Sealed bids - HELP!

[silviaeclair]

Looking for some advice from others who have experience of this. We're buying a house and we're in a bidding war with another family. It's already gone over asking. We're now in a situation where we have to put in final offers in sealed bids by Monday. I really don't know how to approach this. We can afford potentially to go up quite a bit more than we have, but I'm worried that we'll be paying way too much. And we might lose money when we eventually come to sell it. Plus the market looks like it could be dropping. It's a house that's been renovated and extended a lot to a really high standard, so it's pretty impossible to tell how much it should go for based on other houses in the area. Does anyone have any advice?

Our £555 offer has been turned down. That's that.

But I did get some insider info from the estate agent.

It turns out the vendors know the other buyer. The estate agent thinks we were just being used as a stalking horse all along to get the other buyer to maximise their offer.

I thought they'd offered less, but apparently they offered the same. They also came up to £555 to match us when I made the last offer. Apparently they are incredibly bitter about it going up so much!

House buying and selling is a grim business isn't it. All that stress and worry and they were just using us anyway.

At least I now know it wasn't my rowdy children that put the vendor off us!

Today was always going to be a tough day for us - it was my first day back at work (in a new job) after maternity leave and my son's first full day at nursery. Thanks to the vendors I hardly slept last night and worried myself stupid all day about a house we were never going to get anyway.

Anyway, thanks for the support on here. It's good to vent. And fingers crossed for the next one. (Or for this one to wing it's way back to us through karma!)

OP I wouldn't be inclined to trust the EA, they've played games with both couples and they're now trying to keep you on side after you've lost out. Keep your cards close to your chest with EAs, they're not (usually) trustworthy.

Hope tomorrow is a better day. Well done on getting through it

Sorry to hear about this OP. Our house went to sealed bids last year and we stuck at the offered price (which was 40k over asking). We also had to write a letter stating why we wanted the house. The other offer was 5k lower than ours but the seller's liked our letter and so went with us. It's an odd process and so stressful!

@silviaeclair it's a horrible business when it doesn't work out. But don't stress - we actually "won" in a sealed bid situation. We offered +£25k on the asking price (which was definitely overvaluing the house but we loved it and had been let down on a previous purchase so were getting desperate).
In the end the vendors/EA messed us around over a couple of months and we pulled out. We ended up buying a much better house on a much better street for a similar amount. At the time [when we pulled out] I was gutted but now I'm so pleased that it didn't work out.
Keep positive

I'm so sorry you lost the house . It feels horrible to be used in this way - I really hate this aspect of both job hunting and house buying.

I'm glad, however, you had a rational explanation that wasn't personal. Being told someone 'didn't like you so much' is horrible, and you sound far too lovely for that to be true. Knowing that there is already a relationship in place explains things.

Thanks Whiskyowl! You're right - I am very lovely!

I'm getting over this house by drinking a lot of wine and staring pointedly at it when I walk past. That'll show 'em!