On the Sunday just past, I sent a couple of clients out to see some open houses in the Leaside/Davisville Village area and of course,  they absolutely fell in love with the completely gutted and upgraded house that was priced low for the neighbourhood.  Obviously it's ripe for a bidding war and it's not unusual for properties to go $100,000 + over the asking price in the area.  This house had the works - we're talking dark hardwood floors throughout, brand spanking new kitchen, appliances, fireplace, electrical & cable outlets, energy efficient windows and everything to get the buyer's emotions running wild.  Suprise, suprise! They weren't the only ones that had fallen for the home. 

So I call the agent up on Sunday evening enquiring about the property to get the scoop.  He tells me at 6:00 pm that very evening that they have 2 offers on the table that are currently being reviewed.  Great.  Just what I need - another multiple offer.  I probe a little further since it's already 5:48 pm to find out if it's even worth coming in with an offer especially since my clients aren't familiar with the whole "bidding" thing.  Paying over the asking price is not a pill that every buyer can easily swallow - well until they lose out on enough properties to realize that if they lose one more, the next house the next one is just going to cost more. 

Anyway, back to my story... I ask him how many offers there are and he says 3.  I probe further and ask if the they are good offers - he says yes, but one is unacceptable because it is conditional on the sale of the buyers property.  So ok, we're good as it's down to 2 now.  The next question is if any of them are his own offers - no, which is great too.  Then I ask if any of them are clean with no conditions - he says yes which is a big uh-oh especially on a Sunday when you can't even get a hold of a mortgage broker or lawyer to confirm your financing.   Finally I ask if any of them are over asking and I get the dreaded answer yes.

See, what sucks about bidding wars is that if you get the property, you will never really know what the other bids were (unless the listing agent has a big mouth), but if you lose it, you might kick yourself in the butt for not putting in the extra few thousands to get your dream home after your agent sends you the selling price on MLS.    At the same time however, it's a real no-nonsense way to get the sale completed as there is no back and forth negotiating.  You put the price that you're happy with getting the property at and the one you're happy losing it at - if you get it, awesome but if you lose it, c'est la vie because you did your best.

So I call the buyers back and relay the information to them... they tell me that they are thinking of offering the asking price and that's it.  At this point, I realize that there probably isn't a deal to be done, which is fine because the whole thing is a process.  If you want a property in one of Toronto's hot neighbourhoods like Leaside, you've got to play the game and pony up the cash because almost everything goes into a bidding war... everything.   At this point, I gently convinced the buyers that the asking price would probably not suffice because the agent told me that it would take at least mid-two digit over the asking to get it.  They're disappointed obviously.

I call the agent back and ask what the status is with the two offers and he tells me that they've actually finished reviewing them and the seller has decided not to take either.  My jaw drops - this is UNREAL!  How greedy can you be?  The listing agent indicates to me that the seller wants more money... well why don't you price it accordingly then instead of making people bid!  Ugggh.  You see, on the selling side, when you price your property low in hopes of a bidding war, it's risky because you may not always get it.  Multiple offers are a dream situation for a seller and if it does happen once, it may never happen again as people's emotions start to wane, so not only will you not get the clean over asking bid, you may risk not selling it even at the asking with conditions.  I cannot believe they didn't take one of the offers which is even worse than the fact that they were taking offers on a Sunday night!

Yesterday, I went to see the house for the first time as I was doing all that legwork previously without seeing it, which isn't my favourite way to do business, but it happens sometimes - time is of the essence.  It's a gorgeous house don't get me wrong, but I'm quite interested in seeing what happens to it from here.  It's been on the market for almost 2 weeks now so it's getting stale for bidding war territory, but you never know in this crazy Toronto Real Estate Market... anything can happen.

I'll keep you posted.