Strategy for selling a house - what is the best way to proceed?

How would you proceed there?

Basically, I think first come, first served, unless there are doubts about that person's creditworthiness.

Regarding the price question, I would also say they might call you or communicate a price via email. I would also ask whether the interested parties want to be informed if there is a higher bid. You can present the email with the bid and the blacked-out data to the other party as "proof." Sure, this can also be faked, but in the end, you would just alienate people and not do yourself a favor.

Or you say directly our price is 540k, whoever accepts this without further negotiation and agrees first, we would proceed with them.

I can only speak from my experience; we did it that way too, and despite several commitments, no one started a bidding process on their own. And in my opinion, it’s also important that people can bid until they drop, but can they actually finance it afterwards? Especially because of the rising interest rates. Some have already reported here that the installment has now increased by a few hundred.

We also did not reject all others but openly communicated that someone had committed earlier and we wanted to continue with them first. If it didn't work out, we would get back in touch. That way, we had the same price with all interested parties and didn’t have to negotiate later.

Before I could get back to them, the interested parties also got in touch with us themselves in the meantime and asked again. But even then, there was no word of overbidding...

Of course, I haven’t set an upper limit, and no interested party understood it that way either. I just said that our price expectation is within that range and explained why. If in the end there are more buyers than one, then we’ll have to settle it via the price if necessary. I think that is clear to all interested parties. I found – and still find – the wording clever. I’m not a supplicant, but I’m not a pushover either. ;)

I think that sounds good :) The price should be one that everyone can live with. You keep in mind that you still need the money, but there’s no need to squeeze interested parties like a lemon.

We placed an ad in the newspaper without a price, but sent an information document to our interested parties with lots of info about the house, additional photos, etc., and in that document I included a passage about the price, where I wrote that we gave a lot of thought to the price, talked to real estate agents, closely watched the market for a long time, and also looked at comparable properties from previous years and the price at which they sold. And that we then priced our property according to market developments and would be willing to negotiate between 500-540k.
However, I have already received several signals that they would not want to negotiate at all.

Then I would simply start the viewings. Afterwards, immediately give the interested parties a short time to consider over the weekend and ask them accordingly for a prompt response in the form of a written offer, since there are many parties and you want to proceed with the buying process fairly and quickly with the interested buyers.

On the other hand, I don’t know how awkward it will be if you invite several "competitors" at the same time. That could potentially also become ugly/hostile. I actually don’t feel like dealing with that.

That would be bad broker style for me. Meaningful one after the other is totally okay and fits more in the Corona era.

Regarding your auction ideas – often people don’t simply ask for a cheap follow-up bid, but rather, without mentioning the word bidding process, ask for your offer – "what it would be worth to you." Reference the range/price and the number of interested parties.

This also makes it clear right away that it’s not an eBay event. Either you are ahead with the bid, or someone else is. You won’t know. This makes it clear that someone could definitely write €550,000 in their offer – why not. You haven’t excluded it and yourself named a range.

Such exclusions also exist sometimes – the seller says, that is my (high, reasonable) price, that’s what it should be – "I choose, more offers don’t matter."

We will soon be selling our apartment as well, so I have read the entire thread with great interest. I find it quite interesting that many people criticize the bidding process, as it is the most common method in other countries (e.g. the United Kingdom) and fundamentally fair: there is an asking price and each interested party may submit one (!) offer in a sealed envelope. After the deadline, all offers are laid on the table and the house is sold to the highest bidder.

The problem is that as a buyer in an auction process you can only lose. Either you don't get the contract or Pyrrhus would be proud of you because you pay way too much money. Talk to people who know about it, the bids are sometimes significantly above the asking price and those are already high nowadays.