Are there special bidding methods that can help you to purchase your dream home in Norway?

Av: Dato: English

Yes, there is.

Everyone who buys a home in Norway must go through a bidding round or bid negotiations. We practice what is known as the auction principle, with an open bidding round, where the highest bid wins the contract. In the vast majority of cases, the estate agent acts as an intermediary and administrator of the bidding round. How the bidding round is to take place is regulated by the Real Estate Brokerage Act.

Seller’s and buyer’s interests are obviously conflicting in a bidding round. The seller wants the best possible price and is supported by the estate agent to achieve this. The buyer wants the lowest possible price and is normally on his own to look after his interests in the bidding negotiations.

This imbalance, where the buyer stands alone against a professional party, makes the bidding round a nightmare for many buyers. There is often considerable competition over the objects to be purchased. This means that the only option is to register as a bidder via an estate agent, participate in the carousel and successively bid higher than the last bidder. You risk paying too much in relation to the current market level or losing the bidding round. Not always because the money is not enough, but because the fear of losing money becomes too great. A fear that can be a healthy reflex, especially if two bidders outbid each other by several hundred thousand.

Secret bids and bids directly to seller

However, there are methods that the buyer can use to avoid the traditional bidding round, namely closed/secret bids or bids directly to the seller.

These are today completely legal methods. In proposals for amendments to the Real Estate Brokerage Act, the rules for this have been discussed. It is proposed to prohibit closed or secret bids.

The buyer needs alternative tools in the toolbox.

As a home buying adviser, I have been reluctant to recommend home buying clients to make offers directly to the seller or to practice secret bidding. It has worked quite well to use the normal method with regular bidding rounds.

In recent years, however, it has been a tough housing market for buyers. With few homes for sale, high demand and subsequent crazy bidding rounds, especially for attractive homes. Then it has proven to be nice to have alternative tools in the toolbox, such as bids directly to the seller and secret bids.

Bid directly to the seller.

Imagine that you have lost four rounds of bidding and suddenly see that your dream house is for sale. You cannot bear the thought of going through yet another bidding round but want a quick and painless negotiation process where you hopefully secure the home. You have a fairly good overview or get help assessing the market price for the home. Wouldn’t it then be tempting to go directly to the seller with an offer within acceptable market level?

Such a procedure, which is called “kupping” in Norwegian, is obviously not so fun for the other interested parties who are waiting for the viewing and who are told that it has been cancelled. However, all buyers have the opportunity to make a direct offer to the seller. Moreover, the method is based on the principle of free negotiation, which is important in our country.

How to do it

If you consider giving a bid directly to the seller, usually before the Open House viewing, you have to ask for a private viewing.  If this is your dream home and you want to try to secure it with a bid directly to the seller, you fill out a bidding form with the top text, bid directly to the seller.  Please contact me for help with this, advice about the price level and strategy.

Read also:  How to bid on real estate in Norway

Secret bid

Secret bid can also be a good tool. This means that you make an offer, via a broker, where you make reservations that other interested parties should not be informed about the offer. It is the seller’s choice to accept the confidentiality clause, as well as to decide on the offer. If such a bid appears in the middle of a bidding round, the confidentiality clause will probably not be accepted, and the bid rejected. Unless it is sky-high, and the seller feels tempted to accept it.

But let us say that the home has been for sale for a while, and the market is a bit on the buyer’s side. There are interested parties on the estate agent’s list from previous viewings, but the new bidder wants to negotiate peacefully with the seller without waking up previous interested parties. In that case, a reservation about a secret bid can be both appropriate and timely and an important contribution for completing the trade. Something I myself helped to contribute to a little while ago. To the delight of both buyer and seller.  It is therefore unwise to ban this.

The method will be probably not be used very often in ongoing bidding rounds but can be an important contribution in individual bid negotiations. Transparent processes are a good thing, but the concern for transparency must not overshadow the possibilities of achieving a good deal.

How to do it.

You give the bid as usual, either on a bidding form or digital.  On “forbehold” – conditions for the bid you must write that you want the bid to be confidential to other interest parts and only be informed about to the seller.   The real estate agent is allowed to convey this bid.

Maybe the seller, through the realtor, will decline the condition of confidentiality.  If so, you are still in a position to keep your bid without the condition or say that your bid is not valid without the condition.  Please contact me for help with the price level and strategy for the process.

As you understand, this is a little complicated.  But it is important that buyer’s  know about these possibilities.  Especially if you see that your dream home is on the market and want to secure that it is becoming yours.  If so, I will help you to choose and implementation of the best bidding process.

Boligdama – Trude Larsen
trude@boligdama.no   +47 950 37 330

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How to bid on real estate in Norway?

Av: Dato: English

The bidding process in Norway is quite different from a lot of other countries.

First – bid is binding – there are no regrets.  As soon as the seller has received the bid it is binding for you.

Read:   Remember that the bid is binding when you buy a home in Norway

The next thing to remember is that we are using the auction principle.

The highest bid gets the property, and the bidding rounds goes amazingly fast.

The asking price is just something that the seller hopes to get for the property.

Unfortunately, many realtors put a very low asking price in the market, so the bidding rounds have a tendency to be very busy.

In the bidding round, it is a risk that you will follow another bidder far over the market level.  This is not good because you are risking losing money later.  Therefore, you should have a good knowledge about the local housing prices before you give a bid.  The realtor is working mainly for the seller to get as high price as possible and will certainly not warn you if you are rising your bids to much!

Get help to find the correct purchase price.

I can help you to indicate the correct buying price.  I have the same databases as the realtors and will analyse the house or apartment you want to buy and compare them with other similar houses sold in the area.

A couple of hours consultation at the cost of NOK 2.200 is much cheaper than paying for example NOK 400.000 over the market price.  Don’t you think?

If you buy my consulting package all the price estimates for the properties, we are looking at will be included.  Sorry for all the commercial inside an informative blog.  My point is that you should not give a bid on your own if you do not know the Norwegian market and system.

Unfortunately, I have been contacted by a lot of people who want me to help them to clear up problems after the bidding round.  Problems like not putting reservations in the bid, they have paid high over the market level or misunderstood the whole process.

This happens with some Norwegians also.  But if you don’t know the language, it is much easier to overlook important elements.

OK, here you have some words in the bidding form you must be aware of.  

Whether you use paper form or electronic.

Kjøpesum:
Purchase amount –

Do you have you enough knowledge to tell what the property is worth?

Dette budet er bindende for undertegnede frem til og med:
This bid is binding for undersigned until  – date – and time.

Seller are allowed to accept bid earliest at 12.00 noon the day after the last viewing (open house)
There are some exceptions with bids directly to seller, but the main rule is as described over.

After the first-time limit, 12.00 noon the time limit is usually 30 min.

Eventuelle forbehold
Possible reservations

This is very important to write down if you have any.

It could for example be:

We want the washing machine included.

We will have a confirmation that the leakage in the roof will be fixed by the insurance company.

The parking space is included.

If you forget to put reservations in writing it will be difficult to prove later that you made them.

Reservations about financing

If you put a reservation about financing the purchase your bid will probably not be accepted.  So this is rarely used.

Ønsket overtakelse:
Take over date – (your wish)

This is a part of the bidding negotiations.  You should ask the realtor what the seller prefer.  If you can put the same date as seller’s preference it would be an advantage for you.

But if you are stretching the price upwards you should demand a take over date that suits you best.

Financing

You must fix the financing in advance and your bank contact or other official person  must confirm that you are able to pay the bidding amount.

You put this in the bidding form:

Kjøpet vil bli finansiert slik:
The purchase will be financed this way:

Fill in contact information to the bank contact.

You must fill out your personal information and sign the bidding form (or electronic with bank id)

If you use the paper form, you also must send picture of your passport to the realtor.

The realtor will help you with filling out details.

But please do not tell him about your credit limit or budget. Or send any document about this.

He/she will use it to get a higher bid.  The only thing the realtor should know is confirmation that you can finance your bid!

This was a brief overvview of how to give a bid on property in Norway.

It is so many details that can emerge in the process, so it it not possible to tell you everything.

Please contact me if you have any doubts before giving a bid.

To be honest, I prefer that you contact me before the bidding round.  Probably it will be to late you if you already have given the bid.😊

Read: Househunting in a new country is quite challenging

 

 

 

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