[taude]

I think a lot of the escalations involve more than just one other person bidding, so you'd really need to be running a good game to get three or four people involved to run up a price in something like this.

Additionally, in a competitive market, with multiple offers, people aren't doing a bare minimum deposit. More like 30 - 50K is involved based on my experience, but it varies dependending on state.... I'm currently looking in a new market, and we were told our offers should have about 10 to 30K on them between Due Dilligence and Ernest money....

Besides, it's just easier for the seller/buyer agent to have a conversation on which buyer wants it the most.