How can you outbid a bank?

[glitch]

More and more banks are paying cash for property in the US. It seems nearly impossible to find a house and actually be able to buy it. At least in my area. I was looking to buy last year and each house I found and wanted to put an offer on was sold in a matter of days and I come to find it was a cash offer by a bank. How can someone outbid a bank offering cash?

 

[Kane]

Why do you have to bid on a property to buy it? Why can't you go to a property dealer just like everyone to buy a house? You cannot outbid banks because you do not have that kind of money

 

[glitch]

Why do you have to bid on a property to buy it? Why can't you go to a property dealer just like everyone to buy a house? You cannot outbid banks because you do not have that kind of money

I mean making an offer. Say a house is selling for 200k and I offer 195k and the seller considers it but a bank approaches them and offers 220k, 20k over the asking price. I would not be able to then counter-offer that. Does it make more sense like that?

 

[Kane]

There is a difference between banks and real estate companies. I do not think banks buy real estate properties, however, they do lend money to real estate companies.

 

[linux.poet1]

Perhaps the best idea is to buy land that you can build a house on, rather than trying to compete with the banks or real estate companies in the existing house market.

Frankly, banks or real estate companies buying houses like this to drive up prices will come back to bite them, because what are they going to do with all of those houses? Eventually they will need to sell them, and the supply of houses for sale will increase, driving the price down. In the meantime, they have to pay maintenance and property taxes on those properties. This looks like a move of desperation that will lose in the end.