In a Multiple Offer, Does the Seller Always Go with Highest Price?

In a Multiple Offer, Does the Seller Always Go with Highest Price?

In my area, the real estate market has seen a pretty incredible turn around over the past several months.  It isn't unusual for a new listing to go under contract in less than a week, and I have seen my last three listings disappear in less than 5 days.

The most recent one was exciting for the seller.  We ended up being in a multiple offer situation.  

The offers had come in within a couple hours of each other, so I conferred with my seller on how best to approach this.  After our discussion, she decided that I should contact the agents who had submitted offers and ask them to submit their highest and best.  For those of you unfamiliar with this, the "Highest and best" is exactly that - the most the buyer is willing to pay, under their best possible terms.

Does the seller always go with the highest price?  In a word, no.

In this situation, my seller reviewed the offers and had narrowed it down to two.  The offer that she decided to go with was not the highest offer price, nor the highest net.

Frankly, my seller liked the timing on the offer she went with.  In addition, she felt like the offer she went with was more "solid".  As an agent, I agreed with her - that buyer's agent clearly knew her stuff, and it was a solid contract.  The other offer was a little higher, but the contract itself wasn't quite as thoroughly written.

So, how can you be sure that your offer will be accepted?  Highest price seems like the most obvious way, but you will also want to be sure that your financing is in order, and that you have an agent that will properly convey your offer to put it into the best light.

Take an active role in the offering process and read through the contracts and the offer, and soon you'll be in your new home!