Anyone else being constantly outbid by cash buyers?

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Trying to buy a house in Cambridgeshire, a wide area as well not just one specific place. Four times now we have been outbid by a cash buyer.

The last one we had an offer accepted until a cash buyer came a long and made a much bigger offer we can’t match.

is this just a run of bad luck or are we doing something wrong?

I don't know where is Cambridgeshire you are buying but near me there are nearly 100 houses for sale just in my small town!

Some have been on for over a year and are now at auction at a very low price.

So not near me!

Anywhere around Cambridge, Haverhill, Newmarket, Sawston, Royston etc…

need to be able to get a family of four into the city every day

Yeah, I'm up near the top of Cambridgeshire.

You could get into Cambridge each day but it would take time!

Are you trying to get a really good deal or offering close to the asking price? It may be that your area is one where properties generally achieve close to the asking price, I don’t know.

We have been offering the asking price or extremely close - in the last one we offered £5k over.

Anything half decent within touching distance of Cambridge is very popular, so not surprised you are getting outbid. It’s a different story the further away you get from Cambridge.

Have you tried looking north? Ely/ Cottenham/ Wilburton/ Haddenham seem slower

Can you make your offers contingent on the seller removing the property from the market and not allowing further viewings?

Could it be that sellers are (understandably) choosing the cash buyers over those in a chain or needing a mortgage, rather than you being outbid on the price? A lot of cash buyers would be investors who don't normally overpay for properties in the way someone who'd fallen in love with it for themselves would.

I think cash buyers are often preferred even if not the highest bid. We got our house ( not the highest bid ) because we were cash buyers. Not investors , it was a house we wanted. It just takes a lot of stress out of the whole thing for the vendors to have a cash buyer.

Sorry accidentally posted on wrong thread

North is a lot slower.

You can get a lot for your money in Ely or the villages around but if you have to get the whole family into Cambridge it's not great.

You can get the train though and there is the Cambridge North station. The A10 is not great at rush hour so driving is not fun. Ely has good schools however.

What's your budget op? How many bedrooms? What part of Cambridge do you need to get into everyday?

We’re selling and I’d be nervous about selling to anyone who needs a buyer for their house as so many sales are falling through (a third). I have two unproceedable offers on my house at the moment by people trying to sell their houses and I’m hoping a FTB or cash buyer gets in before them.

Are all of these "outbid" situations coming from the same estate agent? If you had an offer accepted, then it should have been taken off the market and not being shown to cash buyers. I'd be pretty effed off with an estate agent that was sending viewers round once I'd started that purchase process.

This is tough and I feel for you. But personally, I will always make sure I have sold my own house before buying another- so I have cash in hand and am not in a chain, as it does give you a massive advantage.