Real Estate Agents Are Dealing With The Bully Offer
by author on Jul.15, 2010, under Main Articles
Toronto’s booming housing market is causing some compelling challenges for home buyers looking to grab up bargains. Some home shoppers are being caught off guard by a tactic called a bully offer, which has become a popular way to snatch properties off the market in advance of a bid date. This circumstance has placed real estate professionals in a dilemma of how to effectively represent their sellers while keeping consumer faith in the bidding process intact.
In order to attract attention to their property, a few home owners are publishing their properties at a reduced price and conducting open houses, but deferring bids until a later date. If one of the interested buyers puts in a bully offer – that is often more than the moderate list price – the stipulation is that the offer be accepted before the offer date specified for the public. The seller recognizes their opportunity to move their property quickly and often accepts the bully offer to short the time of the impending sales plan.This state of affairs is being witnessed in many places such as Toronto and is exasperating for buyers looking for homes or Toronto condominiums listings and believe that they found the perfect one for them.
Obviously, purchasers who have respected the target date are not pleased with bully offers. Complaints have been brought up, and as a result recently developed practices are currently in effect for home owners contemplating bully offers.While mostly a Toronto occurrence those attempting to present offer for homes in Brampton are running into similar situations. If a bully offer is made and the vendor wants to agree to it, the Realtor has to call all the bid candidates the property] and make them aware a bully offer has been submitted so they can be given the occasions to present a counter bid. Though the idea is good, the actuality is that most potential purchasers cannot drop everything to rush to the agent’s office with all paperwork filled-out for a bid with such short notice. As a consequence, the bully offer goes uncontested and if taken nullifies the entire bidding process.
Many Realtors do encourage their clients not to accept a bully offer, but to wait for the bid date since there might be a better offer made by another buyer. This advice has proven sensible in many sales, but just as many are so tempted by the bully offer that they are not able to resist. The would-be buyers who are cut out after following the process laid down by the home owner are beginning to be angry by the increase in bully offers.
The bottom line is that bully offers are doing damage to the overall property market by weakening consumer faith in the bidding procedure. Many are asking for a revamp of the whole bidding system, and real estate agents are needing to take a hard look at how they may better deal with the repercussions of the bully offer on their industry.One way to evade the bully offer could be to escape the Toronto sector altogether and search for properties in the Wasaga Beach real estate market however this is just not practical for many. So long as the real estate surge in Toronto is affecting the offer process, buyers are going to have to stay on their toes to counteract any bully offers that impede their opportunity to bid. Any seasoned agent should suggest to their purchasers not to be bullied into making an offer that is over the fair market worth for any property.