is this sounding okay or...?

[Babettescat]

House went on sale for 195k on Friday morning. Is only house on market at this price range in this part of the town.

Friday evening - 7 viewings. People pour in clashing into each other. Saturday - 6 viewings. 8 more scheduled for today and Monday.

2 offers come in last evening. Both chain free.

Offer 1 has offered the full asking price.

Offer 2 has heard this and offered asking price + 3k if we confirm we aren't taking shed and greenhouse with us (?!)

The estate agents are prancing up and down and say they will go through with the viewings till Monday but encourage us to accept one of the offers by end of Monday.

Is this for real? Is there something bizarre happening here? Just feeling a bit it's too good to be true?

What should we be wary of? We've had a mortgage DIP and an offer at asking price accepted on the house we are looking to buy and they've now listed it as under offer on the property websites giving us 2 exclusive weeks at the first instance to arrange our sale.

Just feeling a bit wary before feeling overjoyed....

Sounds very positive and you've got a great position as only house at that price. I would take estate agents advice and have all viewings on Monday but explain you have had offers above asking price. No need to accept on Monday but you could ask for best and final offers then accept by Tuesday. If you have a house you like under offer no need to wait around or delay!

As icicle said, stay calm, don't get greedy, make sure you consider the buyer's position (chain free is always good) and get EA to check for proof of funds and their DIP.

Posted too soon, fingers crossed for you!

We had a similar thing happen and ended up selling at £5k above asking.
If you have a good EA who knows the area well they should be able to advise you on which and when to accept an offer.
Do the first offer people know a higher offer has gone in as they may want to counter offer?

You can go to sealed bids by a particular day - say Tuesday or Wednesday. We got over the asking price by doing this.

The agents are very well known and established in the area and they say that both offers have DIPs and one had a sale fall through in the local area when the owners decided hey didn't want to leave the house after all. Apparently they have 65k sitting around in deposit money and a DIP and are a bit crushed after that sale fell through. They rang me yesterday to update with all this.

Thanks for your advice and glad to hear it sounds good. It just sounds so unreal...

Well here is an update (within 52 hours of the property going on sale)

Asking price was 195K.
We had 17 viewings in under 2 days.
Which resulted in 7 offers.

This was the breakdown -

190K - no chain
190K - chain with house sold subject to contract, DIP from bank
195K- no chain, still needs to find 5% deposit
195 K - chain, house on sale for 1 month no offers
198K - Offering 3K above asking price, currently renting, no chain, had a sale fall through in locality as sellers decided not to sell, was through current estate agents who confirmed this, have mortgage agreed and have submitted a handwritte letter expalining how much they want the property and the photocopies of all mortgage related documents.
201K - The highest offer, 6 K over asking price, chain, house on sale for 6 weeks, need to find 2.5% of deposit.

We have accepted the 198K at 11 am today and let the vendors of the property we have been accepted on know. Our sellers have no chain and our buyers also have no chain.

Now need to keep calm through what follows.

I definitely think you made the right decision!

Definitely right decision. Them submitting all mortgage related paperwork all give you hope that they will be organised and have all their ducks in a row ready to respond when inquiries are made, signed documents returned promptly, etc.
Good luck

Thank you! Obviously the 201 k made us doubt ourselves but no point being greedy and entering another chain/uncertainty

I'd have made the same choice as you. . Great news.

Definitely right decision.

Definitely the right choice. Those without deposit or not sold are not offers to even consider! Well done and hope all continues to go well with the sale

I know. Yet the sellers of the house we are buying accepted our offer and took house off listings and listed "under offer" before we had even put ours on sale. Thevery elderly couple selling must have been impatient to sell. The gentleman even said "so many came and viewed but nobody offered" to us when we viewed, and we swooped in.

Another vote for the £198K offer as no chain!

The EA are massively pressuring us to go with their conveyancers and solcitiors. Including dissing the ones we have instructed. Their solicitors have quoted a grand higher in fees and dont have the no completion no fee clause. We were quoted via econveyancer who quoted us for our previous purchase and we decided to go with one of the two firms they suggested. EA are calling up trying to cancel our instruction and move to their solicitors.

:( So hard to know what to do. Ive said we will stick with the ones we have instructed. EA did the same with trying to get us to use their mortgage brokers, and calling to change ours when we said we already have one.

You can go with whoever you want. I had the same thing with the EA on my first purchase (which subsequently fell through) and when I declined to use their in-house people, I then got a phone call in which the woman made all sorts of threatening comments and pretty much told me I was jeopardising the whole process. I told her to get stuffed.

It was bullshit; my conveyancers were a local firm, they were quick and thorough and £100 cheaper than the EA's lot.

Don't bow to the pressure, go with who you want.

And congratulations!

You can used whatever solicitors you want. If you have had good service elsewhere previously that's fine. I would tend not to go with EA solicitors, they will get a referral fee. Worth getting a local firm quote too, someone like econveyancing might turn out to be not as good as last time - conveyancing factories rarely are, certainly when you are buying.

It sounds great OP.
Go with a local firm you know. We did. We picked someone we could walk into the offices of so we could take in papers and sign stuff without playing tag with emails and phone calls.

Yes it s a local firm - their office is just a mile from our house. EA are a national chain as is their solicitor comoany - i have already had phone and emails about this from EA and i said I dont want to feel pressures as conveyancing firm authority (what are they called again the regulatory people) clearly state there should be no pressure. Then EA started saying "no pressure no pressure - but since we cannot change your mind" and sulked a while.

Definitely the right decision at this stage. They have the money and they are motivated. Good luck

Well done