Did you have multiple offers on your property when selling?

[FiloPasty]

If so, how did you choose and did the estate agent lead you?

No, but if I did I wouldn't necessarily trust what the estate agent said. I'd look not only at the monetary offers but also the buyer's position (I presume this is obvious). Having had a chain collapse, a chain-free buyer is a dream. That said, our first time buyers are jittery nightmares so sometimes you just can't win!

Yes we did. We had 4 at full asking and 1 just under.

Estate agent was pushing me for a best and finals bidding war situation but I wasn’t interested in that. I got her to tell me what position everyone was in (FTB, Chain, AIP etc)

In the end I went with a FTB couple who were living with parents so could be flexible with
Timings and also has mortgage in principle and happy to submit their full mortgage application ASAP. They also had a decent deposit

At the end of the day they offered me most flexibility if the chain above is took time, seemed in a good financial
Position and also I was a FTB when I got that house so i wanted it to give another family their first house start

Yes

We moved at the end of june got a number of offers but the highest two were 3k apart

The estate agent told us to take the lower offer as the buyers were in a better position than the other buyers

We have a couple of times. Once we went with the highest. Once we didn’t, but instead went with the couple who seemed really keen, over the woman who’d already pulled out of one sale.
Our EA was quite surprised we didn’t go with the highest there.

I’m on the other side having missed out on 4 properties despite offering asking price or more.
A friend told me yesterday that as she knew the estate agent didn’t want to miss out on the commission on her sale (moving locally) they encouraged the sellers to take her offer. Makes me think even more that estate agents are snakes.

It’s tough. I think it depends what motivates people. For me I wanted a decent price and a couple who would love the home like I had.

In a different time or place I may have been more motivated by the money side and taken it for a bidding war

Yes it happened to me a few times now. Most recently I sold last summer and received 4 offers over asking. My agents took days to look into finances which I was very happy with as I was stung a few years ago when somebody pulled out of purchasing my house after 4 months due to lack of funds. On this occasion one of the couples withdrew their offer as they did not like the level of digging the EA did. In the end I went with the second highest as they were in the best position financially and they loved the house. It all went pretty smoothly.

I think next time I would ask to see the offers in writing. I trusted what the estate agents say.
I wonder if it’s better to put your offer in writing to the estate agents and put it through the door of the property.

That’s interesting Tango, I agree that they should look thoroughly rather than just trusting a word.

Yes, the EA gathered them all up, put them in writing with a brief explanation of position and left it with us.

I think we had ten offers out of 26 viewings over the two and a half days we let the EA show it — we did nothing to tart it up other than have it very thoroughly cleaned, and we priced competitively for footfall and a speedy sale. We went with the highest offer because he was also chain free and we were in a hurry to sell. I don’t think the EA told us anything.

@lannistunut

Yes, the EA gathered them all up, put them in writing with a brief explanation of position and left it with us.

Yes, this. Ours made a spreadsheet with names, amount offered, proof of finance, chain status etc, which was useful.

Yep, list of 4 offers with respective positions. The cash buyer appealed most but then stupidly said they might get a mortgage, so we changed to the highest offer but requiring a mortgage.

Yes, we had one at full price but they had a long chain that had already fallen through once before. We sold to the lower offer, but they were cash buyers, prepared to be flexible and agreed they would not ask for discount if survey came back with issues - they did later try to get discount on an issue that came up, it wasn’t a major thing, but we said no and they didn’t push . They were lovely actually and I was happy we sold to them even at lower price. The other people went so far as putting notes through our door themselves to try to persuade us to sell to them- and leaving us gifts on doorstep. We knew where they lived so just took them back to theirs and left on their doorstep. 🤔. Strange times for buying and selling currently!

Yes , we had multiple offers when selling When buying, we've also been competing with multiple offers. This is normal in the Scottish system . All offers should be in writing from the buyer's appointed Scottish lawyer. (Verbal / telephone offers not acceptable. )

 The  selling estate agent doesn't  decide which offer to accept,  the seller does.

Sometimes its the highest offer ( if one is way ahead of the rest ) but if there are several offers close together, other factors come in to play.

A cash buyer with no property to sell, is more attractive than one whose property hasn't sold yet. Someone in an English property chain would be seriously unattractive.

Yes we had 7

Yes, we had 3 full asking price offers.

The estate agent guided us but ultimately we chose.

One was an international buyer and we felt they'd be a bit complicated so didn't pick them. Another had a mortgage whilst the 3rd was a cash buyer and chain free, and we went with her as it was the simplest transaction.

She needed to move quickly so we were homeless for 6 weeks but that was ok for us, we just wanted the place sold so we could buy our next one.

We went to best and final offers. I think there were about 11 that came in. Estate agent vetted viewings before hand so all were in a position to proceed. They recommended we go with the highest bidder - which we did.

We had three offers just below asking. One was too low and the estate agents got the other two up to asking. One then went slightly higher, but we went with the other one as they were chain free (turned out they weren't, as they were selling another house, an unrelated transaction, but they realised they didn't want to pay the stamp duty on it). The estate agents were very helpful and kept it all together for us. We were then on the other end, as cash chain free buyers, the local estate agents phoned us up all the time!

We had 13 offers. A couple under asking price but most were over and a few were 15%+ over. We didn't go with the highest offer but with the highest deposit in the end to ensure financial viability.

Not this time around but one time I had so much interest we went to best and final. I had three offers put in. House was on at £945k, one offer was £935k, one was £975k and other just over £1m. Each wrote a letter about how much they loved the house and area etc which I discounted.
Lowest offer too low. Mid offer they were under offer through same estate agents and a few weeks in to the process. Top offer they had yet to get an offer on their own house. I think they tried to dazzle me with such a large number. I went with the middle offer..

Yes. We had 3 offers, all over the asking price. We went with the highest, and he was also a FTB so no downward chain.
It was a no-brainer for us.

Been in this position several times in Scotland.

Always been a case of assessing each offer.

First time we took the second offer as first offer had been tied up with a lot of stupid conditions like an earlier entry date that I really didn't want to meet

Second time we took the highest offer which put us in a chain rather than the second offer from the cash buyers because we judged that the chain wouldn't be problematic and we wanted the money!