Sealed Bid sales

This is really just a bit of a rant really.

A house went online yesterday, I got the sect 32 within an hour, it ticked the boxes and I made a written offer within 20 mins of receiving the sect 32, and agreed to sign contract first thing this morning with my offer. I confirmed with the agent at the time it was for sale by "private sale" method. He said for sale from 360-400k. I made my formal offer first thing this morning by signing contract/with my offer etc.
Then I was informed I would know this arvo as it was a sealed bid...
Sealed bid is a complete sham imo.
Agent rings me 2 hours before the closing time, tries to push my for a higher offer- so now its not really a sealed bid since my offer had already been made, I stood my ground as I had made a fair and decent offer, and didn't want to spend any more than what I had offered. He seemed a bit disappointed and wasn't as confident as he was at the start of the phone call. Then later on after it was all closed and done that an offer 10k over mine was accepted. For all I know they negotiated with the other bidder to push them up like they tried me.
Sealed bidding is crap imho as there is no transparency and who really knows what goes on! It should be that all prospective buyers sit down , seal their bid and its opened in front of everyone. No playing games and trying to get higher offers once offers have been made.

Im surprised this is even legal as it leaves so much room for fishy stuff to go on!

 

I understand your pain. We went through the same situation. Saw a house that we really liked and offered its full asking price but the agent wouldn't let us because he wanted to wait till the next day to get more offer in. (they listed a price and we were the first and only offer on the day that match that price so why do they refuse to sale, is that even legal? )so we had to returned the day after (took us 1 1/2 to drive there) for the sealed envelope offer. When we were there he showed previous offer from different property and they were like at least 15k to 50k over the asking price. he refuse to tell us how much over we need to offer. The higher the better apparently. We did end up offer over the asking price and we were so new to this game we had no idea if its like this with other agent or what we should put to win 5k 10k 30k 50k
This is like a blind auction far worse then the real auction. Its unethical and borderline fraud, should have been banned by law. Iam staying away from this kind of agent and their houses. Any agent that does this can not be trusted.

 

I feel the same. So much room for fraud.

 

I went to an auction 2 months back and similar place got sold for 650k.

The buyer said 550k and no one else bid.

At first, the agent said that minimum bid is 580k.
With a lot of insisting, same bidder increased the bid to 580k.
Then agent went back in the room, cam back and said owners are bidding 600k. So bid had to be more than that.
Another agent went to the prospective bidder and asked him to increase the bid else pellet well be on market and there will be a lot of competition, etcetera

To my amazement, the same bigger increased it to 610k and then agent repeated the process. However, this time the bidder got a little agitated and the person executing the bid sensed that and quickly did his 1'2 and 3.

 

Better put a time limit on these bids then - expires in an hour so get back to me ASAP if your vendor wishes to accept.

 

I can understand your frustration
Buying by tender is just as bad
I put in a tender ...agent tried to push me up another $800k ...I said no
Got the property but low and behold even at this sort of lower price I had paid a million (I believe...as it was reported in the newspaper) more than the next tender.
Makes auctions look pretty good deals!

 

I never thought I'd say this but I just prefer a normal auction now! None of this offer crap!

 

These are real horror stories. It must be bad when a normal auction is starting to look good...........

 

House behind us was for sale by tender, offers closing xxxx.

Around five days before closing date vendors informed a good offer had been made. Agreed with agent that if offer increased by $25K they would sign.

Offer increased, contract signed, five days before tenders were supposed to close!

I guess a sale is a sale!
Arg

 

Otie, not all agents are like that ,just a few.
Had a talk with other agents when inspecting and ask if they do the same and some would out right condemn these practices so there is still hope out there lol. Just ask them first b4 u inspect.