Sealed bids - any experience/tips?

[Dottydot]

Aaarrgghhhhhh. So the house we really want is going to sealed bids - deadline of 5pm tomorrow.

Never done this before - any top tips for putting a bid in? I don't think we're going to get it as we can't offer the asking price, but the people buying our house are first time buyers, so we should be able to move quickly. We've also got our mortgage agreed.

Anything else you think I should add - is it worth making it 'personal' - it's a family home, so should I mention ds's or is that just too twee?

Sealed bids, what a nightmare. I live in Sheffield which is the only place to do bidding outside Scotland.

Unfortunately, the only advice I have is go for the highest bid you can afford. Also as far as my experince goes, a sealed bid is just a price, not too sure about adding in other details.

You have my complete sympathy, we ended up paying £50,000 over the asking price due to shitty sealed bids

We just bought a house using sealed bids in West Yorkshire. There was a massive amount of interest in the house. 30+ viewing on the first day!

Your circumstances are very important. If you're not in a chain that's excellent because there may well be people with a higher offer but a long and risky chain following them.

We offered £20,550 over the "offers over" price and were the highest bidders by quite a stretch. Following that we were able to negotiate the price back down a bit after the survey threw up a few things and the sellers messed us about by withdrawing it from the market for a week then re-offering us it, so we asked them to stump up the stamp duty.

DH insisted we offered the extra £500 over what we thought as he figured everyone else would offer round numbers and the £500 would give ups the edge!

You've nothing to lose by making it personal.

Good luck.

Sorry, should have said "the extra £550".

Oh, yes your circumstances are really important. Sorry I thought you were talking about mentioning your dc's!

Not sure you need to mention them, but where you are as regards a chain, or mortgage are important.

Also agree with not offering round numbers, go for something a bit unusal

OK, i've made it an odd number, mentioned our agreed mortgage and that first time buyers are buying our house.

At least it'll all be over by 5pm tomorrow...

We had to provide proof of funding for our mortgage. Can you do that? A letter from the building society?

Also proof that your house is under offer would be good.

Go for the highest price you can afford/are willing to pay. That's all you can do. Basically, he house will go to the person offering the highest price and in the most favourable position ie. chainfree. Worth mentioning that your buyers are first time and so no chain going back that way. Ditto to what Doctor said.

You got it ?!

YES!!!!!!!! Can't believe it - feel more nervous now than I did before I knew..!

We were sure we wouldn't get it because we couldn't go up to the asking price (and apologies for anyone bored enough to read my other thread as well - I've put the same thing on there). But they liked the bit we put about our ds's and looking forward to playing in the garden - it's beautiful and they'd marketed it as a house for a growing family!

Am so excited - it's a fantastic house - needs tons of work doing on it but it's got lots of space and over the years we could hopefully extend it - or at least plan to, which is almost as good!

Ohhhhhhhhhhh ! I'm thrilled for you . How lovely. Any idea how fast they can move ?

Don't know - we need to chase our buyers now - make sure that goes quickly - should do because they're first time buyers renting at the moment. As soon as they've booked the survey on our house, we'll book one on the house we're buying (I think??).

Oh. My. God. Very scary indeed. I feel the need to make lots of lists. Have already started writing dp a list of things to do tomorrow - she'll love that...