Competing Offers and Timing

Yesterday I went out with a buyer who is not able to afford a single family home in the area of town he'd most like to live. I had suggested looking at duplexes some time ago and we had seen a few doubles, some of which were interesting.
Yesterday, the first house of the day, we hit it on the head. A Double which is a fantastic opportunity in a great location for an excellent price. We ran back to the office and made an offer.
Not wanting any interference, we gave the seller a deadline of noon today. As fate would have it, the seller received another, much stronger offer at the same time they received our offer.
I can't tell you how often this has happened to me as a buyer's agent. So often you just have no idea of the validity of the phantom "other" offer. There have been many times when I did not honestly believe there was another offer on the table at the moment but was told that there was in order for the buyer to inflate their purchase offer price.
Sometimes the buyers have held their ground and still gotten the house. It isn't always price, there are usually other terms that can be important to the seller and buyers can always negotiate on those. Sometimes, buyers have lost homes at the last minute due to competing offers. It does happen all the time. No matter how long the home has been active (I've seen it happen with homes on the market 100 days or more) in the Columbus Real Estate market, another competing offer seems to come in at the same time my client wants to make an offer.
It's very frustrating but it also underlies the importance of making a good offer. The advantage to being the first offer is that you have time to negotiate and start the offer making process at a lower amount. If the buyer has knowledge that there is another offer on the table, then the only available recourse to insure their offer is the one accepted is to come in at or above list price. It is a brutal marketplace and the best way to negotiate an offer is to put forth a win-win scenario.
It's much better than trying to lowball, losing the property, and always wondering what if....
My buyer may still end up with the home. He probably will if I have any say in the matter and the numbers can work out in his favor.
Timing is everything in this business. It can literally cost or save thousands of dollars. That is why it so important to have a Columbus Real Estate agent like myself who is on top of the area you are interested in and can direct you to a property when it becomes available. A few days later may be too late. And if your agent isn't technology savvy, you may be in for a long home search.