Has anyone ever bought informal tender/sealed bids?

[miserableatwork]

I have found a property that I love, looked around this morning and have totally fallen for it. It is being sold by informal tender so viewing is for a month then anyone who would like to bid must do so on a certain date.

We can afford the property but would need to sell our current house first (could probably get it ready to be sold within about 2 weeks).
Has anyone got any experience of buying in this fashion or any tips on how to pip anyone else who may be interested to the post? Its very hard not to get caught up in the competitiveness of buying this way, they have given an "offers over" figure which is not helping!

The only thing you can do is offer what you are willing to pay. If you lose you won't have another chance to outbid. They also take down details such as your position and mortgage approval so if you haven't sold yet you will be in the worst position, compared to cash buyers/first time buyers etc.
Estate agents won't give much away as they rely on the panic and competitiveness to ramp the price up. We both sold and bought our house like this in the summer, it's crap but the only way to do it if you live in a competitive area.

Just to give you an idea we sold ours for 17k over the 'offers over' price and bought ours for 35k over.

We are trying to figure out what it might be worth to us, it needs updating and possibly some subsidence work done (which dh could do thankfully). It's starting price is 215k, next door is worth about 300k but it's modernised, has an extra bedroom, ensuite, new extension and downstairs loo.
It would probably be a house we would stay in for some time, ten plus years so it might be worth paying over if we can. Only problem is that then we won't have much left for revamping!!!
It's so hard not to get carried away!

Standard practice in Scotland, look around and get an idea of sold prices decide what you can afford and what would be your maximum comfortable bid and make it.
Everyone here makes really odd bids to try and get the edge e.g. £276001 rather than even numbers. In a climate where its not as common then this may still give you the advantage but Ive never purchased in England so might be more the norm now.

You have to accept that you make your best bid but someone else may make better and its completely out of your hands. Harder than negotiating I know.

Good luck if you go for it.