about buying this house...

[josla]

me and DH have seen fabby house - it needs LOTS of work doing to it (but this will be our 6th house to do work to, so doesn't put us off too much). The thing is, we have offered 10k over the asking price, and the estate agent is (i think) not being great.
The house is owned by a bank as owner died. Not in a rush to sell.
Two other people have put in offers. Estate agent told me 'One is a cash buyer, his offer is 15k below your offer. The other one is selling and has an offer on their house, like you do. And their offer is similar to yours. If you want to increase your offer now is the time to do it.'
BUT - are they allowed to tell me the offer that the cash buyer put in? And if we offer more, aren't they just going to go back to the other two people and get them to offer more? It's like an auction then... We aren't sure if we are comfortable offering more - then we won't have anything to do it up with! And this has been dragging on - we put our asking price offer in over 3 weeks ago. I want to say 'our offer expires in 5 days' but I don't think we are in a strong position when we're the ones who want the house! IN the mean time, they still have it on the market... WWYD?

[diggingintheribs]

Our estate agents did this to us and with hindsight we should never have upped our offer.

You need to decide what the house is worth to you and also what it is realistically worth in this market and try not to get caught up in a bidding war that probably doesn't exist.

If you are comfortable offering more then do it but make sure it is on the basis that it is taken off the market etc etc

See nothing wrong with telling the estate agent you need a response in 5 days. play them at their game, say there are other properties you are interested in and you can't just be left dangling.

[JaynieB]

I think the agent is being very unprofessional. My Mum sold her house last year, there was a lot of interest and within a couple of weeks she had about 4 offers - we stopped showing it to more people and effectively took it off the market, we had a cash buyer (who offered less) and the other 3 were all the same offer, so we went to sealed bids. It made it much simpler for all concerned, less hassle and we still got a good price for the house.
For what its worth, you could set yourself maybe one further offer - with them to take it or leave it, but be prepared to walk away. There will be other houses.
Given there is no rush to sell, the cash buyer might be in a less strong position as the bank can afford to wait for a better offer.

[loopyloops]

Same happened to us, We upped our offer a little, and got the house. Then founds out that the other offer (twas a neighbour, it turned out) was much lower than our original.

[josla]

Good advice from you all - I've just been talking to DH about it - we really feel like we are being 'used' and we aren't really happy offering more. So I may ring tomorrow and say our offer stands but will be withdrawn if they can't get back to us within 5 days. Hopefully there will be another house if when we lose this one

[diggingintheribs]

There will be!

We are goig through the same. one house we are due to put sealed bid on tomorrow. other house we are playing it cool as seller is sticking to asking price but it really isn't worth it at that level.

So hard not to get emotional though!!