Here are the five tips to remember to help you make a competitive offer.
As a buyer, how do you get your offer accepted in our competitive market? Here are five tips to remember:
1. Work with a team. It’s not unusual for homes to sell after just a day or two on the market, so working with a team gives you more resources to jump on an opportunity once it presents itself.
2. Work with a great lender. For example, our team has several wonderful partnered professionals who take extra steps to help our clients. They’ll call listing agents and say things like, “I’ll give the seller $5,000 if I don’t close this file on time.” There are many moving parts and uncertainties within a transaction, so solidifying the closing date makes a huge difference in the eyes of a seller. Big banks like U.S. Bank and Wells Fargo wouldn’t guarantee a closing date.
“It’s not unusual for homes to sell after just a day or two.”
3. Write a letter to the seller. From the seller’s perspective, this is their family home. Their children may have grown up in it, so they likely have an emotional attachment to it. If you wrote them a letter about what you love about their home and how you can see your family living in it, that would mean a lot to them. After all, they probably put a lot of time and effort into getting it ready for the market.
4. Waive the inspection. This is the biggest negotiating tactic we’re seeing in the market, especially for our listings. A lot of buyers are waiving their inspections, and your agent should be able to guide you through this tactic just like we do with our clients. Is there a full seller’s disclosure statement or a home warranty on the property? Was the property built in, say, 1950 and now needs the sewer line scoped? With this tip, the key is to weigh your options to make your offer the most favorable.
5. Know the right price to offer. How do you compete against 10 or 15 other offers without knowing what prices are involved? You don’t want to bid blindly and offer $30,000 over asking price when the second-highest offer is just $10,000 over asking price. We always know the price range of other offers our buyers are competing against, and we often use escalation clauses to help them win out without going way over asking price, so make sure your agent does the same.
Being in a multiple-offer situation is emotional and challenging, but we’re here to help you navigate this process. If you have any questions about this topic, don’t hesitate to reach out to us. Also, stay tuned for our next video where we’ll discuss real estate investing and tell you how to build wealth through real estate.
