Dealing with Multiple offers when buying a house
Great article for buyers John - a good resource for everyone interested in buying a home in this market. Pre qualification is a great way to make your offer stronger when submitting to the seller (especially REO homes)
Something that is very rarely discussed when buying a house is what do you do if there are multiple offers on the house you wrote a purchase offer on? So say your been looking at houses for weeks with your REALTOR and you find a home that has been on the market for a few months with no offers on it yet. You go look at the home and fall in love with it and decide to write a offer on your soon to be dream home. You whip out your checkbook and write your earnest money deposit and then write up your initial offer to purchase. Your REALTOR then submits everything to the sellers real estate agent later that night. You go back home and fall asleep dreaming about the new house that you're getting ready to buy. You then get a call the next day from your agent and find out that someone else has written an offer on that house the same day that you did. Frustrating huh?
Now it is very standard that the seller will ask for your highest and best offer. The reason they will do so is because they want to get the most they possibly can out of their house and they also want an offer that will get to the closing table. Here is a couple tips that will make your offer stand out from all the other offers....
- Submit a large earnest money deposit
This will let the sellers know that you're serious about buying the house. They figure the larger the deposit the more likely you are to go through with the sale. The earnest money is part of your down payment. By increasing it you are also increasing your chances of getting your offer accepted by the seller. Remember in a multiple offer situation you will only have one chance to make your final offer and it better be a strong one.- Show the Sellers that your Qualified
You should always send the pre approval letter that your lender gave to you to the seller showing that you have been pre approved to buy a house. This will show the seller that you're ready to get your loan and have already started the buying process. Being preapproved makes you a stronger buyer in the seller's eyes.
- Give the Sellers time to Move
Unless the house is vacant you can also give the homeowner additional days to move. Cut them some slack and give them a few days after closing to be completely out of the house. Moving is very stressful and if you allow them some extra time, that could be a huge bonus to the seller to accept your offer rather than someone else's.
-Write your best offer
Don't hope for negotiation with the seller at this point. They are most likely going to take the highest and best offer that is on the table. Make it attractive, maybe even a bit above list price. Make sure though that you ask your REALTOR for all the SOLD comparables to make sure that your not over paying for the house. Always remember that a seller could of priced the home below fair market price, so just don't think that if you offer more than the asking price, that you'll be over paying for the house. Again look at the comparables to see where your offer will stand if you go up on it.
- Play nice
Don't ask the seller to pay any of your closing costs. Find out from your REALTOR what is standard for the seller to pay at closing and maybe put in the contract that you will pay those fees for the seller. It could be something like a title policy fee, escrow fee or a transfer fee. Anything you can do to beef up the offer to the seller is a plus.
Those are some good tips to use if you're in a multiple offer situations. If you're looking to buy a house anywhere in the Greater Dayton Ohio Area; HomeBackers has highly trained Real Estate Agents that can assist you with all your home buying needs. We have dealt with every Real Estate issue that you could imagine and have extreme knowledge of the Real Estate Market all over the Greater Dayton Ohio Area. You can contact us at 937-754-1111 or go to our website at www.HomeBackers.com
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