Here’s how to make your offer more competitive in this market.
In this market, it’s not always the highest offer that gets accepted and wins. This is an unprecedented market and a lot of unique things are happening right now.
If a home is listed at $175,000 and you put in an offer for $200,000, there are a lot of factors that go into writing that offer. Are you making a cash offer? Were there going to be no contingencies? That would be a very strong offer, but if you’re offering $200,000 on a $175,000 house with all the inspection contingencies, that may be a weaker offer than an offer of $185,000 with no seller concessions at all.
“With this unprecedented market, we’re seeing all these unique situations.”
Another way to make a strong offer is to offer asking price and also to pay for all the commissions within the transaction. That is giving another 6% to the seller, but it’s not necessarily raising the price of the home.
These are other simple but unique things that we’re seeing right now. For example, you can say that you’ll pay for a home warranty on the seller’s next home if they’re purchasing another one or pay their cable bill for the next six months. I recently wrote an offer that is $10,000 over asking, but we’re paying the transfer tax with no other seller’s concessions. With this unprecedented market, we’re seeing all these unique situations.
Remember, just because you might be pre-approved for X amount and you can make a $200,000 offer on a $150,000 home, if the home doesn’t appraise for that much then you must come up with the additional amount over the top of what it did appraise for. If you write in the contract that you will pay X amount over the appraisal difference, that can also be another way to write an extremely strong offer.
If you have any questions about this, don’t hesitate to reach out to me anytime. You can call or text me at (223) 230-1444. I look forward to hearing from you. Stay happy, healthy, and safe.
