Being pushed into a double bidder situation and pulling your offer

[boomtown]

Its been confirmed that the property did not go under contract at the weekend. Vendor is motivated...

 

[Punchy]

Just had a similar situation this weekend Boomtown. Believe me, other buyer didnt exist. We had looked at this house 3 days before auction, when they said they had an investor interested who wouldnt be back in town till day of auction. Night before auction we had another look and lo there is the investor looking too. We spoke to tenants who said we were the only ones who had inspected the whole marketing time. Day of auction there are two other bidders, one constantly on phone. We registered, asked no questions, guy at open says are there any special conditions. Another guy (presumably the agent who had bought in the 'investor') read out the conditions, totally and only looking at us ???
Then when they started the bidding and we didnt bid, the investor looked at us and said, did we want to bid ????? Said we would leave it to him, so he opened, the other guy on the phone then shot it up $40K ???? (who does that??), then the agent came round to us and said we should bid, then the auctioneer actually said to us ' you are registered why arent you bidding ??? I said no I think you (thevinvestor) own it at this stage. They didnt like us at all. It was passed in on a vendor bid - surprise, surprise. We will sit and wait till they meet the market (there is no market here at this time!)

Nice work. I particularly liked "I said no I think you (thevinvestor) own it at this stage" also I loved that you'd got the inside goss from the tenents.

 

[Player]

Hi Boomtown,

after two decades playing the property game, it has finally sunk in that the only rule to remember when negotiating and transacting real estate is ...that there are no rules.

I offer very short term timelines for a vendor to accept or reject my written offer and contract all the time. It puts the pressure on them. You were well within your rights to do the same. I'm assuming that you had it in writing that your offer was to lapse at the time you describe.

It does appear you have a motivated vendor now, maybe there was another buyer and maybe there wasn't.

If you're still keen on this one, take some deep breaths, push your chest out and march into the agents office and smile whilst you state that you are now ready to submit another offer......if you get the same response, follow grossreal's pearls of wisdom.

While you're at it (if this is a franchise) write a strong letter to the MD or chairman of the franchise firm and also a letter to the REIQ, expressing your treatment by one of their members (I'm assuming they are).

Send copies of these to the vendor whilst you negotiate with them. Better still hand deliver them. This may give them grounds to dismiss the marketing agent and with-hold commission due to not acting in their best interests.

You've got to wonder how naive the agent is to not grasp the quick sale, albeit at a reduced price to lock in their commission. Usually it would have been the interstate fly-in (assuming there was one) that gets gazzumped

Thanks for sharing your experience.