I know there are utility credits or whatnot, where the electric company gives you a credit or even pays you for your excess generated power, but I was always suspicious (maybe irrationally so) of those rates and arrangements.

It is frustrating to compete against such irrational behavior.They may be right and they may make a lot of money. 

The last phase of the real estate cycle is irrational exuberance....seems to fit the current real estate market 

@Amelia McGee About the seller, as long as you think he's acting irrationally and you're acting rationally (because we're all irrational), the longer it's going to take to make a deal with him.

I am now struggling to decide if I want to keep this duplex or sell it.Pros for selling:-I would net about ~100K after paying off existing loan (market is acting a little irrational, IMO.

Always remember this quote by Warren Buffett: 'Be Fearful When Others Are Greedy and Greedy When Others Are Fearful'When people are scared they will act irrationally.

I've also noticed a lot of wholesalers trying to start bidding wars among multiple cash buyers, which further drives up the price of course.Again, I think you can succeed with this method, but it is a grind and you're going to have to kiss a lot of frogs to find an acceptable prince(ss).The second answer, which almost no one wants to hear or talk about, is that if you just can't find properties where the #s look good... don't buy anything.It's almost heresy here on BP, but to me, when #s are high and people seem to be paying prices that don't make sense, and doing other crazy things like buying properties without inspections... it may just not be the best time to buy.No one wants to hear that because it seems like everyone they know is making major money in real estate, and they want to join the party, but I can say that I saw the same thing in 2006 so when I start to feel a sense of "irrational exuberance" in the market, it makes me want to reassess things, start to add more cautious assumptions into my property analyses, etc.So I think your three choices are: 1) buy something at full retail even though the numbers are awful (and pray rents keep going up as they have for the last decade, so you can service that mortgage); 2) spend a lot of time and effort finding an off market deal (maybe the best option, but I guarantee it will be a grind); or 3) accept that the market is crazy right now and wait until the market changes and #s do start to look better in general.I'm not saying that any one is the right choice, just that sometimes the right action can be no action at all (right now).

The entire purpose of a bidding war is to use emotional response to get you to do irrational things.Rather than compete on price, I like to adjust the terms to make the offer stand out:- No inspection contingency- No financing contingency (ability to close with cash required)- Large down payment so they know I am serious.

I'm reading Irrational Exuberance by Robert Shiller (Nobel prize winning economist) who did a study of US home prices since the 1800s.

I know this is lengthy, but I can go on and on with examples of this irrational behavior.