Tender Times

First Home Buyer Blog – Episode 9

For those who have lost count, we have made 5 (unsuccessful) offers on properties and were just about at our wits end.
Then one fateful Sunday, we found ourselves at a house that was on our ‘maybe’ list of open homes. And isn’t this always the way – it turned out to be was exactly what we wanted!

Frustratingly though, there was not much of an indication of what the owners were expecting for it pricewise, mainly because the property was subject to subdivision; the owners had started to subdivide the property, but the process hadn’t been completed yet. That meant that the property didn’t have a previous GV or sale price, and because the property was quite unique, it was difficult for the salesperson and the owners to have a clear price expectation. We thought the house might end up out of our price range, but we really loved it, so we went for a second visit then decided to take the plunge!

To further complicate things, the house was also for sale through a tender process. What’s a tender again you ask?

Tender: A tender is kind of like a multi-offer, but usually with a longer time frame. This allows you to do more due diligence before the tenders are due.

Tenders were due a couple of weeks later. We wanted to put in an unconditional offer, which meant we had to do all our due diligence checks before we put in the tender: builders report, LIM, and because it was an older house, an electrical report.

We also needed to make sure that the bank could give us finance. Because the property was subject to subdivision, the bank required us to get a registered valuation so they could be sure that their loan would be covered by the value of the house.

After sinking hundreds of dollars on all these reports, we were really hoping that we would get the house. So we put down the best dollar figure we could manage, dropped the tender into the agency, and waited for the call…