Buyer’s Tips - Making Offers In A Competitive Market

With 2021 underway and the Lunar New Year upon us, the market is increasingly competitive for home sales as rates and inventory remains low. Homes listed during the week receive multiple offers and are ratified before the following weekend! Work from home affords buyers flexible schedules and more time to keep tabs on home search sites as “Hot Home” tags stoke excitement amongst a crowd of ready buyers. There’s no accurate way to predict when demand will slow down, so if you are in the market to buy today, here are a few tips to help you stand out from other potential buyers when submitting offers on your next dream home…

Be Quick To Express Interest, Be Memorable

Set up automated search filters online thru your site of choice or set up an MLS auto-notification through your agent to receive emails when homes are listed. To get an edge, arrange a showing in the first few days of being listed on the market…as mentioned some homes don’t even last a week. When scheduling showings, good agents will touch base and communicate with listings agents frequently to make an introduction and gain important insight about the home and seller, leading to…

Know The Owner’s Motivation for Selling Their Home

Gain as much background on the Seller’s situation, it will help you cater your offer and approach. A family could be retiring and moving out of state to live near their adult kids, maybe they are upsizing from their first home, or perhaps they are selling to do a 1031 exchange. Selling a home is just as exciting and stressful for buyers and sellers alike, people want a fair price for a home with a smooth transaction. There are always different types of motivations for selling, so the better you can understand and be mindful of what the sellers are going thru, the better you can help yourself stand out when presenting and negotiating the terms of your offer.

Cater The Terms Of Your Offer To The Seller’s Situation

Now that you understand the seller’s situation, use this information to make your offer stand out. There are common things like offering a week rent back after the close of escrow if the seller is moving out of state and their timeline to move needs some flexibility, or to less common situations like offering to coordinate a donation and trash hauling for a seller who has accumulated years of personal items in their garage. I’ve even seen buyers extend a simple favor of allowing a seller to come back to a home to harvest a batch of late harvest navel oranges they planted when they originally moved in. No small gesture of consideration goes unnoticed and it’s a way to make a deal more human.

Follow The Listing Agent’s Instructions For Submitting Offers

This is the most straightforward advice and way to set yourself up for success. Many times, buyer’s agents will completely ignore simple instructions for submitting and formatting offers. In a hot seller’s market, listing agents are bombarded with calls, texts, emails and often have to create spreadsheets to help communicate and compare offers with their sellers. By following a listing agent’s specific instructions, you gain a champion that has a direct influence on getting your offer accepted or pushed to the back of a line.

Don’t Negotiate With Your Emotions

Pre-planning and truly understanding your budget and parameters will help you avoid situations where your emotions may lead you to be overly competitive and experience the stress of buyer’s guilt on move-in day. Most buyers will experience the Multiple Offer stage, where seller’s ask for buyers to go all-in with their best price and terms. Take a deep breath and stick to the number and terms that you and your family have discussed and know like the back of your hand. If it doesn’t make sense, be ready to move onto the next. Yes, you may not get that dream kitchen, convenient location 3 blocks from your favorite coffee shop, but there will be other houses to call home, you just haven’t seen it yet.

In a market like we are experiencing, take the time to set yourself up for the greatest success, don’t be afraid or discouraged to be competitive, and visualize your dream home and the feeling of walking into it for the first time as new owners.