I am trying to buy somewhere at the moment in a city that has seen ridiculous price increases and limited stock. However, the problem is not so much the prices as the fact that properties seem to be selling for way over the asking price. I have only bid on a couple so far but both times my own offer was over the asking price (not by a huge amount but a bit) yet I was told that there were others that were significantly over so obviously the sellers went with them. It's pretty frustrating because, as someone who will have a mortgage, I can't be offering massive amounts over because the bank will just refuse to lend much if they think it's overvalued. And I don't really fancy paying way over the odds for something (these are fairly modest properties I am looking at).
The other thing is that when I look at the actual sold prices for the roads I am looking at, these seem much more realistic and in line with what the house was valued at (on Zoopla, the original listing is stored so you can see what it was on for). Even ones from 2021 (the most recent ones are around September). I've only seen one sold one that's 40k over original asking price. Some are 5k or so over, many are asking price. So what happens to these sky-high offers? Do they barter it down once they get the survey? Surely EAs would warn sellers that this might happen. Or is this thing a new thing so that if I look in a couple of months once the land registry records are updated, it will look really different?
Sorry for general moan but I am feeling really fed up at the moment and as if I will never find anywhere at this rate.