Highs and Lows

This has been a day of both. Well, mostly lows.

We put a bid in yesterday on that house we saw and liked. We put our bid in at about 10K less than asking price, figuring (hoping) the bank would come back with a reasonable counter offer.

Well, I talked to our Realtor today, and apparently they got four offers this past weekend, one of which was above asking price.

We can't really afford to go above asking price, so this could be the end of the road for that house. Not to mention that we have to continue to devote hours and hours to house hunting (I don't really recall it being this odious last time. But then, I had the 'bug' then. Now I'm pretty indifferent and the DH is driving the wagon).

OTOH, the DH talked to one of his coworkers who recently bought a house. This co-worker says the same thing happened to him, down to the number of competing offers with one/some above asking price. His advice was to stick to our guns and not offer more than we want to spend. That is, of course, good advice. But it's hard to keep that in mind when you're in the middle of the frenzy.

With that being said, it makes me curious if that "we got an offer above asking price" is some sort of real estate agent ploy to drive up the price...