5 Strategies to Help Get Your Offer Accepted in a Crazy Market

If you’ve tried to buy a home lately, you know how crazy it is. Multiple offers, way over asking price - it can be very frustrating. But we’ve been having some good success with getting our offers accepted, and it’s because we are using strategies that make our buyer’s offers much more appealing to the sellers.

 Most Agents Don’t Know What They’re Doing

As an agent that lists a lot of houses, I see it first hand. So many of the offers I get in my inbox are just, hmm, how can I put it politely, well, they are just bad. If I get ten offers, only about 2 of them are well thought out, and doing things that make the offer stand out. A couple are just OK, but more than half of the offer, well, I don’t know how these agents are still in business.

This is why a small number of agents are doing great things for their clients, and the rest are leaving their buyers frustrated and defeated. 

Here are some of the mistakes I see:

• Cold offers. I open my inbox and see an offer for one of my listings. Who is this agent? I know I haven’t spoken to them, or communicated with them in any way. I’m not even sure if the buyers have seen the house. How in the world does that agent think I’m going to consider this offer (unless the purchase price is WAYYYY over the other offers, but that just means this agent, because he/she did not pick up the phone, just cost their clients tens of thousands of dollars).
• Offer was not tailored to the seller. This goes with the first mistake. How does this agent know what my seller’s needs are? Is it just about price? Do they need time to move, or to find another house? One of the keys to getting your offer accepted (more to come) is to tailor the offer to the seller.
• Poorly filled out Purchase Agreement. A real estate transaction has so many documents, disclosures and timelines, and it’s our job to get them done right to protect our clients. Why would I want to work with someone that doesn’t even know how to fill out the purchase agreement? This is an indication of a nightmare transaction. No thanks, I’m going to put that at the bottom of the pile.

5 Ways to GREATLY Increase the Odds of Getting Into Escrow

We’ve talked about some of the things your agent should not be doing. Now let’s look at some strategies that will help you get your offer accepted in this crazy seller’s market. I didn’t come up with many of these, I just stole borrowed them from other agents that I know.

1. Communication. Pick up the damn phone and talk to the listing agent. Find out what the seller needs, and how I can make this offer more appealing to the seller. Ask questions, most listing agents love to talk and will give you lots of information.

2. Developing a relationship with the listing agent. Agent are the gatekeeper to the seller. And they are people, and they like to work with professionals, and people they like. If you build rapport with the listing agent and also show your professionalism, they will often go out of their way to to tell you what the seller needs and will work with you to get your offer accepted. I’ve been doing this for 15 years, and the biggest lesson I’ve learned is that this is a relationship business. 100%, without a doubt.

3. Get Rid of Contingencies. To be competitive with your offer, you need to get rid of some of the contingencies. But, you have to do it safely so that you, the buyers, are still protected. There are ways to remove contingencies safely. But sadly, I see a lot of offers where the agent just blindly removes the contingencies, because they heard that that’s what they have to do, but they did it wrong and their buyers can get burned very badly. Finding that balance where you remove the contingencies, but protect your clients is essential.

4. Appraisal Gap Strategy. Removing the appraisal contingency is almost a must these days, but what happens when the appraisal is 80k lower than the purchase price? Do you have 80k to make up the difference? Most people don’t. That’s why it’s imperative to have a way to mitigate that difference. By using my GAP STRATEGY, I can make sure you are protected, and you won’t need that 80k to close the deal. Most agents don’t even know what this is.

5. Cash Offer using a bridge loan. I have a couple lender partners that will front you the cash, so that you can make a cash offer on the house. THIS IS HUGE! You will be put in the front of the line, ahead of all those offers with loans, and you can close in as little as 10 days. Once the home is closed, the lender will complete the paperwork for your loan, you get a regular 30-year mortgage, and the lender gets their money back. This is gold on a popsicle stick!

Advanced Strategies to Get Your Offer Accepted

The strategies listed above are a great starting point, but I have many other advanced strategies that I only share with my clients. I can’t share them here, because I like having that extra edge for my clients only. 

Do You Want to Learn More? Do You Want to GREATLY Increase Your Chances of Getting into Escrow?