I want that house! How many offers has it had?

There are many reasons you might want to find out how many offers a home has had if you are interested in placing a bid, and many reasons why an agent won't tell you. That doesn't mean that you shouldn't ask, or that you won't find out. If you are interested in a home, probably the most relevant question to ask is, "Are there any offers on the home right now?"

Bear in mind that the listing agent has no fiduciary duty to you, or your agent, and doesn't have to tell you if there are currently any offers on the house. In fact, it's the sellers choice. A seller doesn't even have to tell you that another bid came in while you are negotiating your offer. That seller can accept another bid right under your nose and not give you an opportunity to revise your offer, and that is perfectly acceptable. (not to you of course, but there are no laws against it.

Reasons to ask about previous offers:

If the home has been on the market for a short time, and you feel strongly that it's a good deal and would like to make a bid, its a good idea to find out if there have been offers already that were rejected, so you can place your bid accordingly.

If the home has been on the market for a while, and it seems reasonably priced, you might also want to find out if there was any offers on it. Could it be that the sellers are pretty much non-negotiable? hard to deal with? are there problems with the house? or has it been reduced from a higher price to fair market and it just appears that there may be a problem?

If there were offers that fell apart after the building inspection, what was the issues(s) and were  they rectified?

If you can find out the price and/or terms of the offer(s), you will already know what the seller will accept, and it may be less than you were willing to pay.

... and reasons why you may not find out if there were any bids:

Once word gets out about what an accepted offer was, that seller may not get that price again. (see this prior post on keeping quiet about the sales price)

If the home has had a number of offers and is new to the market, you might take either of two ways, and the listing agent has no way of knowing which- 1) you may want to just bow out because you don't want to get in a bidding war, or 2) you may think that the seller is unreasonable and won't negotiate at all. Let's remember that the seller may not want to get in a bidding war, either.

If the home has had a number of offers and has been on the market for a while, the agent may not want to tell you because it may look like the seller is hard to deal with, even if its not the case.

There is some differing opinions on whether or not it should be disclosed that there were building inspection issues that caused a deal to fall apart whether you SHOULD know what they were, and if they were addressed.  Have your agent look into this as much as possible, and delicately extract whatever information they can from the listing agent.

...or, there may not have  been any offers on the house.

It's definitely worth the effort to try and get as much information as you can prior to placing a bid on any property. Always do your best to try and obtain whatever background you can,  and have your agent delve into the property and listing  history. They really should do this without you having to ask. I know that  I always get whatever helpful information that I can for my buyer clients. When you are ready to become one, contact me.  I take pride in my profession and exemplary service.

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