[quote=pemeliza]
If you bid what you perceive based on your research and that of your agent to be fair market value than you have not thrown anything away. Now if you want to buy your dream house under fair market value than that is another issue.
“These changes come in tiny increments. There are houses now being listed in the high-$600-$800K range that would have listed for $800K-$1MM+ a few years ago.”
Yes this is the challenge with purchasing in this environment. Things are changing so quickly that fair market value is a moving target. In my case things changed so quickly during my search that I went from looking inland to buying on the coast since prices moved down so much during the two years that I was searching.[/quote]
Okay, maybe it’s just me, but overbidding **against myself!** by tens of thousands of dollars just doesn’t sit right with me.
I’d much prefer a system where everyone has to be pre-qualified through a GSE/disinterested third party to sign up as a bidder. They get a unique bidder ID number that can be traced.
All sellers should also have a unique ID number whereby their sales can be traced (and comments by other buyers should be allowed, in case these are flippers who did a lot of “painting over the problems” or had double escrows, etc.).
Comments would also be available about buyers (get to the end of escrow and try to extort tens of thousands of dollars for no particular reason, back out after contingency period, etc.).
Each offer and each bid would be recorded and visible to all participants.
Sellers could choose a cutoff time for the auction, depending on how long they’re willing to sit on the property.
At the cutoff time, the highest bid with the best terms (terms also visible to all) wins.
Comments would be allowed between buyers and sellers, and these comments would also be visible to all parties.
Personally, I would LOVE to have a system like this. It would hold people accountable for their actions, and there would be very little room for fraud. Anyone found engaging in fraud would be banned for a period of time ranging from a few months to life (depending on severity). SSN, and any other identifying info would be taken when signing up, so they could not simply change names and start all over again. If they were allowed to go back onto the system after being banned for a period, they would have a permanent “prior fraud” mark against them that would be visible to all.
