all. I don't think people are being malicious doing it but that's why EA's ask for proof of finance.

Anyways this is the kind of reaction we get from a lot of people. You should be happy those EA's were asking you for proof of finance as it means they were likely asking other bidders for the same, meaning you weren't bidding against someone who didn't have the finance to cover their bid.

ToxicPaddy

We saw a house we liked back in mid 2018, it had been on the market for 3 months and there were no bids on the house for the previous 6 weeks and according to the EA no viewings booked either.

The previous and only bid was for 15k below asking price so we put a bid of 5k below asking as we liked the house and were ready to go with everything in place.

The next day low and behold, a bid 5k above asking was made. EA contacts us, tries the hard sell, I decided I wasn't having any of it, pulled our bid and walked away.

EA contacted me 3 times after seeing if I was still interested which we weren't. House eventually went sale agreed at €15k below asking, the original offer.

3 more houses considered buying after that and had similar experiences, so ended up buying a new build from an extremely easy to deal with professional EA.

A family member was trying to buy a house 3 years ago and the EA ignored them despite numerous reasonable bids, all documentation in place, deposit ready to go, mortgage approved and not in a chain.

Eventually they got so fed up of it all, they approached the owner directly and explained the situation, the owner had got no notification from the EA about any potential bids and was duly removed from the sale of the house.

Anyone who claims phantom bids aren't happening or prices are not being manipulated by some EAs are deluded. As for it being regulated, yeah right, only when it suits them they are so obviously out of order publically that they have to be seen to do something.

I've met some very good, very professional EAs, good knowledge, upfront with the info about the property, area and even the seller but I've also met some complete scam artists parading as EAs.

riclad

The simple thing to do is to say to bidders, if we accept a bid we will ask for documents to show you have the money to buy the house, or a letter from your bank showing you have been approved for a mortage recently
which will be at least 90 per cent of the house price .
An ea that doe,s not pass on all bid,s to the buyer is not acting in a professional manner or doing his job.
I,m not sure why an ea would not pass on a bid unless he was trying to help
a friend or a relative of his to buy the house.
I Think most ea.s can be trusted to act in a professional manner for the benefit of the client.

SozBbz

I've probably bid on somewhere around a dozen properties in my lifetime (3 sale agree'd that fell through - one that went ahead 4years ago, and another one about to go ahead this week + plus the many that I bid on but was subsquently outbid on).

When you factor in the many properties I viewed but declined to offer on, I've met a lot of EAs over the years.

Generally I've thought most have been decent. Theres the odd one who I've thought has been either a young gob****e or a bit slimy or useless or whatever, but on the whole most were fine.

I've never seriously thought that bids were being fabricated. Any property where the bidding went a bit crazy seemed actually to be in high demand going by the viewings. I remember viewing a 2 bed apartment in Drumcondra on at €240k back in 2013. I dropped out when the bids passed €270k and there was more than one other person involved. But to be fair the development was stunningly maintained, great location, and the viewing I attended had been packed so to me it was credible that there was significant interest.

This time around viewings were quieter but the EA I dealt with is in my judgement credible. Across the course of multiple viewings and many further trips back to the property with surveyors and other experts, I've ended up talking to her a fair bit and my judgement is that she's on the level.

We were asked for proof of affordability when placing our bid which we didnt have (yet) but we explained our situation honestly, that we'd begun the process and were only about 1 week away from formal approval, but that we didnt expect to find a house we felt strongly about so soon in our search. We made an aggressive bid (asking price, so +15k on the next best bid) given that context, and she then had to make a judgement if we were worth the risk, as there was someone with their AIP who'd already made multiple offers.

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 .

Dav010

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

Dav010

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.