superfluent

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Just venting here...again... I live in Sweden -you know the country populated exclusively with insanely hot chicks (...and a couple of lucky, ugly guys like me!).

In Sweden, buying an apartment is a bidding game. The broker sets a price for the estate that is redicilously low (not uncommon with 50% under the expected market price). It is then up to the bidders to play the bidding game. And this is where it gets interesting. There are inifnately many different theories about how to win the bidding game and no bids are legally valid until you sign the papers for the apartment (so many bidders back out when they have wone the bidding but they realize what it will cost them...).

My strategy is to set a maximum price that I feel the apartment is worth to *me* and then bid until I win or until my price limit i've set for the estate is reached.

Today I was bidding on a lovely apartment, seaside, lakewiew, 20ft celing height panorama windows etc. etc. For short -A pretty damn good apartment "for a guy running in the outer lane of life", like me ;-)

In the end it came down to me and one other bidder - we raised and reraised until I hit my limit - and at my limit, I was the one with the highest bid. The broker asked me for the details to put in the contract and I felt the insanely wierd feeling of knowing that I had made the higest bid -everyone else had backed out, not feeling it was worth the money...that feeling sucks real bad, let me tell you...

Anyway, the contract was to be signed that eavning but what happened was that at 1700 hrs, another previously unknown bidder raised the bid with *drumroll* $45k. In my book, an insane raise!

The broker called me and asked if I wanted to raise. He tried hes best to work me into just raising a little more... I just laughed and said that "you might not want to tell the buyer this, but if he had raised $1 I would have folded, however you probably want tell that to the sellers...

Oh, whell, I'm sure I'll get a nice apartment in a while...

H

Dr_Deathweed

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that whole process sounds convoluted.... I will continue to sit here in my trailer home in the trailer park outside city limits...

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JVD_X

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This is just like buying a house or condo in the US. At least until the market collapsed.

kornkob

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Only in some markets. In other markets people don't really get into the bidding game.

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Jason 'Kornkob' Robinson

I wanna move to Theory. Everything works in Theory.

Ooompa Loompa

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Yea, I bought my condo a little less then 2 years ago. I put in an offer for slightly less then what the seller was asking, he accepted, and that was that.

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Laurel

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Now the real estate game is make an offer that the seller will accept, then get them to dump $10,000 into the property making it perfect.

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EvilTOJ

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So.... it sounds like you're buying an apartment on eBay. Around here, the process is kinda the opposite. There's the asking price, and no one ever says they'll pay more for it unless someone's already said they'll pay that asking price and you really want the property. Then there's trying to get the seller to pay for the closing costs, and any repairs or 'repairs'. The 'repairs' in quotes would be what Laurel's talking about, things that are minor or cosmetic, but the buyers want the seller to pay for anyways. Good luck getting that these days. The market's already turning into a buyer's market, and what with summer coming up the housing market is going to be ripe with properties. Just when I so happen to be looking for a new condo to live in!

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IrregularPulse

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We got "screwed" kind of like you did. The first house we put a bid on had been on the market 8 months with 2 buyers falling out with financing. We made an offer with no other offers in the past 3 months. Then miraculously the day day we made ours another person (going through the same real estate agent) made one higher. He asked us to counter and we said no thanks. Then 2 weeks later we got a call (after finding a much better house for sale by owner) saying the other people's financing fell through and we could have the house. Agents will screw you if they can make an extra 5 bucks from it. I'll always look for Sale by Owner when buying.

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david_42

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I ran into the same situation several times buying a house, someone topping my bid before escrow opened. I walked each time and each time saw the house back on the market in a couple weeks. The last time was in a development that had 1599 houses in two styles. Typically 10-15 of them on the market at any time. I ended up making a lower offer on another house there and got that. Sure enough, the first house came back on the market ... below what I had offered!

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Brew Runner

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It once ocurred to me that the "winner" of an auction is actually the loser. Sure made Ebay shopping less appealing to me.

You know what they say, you can live in a car, but you can't drive a house!