how on earth do you judge what to bid?

just go the top you can afford and hope for the best?

make a guess based on a %?

we have sold our house, and sale is pretty far progressed but not exchanged yet.
We are pretty desparate to move. The type of house we need are few and far between.

I saw another poster's suggestion further down the board to get a friend to myserty shop the estate agents to try to weedle some info. The estate agent have been pretty forthcoming on bids todate, but from here on it's closed.

2 people I know have lost out on closed bidding, one for a small amount, other for a big sum.

Just hate this system - but need to move !
-

do you know closed bidding has a flaw ;)

say the house is £100k....

bids go in for 2 weeks....

by now its at say £113,000....

closed bids, highest by the friday coming gets the house....

if you put in £130k......

there is NO legal commitment to that, as its dependent on the valutation by YOUR mortgage company, and of course YOUR survey, so you can always deal with the figures afterwards. Let the valuers decide what its worth. Afterall you can't pay what you can't mortgage. If the house is only valued at £120k who in their right mind would pay the £130k..?

I know its a pain in the a55 for vendors, but if you want closed bids, then you have to expect all that it could entail. To add to that the agent only works in the interests of the client, and not the purchaser, so dont expect favours.

Im not advocating this view, as alot can depends on your circumstances, chain free, FTB etc.... its just a possibility ;)

Hi, bit of an intrusive post but more info would be handy :

What have you sold for as percentage of asking?
Did you have closed bids too?
Do you have a chain ready to roll?
Is the chain complete above if they like you?
How much do you want this house?
Why is it special?

Theres a world of difference between a house that a recently divorced couple HAVE to sell coming on the market and an old lady whos just gone into care and the family are trying to screw as much cash a poss from the deal.

Whats the score with this house?

If you are proceedable and its the divorce offer less, if its the old lady and you havent completed a chain
(or even completed) and you love it offer more.

Naturally the above assumes vendor and agent are moral and honest :)

This is not always the case.

We liked a house last year.
We had not sold so were not able to complete.
The vendor had to mave ASAP thus wanted a quick sale.
We knew for a fact there was only one other interested party who had inherited cash and did not have to rely on a sale.

I can guess which agent is dealing with the house you like and its must be the same one we dealt with :)

As we couldnt move quick we offered asking at sealed bids and lost out - fair enough we were not traumatised.

The thing is Sheffield is a small town/city.
We met the couple who actually bought it at a party recently.
As they had cash and no house to sell they had offered asking too.
They got a call at close of business saying the other party (ie me) had offered 20k more and if they matched this they could have it as the vendor liked them and wanted to move quickly so they did.

Thus they paid 20k more than they had to.

I cant belive the agent would be so corrupt for 1 percent commission on 20k which is 200 quid, but I guess if they sell enough houses the 200 quids all add up.

I sweear the above is all true.
Sorry I cant be more specific but the buyer has taken legal advice and as Im also fed up with all of this corruption in the Sheffield property market I have agreed to make a statement.

Watch this space.

d

Originally posted by ukdavvy
Im also fed up with all of this corruption in the Sheffield property market I have agreed to make a statement.

Watch this space.

d

:clap: Absolute class :clap:

I wonder if it's the same agent whose area manager told me I had 'asked for too many' details for different houses :suspect:

We never get involved with agents.

If you can't sit in somebody's livingroom and negotiate a price between you - eye to eye - walk away. Box the agent out, but keep them informed. Forge a relationship with your buyer/vendor - It's safer :thumbsup:

We liked one house, but the vendor wouldn't look us in the eye, and wouldn't discuss business with us. We walked away. She had I LOVE GAZZUMPING tattooed on her forehead in fire :twisted:

hi ukdavvy

good on you for making a statement about the estate agents.
were they friends of the vendor?
why wd they do something so immoral for extra £200 commission, unless they are totally blase about getting away with it? it seems huge prefessional risk to take.

sealed bidding seems like very expensive game of pin the tale on the donkey.
then keep hearing that final bids aren't that final.

hope you found a better house for decent price too.
-

Im doing a little forum poll on this, please feel free to vote.

Not sure it will help but my house was up for 65k, its was bid up too 69k then went to final offers. I got on well with the estate agent who could not tell me what the other highest bid was but was able to "point me in the right direction" As a result I think I matched the other bid of 75k but I had no chain and got the house. Over all it was 10k over the asking price.. this was 2 years ago and in Burngreave.

b-k

Hi, Im eventually settled and have no plans to move for 40 years which is why Im happy to help put a few noses out of joint.

I actually do have a serious point to make here.
The bidding system is a weirdly Sheffield kind of thing, I havent heard of it anywhere else.
You must admit that it causes lots of stress and I still cant believe the agents inflate it for the sake of 200 quid commission but like I said it happened to me.

I must also say that we as a whole must accept responsibility.
If we didnt all expect 1000's over what we put it on the market for and instead accepted the first offer at asking then it would die so greed from sellers must play a major part.

OK bit of a ramble - please be patient.

But if a house is valued at say 150,000 and it goes for 180,000 then does that mean the agent that valued it is incompetent? I mean a 20% error margin is a bit rubbish isnt it? I know NASA work to less :) but 20%, your pulling my leg, and you can only assume they dont know what theyre doing, and Im serious here not joking.

The other strategy is to put in an offer of 30% over to win the house, then get it valued, as you must, by the mortgage valuation survey correctly.
I know of a few people who have bid up 30% then had the mortgage company say its not wirth it.
At this point the seller is usually committed in a chain so if you reduce your offer appropriately (gazunder) then you end up paying less.

Its high risk but at least you get the satisfaction of potentially paying what its actually worth as valued by a surveyor with years of professional training as opposed to an estate agent who cant get the price right in the first place.

Cheers

d

Hi D

glad you're settled now.
Our house move has been dragging on and on since last Sept :(

we sold our house to 1st procedable bidder.

house selling isn't purely about highest bids, depends if they've got a chain themselves or cash.

if a survey brings up serious problems with the house, which the estate agent hasn't factored into valuation, is seems reasonable to ask for reduction or for the work to be done.
-

Originally posted by ukdavvy


But if a house is valued at say 150,000 and it goes for 180,000 then does that mean the agent that valued it is incompetent? I mean a 20% error margin is a bit rubbish isnt it? I know NASA work to less :) but 20%, your pulling my leg, and you can only assume they dont know what theyre doing, and Im serious here not joking.

The other strategy is to put in an offer of 30% over to win the house, then get it valued, as you must, by the mortgage valuation survey correctly.
I know of a few people who have bid up 30% then had the mortgage company say its not wirth it.
At this point the seller is usually committed in a chain so if you reduce your offer appropriately (gazunder) then you end up paying less.

Its high risk but at least you get the satisfaction of potentially paying what its actually worth as valued by a surveyor with years of professional training as opposed to an estate agent who cant get the price right in the first place.

Cheers

d

Which is of course, more or less what I said :)

interesting comments but dont always blame the agents its usually the people that are selling that get too greedy

i have also recently moved back to sheffield (2 years ago at the height of property hysteria in sheffield)

I moved back from london and thought all the agents in sheffield were a nightmare.

going for way above asking prices (obviously a sales tactic to create interest).

i found them to be incompetent and down right arrogant but we all know that don't we:D

also their communication was abysmal:o

but i agree that everyone gets greedy, so who can blame them when estate agents of sheffield encourage it.

:rant: :rant: :rant: :rant:


rant over:thumbsup:

Originally posted by greensheff
interesting comments but dont always blame the agents its usually the people that are selling that get too greedy

this is such a bizarre idea, that selling your house for the maximum you can get is somehow greed. Maybe you would like to give your house away as the ultimate altruistic act?

Originally posted by Cyclone
this is such a bizarre idea, that selling your house for the maximum you can get is somehow greed. Maybe you would like to give your house away as the ultimate altruistic act?

But, if everyone sells for the maximum using every trick in the book, you just get left with a situation where everyone has paid too much. Then there is a bigger danger of negative equity when the market corrects.

The only winner is the estate agent who has bumped up their fees.

Originally posted by sham71
But, if everyone sells for the maximum using every trick in the book, you just get left with a situation where everyone has paid too much. Then there is a bigger danger of negative equity when the market corrects.

The only winner is the estate agent who has bumped up their fees.

you are assuming that there is a "correct" value. There isn't. Value is whatever people are prepared to pay, so if everyone pays -in your words- 'too much', then that has just redefined the value of housing.
The danger with corrections to the market comes whenever people generally downgrade the value that they attach to the commodity, or when a regional variation is brought back into line with the general market.
The latter won't apply to Sheffield as prices are generally lower than average across the country, and the former is in no way affected by how aggressive vendors are when selling in the past.
If you sell your house for less than you can possibly get for it, you are not doing the economy or the housing bubble a favour, all you are doing is a favour for the buyer and a disservice for yourself.
Basic economics.

Well, as far as I'm concerned, there IS a bubble.

I have based all my property dealings in the last year on this view. People paid too much for the houses I had to sell, but thats not my problem. I just hope they didn't take out 100% mortgages.

Inflation, unemployment and interest rates are all on the way up. That will lead to a correction in consumer spending and the housing market. Anyone who thinks Sheffield will escape because our houses are below the average needs to get their rose tinted lenses checked.

Originally posted by sham71
Well, as far as I'm concerned, there IS a bubble.

I have based all my property dealings in the last year on this view. People paid too much for the houses I had to sell, but thats not my problem. I just hope they didn't take out 100% mortgages.

Inflation, unemployment and interest rates are all on the way up. That will lead to a correction in consumer spending and the housing market. Anyone who thinks Sheffield will escape because our houses are below the average needs to get their rose tinted lenses checked.

even if there is a bubble, that doesn't mean that houses are actually worth less at the moment than they sell for.

gold is currently worth $400/g (i'm making the figures up, so don't bother to go and check), that's it's value, it's no good saying it's a bubble, please sell me some gold for $300/g.
Tomorrow the market might crash and be worth $150/g, it's no good complaining or trying to sell gold at $400/g at that point.

Value is whatever the market currently will bear. Nothing more, nothing less.

If you are sure that it's a bubble, good for you, that doesn't alter todays value, and isn't a reason that you should sell for less than the amount someone will pay.
Inflation is flat, unemployment is going down, the only thing you're right about is that interests rates are slowly rising. However they are still incredibly low.
The housing market has already slowed to a virtual standstill, but as yet the crash that has been predicted continously for over 2 years is yet to materialise.

And finally, in the 2 historical corrections of the housing market, if you look at sheffield you'll find that it was much less severe than the rest of the country, specifically because the increases had also been much smaller. This still applies today, so there is little reason to fear a huge crash locally.

sorry, but you cannot compare the value of an asset such as property with that of a commodity such as gold. Commodity prices are set by the market, so that is the price people are willing to sell for.

If estate agents sold gold, they would tell you that the price was $500 when it was actually $400 and some mug somewhere would buy it for $500. Doesn't mean the value is $500.

And if you think with $50 oil and rising raw material prices, that inflation is flat, you are mistaken.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/4497601.stm

And as for unemployment falling, that is wrong too.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/4439657.stm

Then you say interest rates are incredibly low. This just means that when they move back to the long term trend (or above) it will cause more of a shock to the housing market.

Originally posted by sham71
sorry, but you cannot compare the value of an asset such as property with that of a commodity such as gold. Commodity prices are set by the market, so that is the price people are willing to sell for.

If estate agents sold gold, they would tell you that the price was $500 when it was actually $400 and some mug somewhere would buy it for $500. Doesn't mean the value is $500.

And if you think with $50 oil and rising raw material prices, that inflation is flat, you are mistaken.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/4497601.stm

And as for unemployment falling, that is wrong too.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/4439657.stm

Then you say interest rates are incredibly low. This just means that when they move back to the long term trend (or above) it will cause more of a shock to the housing market.

commodity prices are set by the market, agreed.

How do you think house prices are set, by the fairies?

unemployment - 1 quarter's figures do not set a trend. It may well be a seasonal blip and employment is still extremely low either way. If the next quarters figures also show a rise then i'll concede the point.

inflation - the article supports my point, interest rates may have to rise to curb inflation. So they haven't yet, my contention is correct. Inflation is <1.8% currently, and the gloomy article you found still maintains it at no more than 2% for 05 (within the labour golden rule target).

Finally - I wasn't arguing that there isn't a bubble, I was arguing that selling your house for the maximum you can get is not greed, it's just common sense. If people were bidding for something on ebay, would you stop the auction when it reached a 'fair' price, or would you let the market determine the value? I know which I would do.