[Updated - resolved] Home purchase has turned into a bidding war...any realtors here?

[Garet Jax]

Originally posted by: Snatchface
I am not convinced here that they are at all being dishonest with me. I just don't know...and I don't know exactly how the process works. What the agent has told me is that since there are two offers each of us must put in one final bid and whoever's is highest will get the contract. I do not know if this is standard realty practice or what... I suppose that it is possible that they have been truthful with me. It would be easier for me to evaluate the matter if I had any understanding of how things are supposed to work under these circumstances.

Oh and to answer an earlier question we are not under contract yet. They (the realtor) have my deposit, contract and preapproval but the owner did not sign yet.

There is no standard practice is this area. The seller's agent will do what they can to make sure their client gets the most money. If I were the agent, I would not have a one time offer, I would try to get a real bidding war going. I would try to play each of the buyer's bids against each other.

Keep in mind, I used to live in San Francisco and now live in the Nothern Virginia/DC area. Both have been and are real estate hot beds. Real bidding wars happen every day.

 

[PingSpike]

Originally posted by: Snatchface

Originally posted by: rh71
how much of a hurry is she in to sell / move ?

She has all the time in the world...like I said she is just moving to a retirement home, not buying a new property. I, on the other hand, have precious little time to decide here.

Sounds bad dude. I'd be prepared to rent for awhile before I'd lock myself into a 30 year commitment like that in a short period of time. She knows she's got you by the balls, and now she's twisting them. I stand by my previous advice. Return a lower offer with some story about another house you like, and keep on looking. She may just be playing it cool and actually wants out of that house soon.

 

[The Sauce]

I have to say that I am having just the crappiest week ever. First this, then my phone line dies, then my DSL dies, then my PC completely bites the dust as well... and that's my vacation. I need a valium.

 

[rh71]

Let your wife pay the extra cash over $270k.

 

[rahvin]

I'm not going to tell you what to do. I'm going to tell you what I would do, I would tell them my initial offer is as high as I will go and that my financing is certain. The buyer can weigh the options and decide whether to take an uncertain offer over a guaranteed price.

 

[bozack]

yup, happens here all the time in MA....they will even tell you that you both make a one time final offer and then after that they can come back and do the same thing again for a bidding war as someone above suggested....

I also have had friends who were willing to pay 10k less than asking but had a heafty down payment denied because someone with no down but was willing to pay asking made a bid....pretty crappy but the realtors don't care, they only want their comission...personally I am thinking about taking the test and getting into it as it seems rather lucrative.

 

[rh71]

Originally posted by: bozack
personally I am thinking about taking the test and getting into it as it seems rather lucrative.

It's not really. My cousin does this in NY.

 

[TranceNation]

simple: Adjust your offer to $260k, expressing increase risk of dealing with shady people.

 

[Jeraden]

Not directly related to your situation, but when we were house shopping 2 years ago we ran into a similar situation. We negotiated a bit and came to a dollar figure and drew up our final bid. The seller then decided she wanted to drastically increase the amount of hand money involved. Like from 3k to 15k or something ludicrous. It just seemed stupid and shady since all hand money does is ensure you don't back out of the deal, which we had no intention of doing. We were having some second thoughts in general about the property at this point anyway, as the lady who owned the house was very difficult to work with. We ended up retracting our offer entirely and said we didn't want the house. This of course caused her to forget about the hand-money and she said fine, just the 3k and the previously agreed upon price. But we stuck to our statement that we were pulling out altogether and ended up buying a different house a few weeks later. The amusing thing was, her house stayed on the market for another 9 months and ended up selling at about 30k less than we offered. She screwed herself out of 30k by being too needy.

 

[DougK62]

Originally posted by: richardycc
since dont have an agent working for you, the seller agent is most likely want keep the whole ~6% commission, so tell him/her that you will call another agent in the area and get him into this deal too, and have him handle the deal for you so he will cut into his commission, etc... if you say that to him, I bet the seller agent will want to close this deal as soon as possible.

That's a good idea, but from my experiences it's hard to find a buyer's agent that will jump into the mess after you've already made contact with the seller's agent. If you decide to go this route you'd likely have to find a small company instead of one of the big ones to represent you (or appear to represent you).

 

[PingSpike]

Originally posted by: Jeraden
Not directly related to your situation, but when we were house shopping 2 years ago we ran into a similar situation. We negotiated a bit and came to a dollar figure and drew up our final bid. The seller then decided she wanted to drastically increase the amount of hand money involved. Like from 3k to 15k or something ludicrous. It just seemed stupid and shady since all hand money does is ensure you don't back out of the deal, which we had no intention of doing. We were having some second thoughts in general about the property at this point anyway, as the lady who owned the house was very difficult to work with. We ended up retracting our offer entirely and said we didn't want the house. This of course caused her to forget about the hand-money and she said fine, just the 3k and the previously agreed upon price. But we stuck to our statement that we were pulling out altogether and ended up buying a different house a few weeks later. The amusing thing was, her house stayed on the market for another 9 months and ended up selling at about 30k less than we offered. She screwed herself out of 30k by being too needy.

That story warms my heart.

 

[Kelemvor]

What city is this taking place in? First off you need to contact your local Realtors Association ASAP. There are very specific Ethical Rules that all Realtors have to follow. Is the person selling the house working with a Realtor or is it for sale by owner? If it's FSBO then there may not be much you can do. But if the seller is also working with a Realtor, then there are rules about what constitutes an accepted offer and that you can't revoke it at all.

But, definitely find your local association immediately (or just as Your Realtor what it is) and call them up saying you have a possible problem with buying a house.

EDIT: You're NOT using a Realtor? That's your first mistake. The other Realtor could be relying on the fact that you aren't and therfore as you ahve said, you have no idea what's going on. Always use a Realtor to buy a house, it doesn't cost YOU anything. It only costs the Seller a tiny percentage of the sale price.

Also if you can't find your local Realtors Association, you could just try your State Board or the NAR if nothing else. Either way the "Each person puts in one more bid and we take the highest" is NOT how it works. I know many Realtors and my wife is the VP at the Realtors Association here so I do have some experience with this....

 

[DougK62]

Originally posted by: FrankyJunior

EDIT: You're NOT using a Realtor? That's your first mistake. The other Realtor could be relying on the fact that you aren't and therfore as you ahve said, you have no idea what's going on. Always use a Realtor to buy a house, it doesn't cost YOU anything. It only costs the Seller a tiny percentage of the sale price.

Choosing to go without a buyer's agent is NOT a mistake for a lot of people!

 

[Kelemvor]

What reason would you possibly have to Not use a Realtor when Buying a house? There is no reason not to. They have access to all the properties before they ever hit the market, they know the business and know many things about what to look for and how things work, etc.

You don't save any money by not using a realtor but you do have the opportunity to get a lot more houses since they are the ones that have access to the actual databases with the houses for sale. The ones you find online are outdated instantly because many houses for sale never even make it into the system because they are sold by one Realtor in a company and bought by a different Realtor in the same company and the house enver get sout of their own system.

Not using a Realtor to SELL a house is one thing because you have to pay the fees to them when doing that. But not using one to BUY a house... I don't know of any reason why you wouldn't. Unless you were buying a house that was FSBO and you were buying it yourself... but then you still need to get a lawyer and such anyway if you want to protect your ass.

 

[Vic]

Originally posted by: DougK62

Originally posted by: FrankyJunior

EDIT: You're NOT using a Realtor? That's your first mistake. The other Realtor could be relying on the fact that you aren't and therfore as you ahve said, you have no idea what's going on. Always use a Realtor to buy a house, it doesn't cost YOU anything. It only costs the Seller a tiny percentage of the sale price.

Choosing to go without a buyer's agent is NOT a mistake for a lot of people!

I don't understand this. A selling (aka "buyers'") agent is free to the buyer. The seller pays their fees. FSBO may be a good idea for some educated sellers, but I would never advise a buyer to go without a realtor.

Anyway, never negotiate on any deal that you're not willing to just turn around and walk away from when it turns sour. I would politely inform the listing (aka "sellers'") agent that he has my offer and that the 11th hour is not the time to play games. If I didn't get the house, there are always others.

 

[Ornery]

"it's hard to find a buyer's agent that will jump into the mess after you've already made contact with the seller's agent."

Are you out of your mind? Any one of these money-grubbers will jump on this instantly! WTF do they have to do, besides a little paperwork they'd have to do anyway. They won't have to lift a finger to chauffeur them around to look at other houses or anything!


"It only costs the Seller a tiny percentage of the sale price."

Christ, $16,500.00 it's costing this seller. That's fvcking ludicrous! We FSBOed a house a couple years ago, and many agents were willing to negotiate their cut. Dragging a second agent into the mix is going to negate any deals like that.

 

[Homerboy]

You can also build the contingency into your offer that YOUR OFFER is only good for X number of days, weeks... hours. We did that with our first house as we KNEW that the seller would be getting more than their asking price (and what we offered) So I told them "you can sell it TODAY (preapproved) or gamble with some potential person" They jumped on it and signed on our offer right there and then (inspection etc pending obviously).

Call this jokers bluff, and if its not a bluff, either way screw him. Thats a joke, and I think possibly "illegal" as far as sellers are concerned. Have him arrange a meeting with "the other buyers" and you will bid in person for it.... heh I like that idea.

 

[Kelemvor]

Other thing you could do is call the seller directly (pretend you are someone else) and ask if they have gotten any offers on their house yet. Try to get info from the old lady to see if the Realtor is just trying to screw you over....

He could have specifically had the lady not sign the counter offer specifically just in case another offer came in. That's pretty low in my opinion and I'd tell everyone I knew not to deal with that person and/or his company again.

If the deal does fall through and that realtor works for a large company, I'd call the company and complain to them that you feel used and betrayed by that realtor and that you will not be doing any business with them in the future.

Might at least get him in trouble....

 

[Homerboy]

Might at least get him in trouble....

Sadly he/she probably wont "get in trouble as most corporations just care that you made the sale (and for more money too!) Im not saying all are underhanded and evil, but they may "scold" him then turn around and pat him on the back for a good sale.

ah... Corporate America.

 

[Kelemvor]

Realtor companies aren't as low handed as most people seem to think they are. Granted there are many Realtors out there who only want to make a quick buck and don't care about the results, but most of them like working with people, like helping people find their "Dream Home", etc.

A lot of people get into Real Estate because they think they can get rich quick... Most of them fid out the hard way that that's far from the truth.

 

[The Sauce]

Just an update here for everyone who helped. It turned out that the realtor was NOT screwing with me. Apparently there was another offer and both offers got turned over to the "trust" that the property was placed in when the husband-owner died. The bank I applied for a mortgage at was the executor of the trust, so unless they were lying too and it was a big elaborate conspiracy then everything was on the up and up.

So I did exactly what everyone here suggested that I DON'T do (except for a few) and increased my offer to 280K. Got called yesterday (3 days later) that the trust had accepted my offer. I realize that I probably overpaid, and since I went 5K over asking I will have to drop that $$ down up-front, but man I am glad it's over. It would have sucked to start a new job out of a rental apartment or worse.

And even more importantly the wife is happy...happy wife happy life.

 

[Ferocious]

What is YOUR final offer?

If it is 270K.....then make sure to tell them that.

And since your time is valuable.....tell them the offer will decrease $500 per day as you begin your search for another property.

 

[ElFenix]

Originally posted by: Vic
I don't understand this. A selling (aka "buyers'") agent is free to the buyer. The seller pays their fees. FSBO may be a good idea for some educated sellers, but I would never advise a buyer to go without a realtor.

Anyway, never negotiate on any deal that you're not willing to just turn around and walk away from when it turns sour. I would politely inform the listing (aka "sellers'") agent that he has my offer and that the 11th hour is not the time to play games. If I didn't get the house, there are always others.

free, as in the price of the house goes up to cover the other guy's commission

 

[Hammer]

did you watch apprentice? did you see how troy was playing people? the smartest guy was the one who told troy he was being scammed and walked away. BE THAT GUY!

 

[The Sauce]

Well it's over. Signed and all. Now just the inspection is left...and man am I going to rake them over the coals on that inspection. It better be spit-polished.