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5 Ways Your Buyer’s Agent Can Hurt Your Offer

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Real Estate Agent with Coldwell Banker - Palo Alto, CA 01442831

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Have you ever had the sneaking suspicion that the reason you keep losing offer after offer may not be because of you?  Your buyer’s agent may be killing your chances of winning a multiple offer and you may not even know it.

Imagine you are a seller and you just received 10 offers on your home.  All of the offers have pictures of cute families and letters from the buyers saying how much they love your home.  Several of the offers are clustered in the same price range and you feel badly for choosing one offer that is just slightly better than the other.  You are exhausted by the offer process and don’t want to prolong the ordeal by issuing counters.  What do you do?  Well, the easiest way to eliminate offers is to look for incomplete paperwork. 

Incomplete paperwork is rampant in the real estate industry.  There are a lot of sloppy agents out there.  I have won multiple offer deals simply because my paperwork was buttoned up.  Many buyers have no idea that their offer ended up in the rejection pile because their contract was incomplete.  They trust their buyer’s agent to complete the paperwork properly. 

Make sure you don’t have the following loose ends in your offer.  It could kill your deal.

1.  No proof of funds.  Along with your offer you need to provide an account statement from a well known financial institution showing that the funds for your deposit and down payment are liquid and available.  I won a deal recently where my client’s offer was the same as another offer but the other offer did not have a proof of funds and we did.  Paperwork matters!

2.  No agent inspection: In the Bay Area buyer's agents are expected to submit a visual inspection of the property along with their client’s purchase agreement.  If the visual inspection is not completed by the buyer’s agent, it may put the contract into question.  Listing agents are on the lookout for missing buyer’s agent’s visual inspections.  Sometimes a buyer's agent will say when they are presenting the offer to the listing agent that they didn't have time to do the inspection and they will do it later in the day if the offer is accepted.  This is a red flag for the sellers.

3.  Missing signatures:  If initials and signatures are missing from the offer and disclosures it may not kill the deal - but it will make the sellers and listing agent pause.  The listing agent may worry about how the deal will be handled once in contract.  Is the buyer's agent going to be able to keep the deal together if they can't even get the signatures on the contract right?  

 4.  Liquidated Damages and Arbitration not signed:  In every Bay Area real estate contract there is a paragraph regarding liquidated damages and arbitration.  Simply put, the liquidated damages clause limits damages for the buyer to 3% of the purchase amount.  The arbitration clause offers a form of alternative dispute resolution outside the courts.  It is not mandatory to sign these sections; however, most people do sign them, so it raises a red flag if you don't.  The “norm” in the Bay Area is to sign liquidated damages and arbitration.  If you don't sign it, it gives the sellers the feeling that you might be a problem. When all of the other offers have signed liquidated damages and arbitration and yours doesn’t, it makes it easy for the sellers to put your offer in the rejection pile.

5.  Disclosures not signed: I have had clients say, "Do I really have to read 180 pages of disclosures in one day and sign them?"  Yes, you do.  I have also had clients ask, "Can you just read them for me and let me know if there is anything I should be worried about?" No, I can’t. You need to read all of disclosures, be comfortable with the content and sign off on them.  Sometimes clients are too busy and say, "I will read them if we get the deal." In order to do that the buyer has to put in an inspection contingency.  If you put in an inspection contingency in the Bay Area in a multiple offer situation, you will generally not get the home.  Sometimes buyer's agents will try to fudge for their clients and say, "All of the disclosures are signed but I don't have them with me.  I'll send them to you later today." Bad idea!  The offer that has all of the signed disclosures with it will win.

 

Djuna Woods is a multiple offer specialist at Coldwell Banker in Palo Alto.  For more information about how to win multiple offers, see How To Buy the Home You Love in the Bay Area at Amazon.

 

Show All Comments Sort:
Kat Palmiotti
eXp Commercial, Referral Divison - Kalispell, MT
Helping your Montana dreams take root

We don't have the same forms here, but the concept is the same.  The offer documentation must be complete, and the proof of funds or pre-approval must be provided.  If I received offers without the proof/pre-approval, or that were not done completely, I'd tell the buyer's agent to resubmit with whatever was missing before I share with owner.

Sep 15, 2014 09:10 PM
Lise Howe
Keller Williams Capital Properties - Washington, DC
Assoc. Broker in DC, MD, VA and attorney in DC

We don't have the same forms here in the DC metro area and while a pre approval is an absolute necessity, most buyer agents don't provide proof of funds for the down payment - I think that is a great idea that I am going to start doing. Thanks! 

Sep 15, 2014 10:00 PM
Djuna Woods
Coldwell Banker - Palo Alto, CA - Palo Alto, CA

In my area (Silicon Valley) when there are multiple offers, the listing agent generally sets a date and time to accept those offers.  So if a buyer's agent shows up to the presentation on offer day without having all the paperwork buttoned up they may not have another chance. 

Sep 16, 2014 09:04 AM