Can anyone help me and explain what the difference is between these two very unhelpful practices.

As I recall, they're similar in a lot of ways, but 'sealed bids' involves you submitting your offer in a sealed envelope. It's standard practice in Scotland. The envelopes are all kept unopened until a specified time. The estate agent has no idea who has offered what until that time.

Best and Finbal is just that. The agenst want you final and best offer :D

I wont get dragged into that if buying. I'll have my highest bid in mind but wont go above that. I'd hope most vendors would be honest and keep thinsg simple.

I think if you plan to buy a slightly larger house in S7,S10,S11 and S17 you just have to lump it - we've put offers on quite a few houses and all went to BAFO or Sealed Bid. Minimum of four buyers for each house!

All complete rubbish!!!

Why oh why oh why does Sheffield still insist on beleiving the bullsiht from the local agents that its different from the rest of the country?

Everywhere else you put a house on at what its roughly worth and all of your offers come in at a few quid lower.

Here you stick it on at whatever they tell you and you expect to sell it at 20% over asking.

Stupid.

But seriously if an agent values it at a figure then how stupid are you in paying 1000's over.

Lets face it the local agents are all consumate professionals and can value a house to within 10p cant they?
If they cant then why ask the idiots in the first place?

Grrrrr

I just dont believe the hype up here.

i am a home owner.
I took a year to buy a house cos this bidding system is ridiculous, unfair, crooked and just downright not dome anywhere else.

Cheers

d

UKdavvy, I utterly agree with you, and if I thought I could buy a house I wanted without going through the bidding hoo-hah, then believe me I would. It's a bit of a catch-22 though as no single estate agent is going to change matters unilaterally - it would be commercial suicide.

Bridgeblox is right, although in principal you can moan and moan about BAFO as much as you want too, if you want a house what choice is there. We have looked at several houses all have gone to best and final. If you dont go to BAFO you wont get the house, simple as that, unless like you say you are prepared to wait a year which personally i cant do.

I have also started to notice that estate agents have undervalued a few properties (in one case two very similar properties on the same street, one selling at 120k, the other at 110k) to get people through the door to get bidding up. BAFO is annoying as a buyer, but as a seller its benefits you doesnt it, so why, as a seller, wouldnt you want to do it??

Im not saying you are wrong UKdavvy and Youwhatref, but if you see a house you really like and are going to live in for some time are you seriously telling me you would not consider it if it went 10k over asking? If you wouldnt then someone else always will so good luck househunting.

best and final offer is the fairest way of giving all the bidders an equal chance of getting the property. When you have 4 or 5 or even more people bidding on a property, and they are all keen, the process can go on and on, each bidder upping their bid by a few hundred or so,setting a best and final date makes each bidder decide on a price they will pay, set in down on paper(sealed bid) or just to the agent, it may seem unfair to those who lose out by just a few pounds, but where do you stop,?the vendor often finds it hard to decide between offers when theres only a few pounds difference between them, and all the offerees are in similar positions.Agents get a lot of stick, and people never seem to think that sometimes the vendors want to market their properties at a higher price than the valuer suggested, thats why sometimes you can see similar properties with different prices, its not always the agents undervaluing or overvaluing.The property will reach a price that people are willing to pay, be it by sealed bids or best and final offers.(i do not work for an estate agent by the way)

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I don't quite uinderstand how you think the system works everywhere else differently from Sheffield. Just that we're more honest about what's actually happening.

In other parts of the country, the house goes on the market at a valulation and then everyone puts in lower offers, it might or might not go over the asking price, but the house still goes to the one who is prepared to offer the most?

Even if the seller takes the first offer at the asking price and then someone else comes along and offers more, that's what they used to call gazumping. At least with the Sheffield way, there's no gazumping ... an offer isn't accepted until everyone's sure they've reached their limit. At that point, a decision is made as to who gets the property and is usually adhered to.

I can't see what's wrong with that. Owners want the best price for their properties, that's obvious - and you would be just the same when it's your turn to sell.

why dont they get the final bidders to come into the office and sit down in a allocated room and do a best and final auction you can then bid in the room open against the other buyers and its done and dusted alls fair...........you know how much you lost it by...

they do do that letting, it's called an auction and they have them all the time...:rolleyes:

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In other parts of the country, the house goes on the market at a valulation and then everyone puts in lower offers, it might or might not go over the asking price, but the house still goes to the one who is prepared to offer the most?

The point is that it goes on at a valuation.

We can safely say that all of the local agents are skilled professionals :) so when these honest folk pop round to suggest a valuation then that must be what its worth isnt it?

Therefore if you want to pay more than a professional property person says its worth that makes you bonkers?

If a car was valued at 5000 by a garage would you pay 6k for it if there was another buyer?

Of course the whole system is maintained by surveyors doing mortgage valuations and confirming that the correct value is actually whatever it went for not what the agent said it was worth. As long as this is maintained the system will continue.

It will be interesting if it doesnt tho.
Especially with some surveyors coming under pressure especially with new build valuations.



d

Maybe I'm being a bit naive or ignorant but surely it is up to the seller how they want the agent to go about selling the property? Or will the agents here refuse to do it any other way?

The point is that it goes on at a valuation. Therefore if you want to pay more than a professional property person says its worth that makes you bonkers? If a car was valued at 5000 by a garage would you pay 6k for it if there was another buyer?

The difference between a car and a house is that there's probably only the one house, there are hundreds of cars. If there is more than one person interested in it someone is going to get the property and it's probably going to be the person that is prepared to offer the most. How does that differ except for the fact that in this area we say we're open to offers and in the other areas they pretend there's a fixed price?

If you want a house you can be sure of and at a fixed price, buy one on a new estate off plan. Easy peasy and you probably get extras with it too.

I was shocked at how they sell houses here. Normally, you put in an offer and they tell you within 48 hours if the vendor accepts or not. Not here! Bought almost 2 years ago. I had to keep chasing the agents, who obviously want to sit on houses to see how much commission they can get. i was in a hurry to buy, selling a flat, and my job contract running out, and went to sealed bids 3 times. Seems to be a very underhand way of doing things...

Seemed to be at least 6 buyers to each property. Thought things were slowing down now.

And in answer to the original question, I don't think there is a difference between sealed or "blind" bids, and Best & Final Offer. I think it's the same thing.