Multiple Offers on YOUR Property!
Now What?
What happens when you’ve found ‘the one’? No, not your future wife or husband, but the place that you could call home? This is the property that made those 37 weekends of endless trudging around the open home circuit worthwhile. No weekend BBQs for ages, no friends around for drinks, no weekend Broncos matches with the kids, but hey…..at last, ‘the one’.
Plan: you go to the agent and make some small talk trying to get them to divulge what you can pay for this gem. No go! They do their job and go ahead with getting the top price for their client. That’s not you by the way, that’s the seller. You put in an offer to the agent to take to the seller and off you go knowing that your purchase process has begun.
The phone rings as you’re sitting at home relaxing by the pool with a well-earned ale and the agent says, “Give me your best and final offer”. What?? You were expecting your offer to be accepted so why do they want another one? The agent tells you that following the open home, there are now multiple offers on this property.
Now what do I do?
The agent is obligated to inform both the seller and each buyer that multiple offers have been received. However, agents must not conduct any behaviour prejudicial to the buyers by attempting to drive the price higher. They must not play buyers off against each other and they must inform the buyers if an offer has lapsed or been withdrawn. If investigated for possible breach of regulations, the agent must produce evidence of offers received. No information regarding other offers can be legally divulged by the agent.
What’s your next move?
Make your offer a good one, because you’re on your own as to making a top offer without going too far over the mark and costing yourself money. Remember that ‘due diligence’ everyone talks about? That would come in handy right now to assist with deciding how much to offer.
When you go to court, it’s good to have a solicitor at your side, when you sell your property it’s good to engage a reputable real estate agent and when you buy your property it’s good to have PPBA right there with you to assist you through the process. Buying property is what we do for a living. To quote a recent American born client, “I don’t know how you people do it without a Buyers Agent. Who represents the buyer?”
PPBA represents the buyer.
Call us now to discuss how we can represent you
0490 020 801
