Buying an apartment...going insane!

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

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

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


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.
 
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.
 
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! :D
 
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.
 
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!
 
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!
 
atarlecky said:
This is just like buying a house or condo in the US. At least until the market collapsed.


Huh? Has the real estate game changed that much since I bought my house? Sellers can only entertain one bid at a time. They either accept, reject, or counter-offer. Once a bid is accepted, that's it. A higher bid does not put you second in line. Unless something happens to get you out of the contract, such as a bad home inspection, or failure to secure financing, You HAVE to buy the house, and the owner HAS to sell it to you. Buying a house in the US is nothing like an auction.
 
My house went on the market far in excess of what I was willing to part with.

After the owner lowered their asking price (into my range) I gave them a bid $20K under. They countered up $8K, I got it and saved $12K.

Little did I know wanted originally asked $102K more than I paid for it...so several of my neighbors have told me...;)

2900+ SF house on 2.19 acres...I paid it off in 2 years 2 months...:D
 
As someone else noted, in Sweden it sounds like buying an apartment is just like ebay.

Well, Henrik, if that's the case then pretending you are buying on ebay is absolutely the best way to go about it. When you find apartments that you would like to buy, decide on the highest price you are willing to pay and never go above that. Eventually you will "win" one and you will be happy that you will not feel that you have overpaid.
 
Bernie Brewer said:
Huh? Has the real estate game changed that much since I bought my house? Sellers can only entertain one bid at a time. They either accept, reject, or counter-offer. Once a bid is accepted, that's it. A higher bid does not put you second in line. Unless something happens to get you out of the contract, such as a bad home inspection, or failure to secure financing, You HAVE to buy the house, and the owner HAS to sell it to you. Buying a house in the US is nothing like an auction.
In a hot market there can be multiple bids on a house. The time between when a buyer makes and offer and a seller accepts the offer can easily stretch into a week or more with negotiations. During this time the seller is free to consider other offers. In some markets it is not uncommon to get several offers which can cause a bidding war.

I think those markets have just about disappeared. That type of situation was already very rare in the Cleveland market before the down turn. Now it is very much a buyers market and the key for sellers is having an attractive ready to move in house that is priced to sell.

I find the auction process described by the OP a surprising process for buying a house. I would imagine it would only work for hot markets with more buyers than sellers.

Craig
 
McCall St. Brewer said:
As someone else noted, in Sweden it sounds like buying an apartment is just like ebay.

Yes it is. In Stockholm where I live it is pretty insane when it comes to buying real estate. In the first place the market is really overheated (as opposed to the US in general) but on top of all that the thing is that no bids are legally binding and the seller can choose whomever he wants to make the deal with at any time. Before the contract is actually signed, all bets are off.

This, ofcourse, creates a tremendous psychological preassure on all parts because you don't know if you're bidding against mickey mouse or a serious bidder that actually will follow trough, and the seller don't know if the highest bidder will really follow through with the deal. It's kind of like like playing poker with the largest stake in life. Unreal feeling.

The last couple of days me and my exSWMBO have gone through this with our apartment that's been out for sale. It's an insanely nice apartment but at first the bidding was quite slow. After a day the bidding took off and I suddenly felt "yes, well probably get a sensible amount of money out of this apartment after all".

But when the price was about what we expected to get and the bidding slowed to a halt, a third party suddnly started bidding like crazy and one of the original bidders just kept following. I suddenly went from feeling good to feeling weary. If the highest bidder withdraws, the second highest bidder will probably also withdraw and we'll be back on zero. The price for the apartment went up 50% in less than 4 hrs.

Lukilly for us the highest bidder stood by her word signed the contract this eavning for twice the price we where expecting :D. After signing we went home and cracked open a $200 bottle of Champagne. Funny how life suddenly feels good for a moment eventhogh you're breaking up.

H
 
Brew Runner said:
It once ocurred to me that the "winner" of an auction is actually the loser. Sure made Ebay shopping less appealing to me. :(

Yes, that's the tough part. You know that *every one else* didn't think it was worth the money you're offering. You feel like the stupidest person in the world and just want to back out...been there, done that! But then again, seven years later we sold it with a 380% profit...do I feel lycky?

H
 
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