STOP GETTING OUTBID!

by www-llhomesteam-com

Getting Outbid? Ways to Make Offer Stand Out

Getting Outbid? Make Your Offer Stand Out

Summer is traditionally a busy time for buyers and sellers. This year has been no exception—and with lower interest rates, many homebuyers are finding the competitive environment challenging. With multiple buyers competing for properties, even terrific offers are often being outbid.

There are some things you can do to make your offer more attractive to the sellers and increase the chances of getting the property.

Have Full Pre-Approval

A great knowledgeable lender can be a huge asset in you home buying process and can make the financing portion of your home purchase much easier.

A step beyond pre-qualification, a pre-approval involves submitting your full application to underwriting. Your lender will collect all your financial data and submit for review. This is stronger than a pre-qualification, a pre-approval requires the buyer to provide the proof of their ability to qualify for the loan. In this market if you do not submit an offer with a full pre-approval you will set yourself at a huge disadvantage.

Increase the Earnest Money

Earnest money is the deposit held in escrow. The sum of money that you agree to put “on the line” in the form of deposit can make your offer that much more attractive in the eyes of the seller. Often referred to as “skin the game money” a larger deposit tells a seller how serious you are in your decision to want to purchase their home.

Don’t forget the offer to purchase contract is designed to have a number of protections for you in the form of contingencies to ensure your deposit is not at jeopardy.

Add an Escalation Clause

This is one of many strategies that can be used to ensure you’re not overpaying for a property by blindly bidding on a property, and still being able to secure the property in a bidding war. An escalation clause is one way to automatically outbid the others. The clause typically offers an amount—$1,000, $1,200, $2,500 or $5,000 depending on home price point and how aggressive you’d like to make the offer.

For Example:
If the property is listed at $450,000 and you love the property are willing to pay up to $525,000 for the property rather than over paying and offering $525,000 blindly. The initial offer would be $450,000 and the language in the offer would read “Buyer is willing to pay $2,500 higher than highest bona fid offer upt $525,000. In this example if the highest offer is at $476,000 this would ensure yours is the highest offer with the winning purchase price of $478,500 which would be $2,500 higher than the highest offer.

Remove Inspection Contingency

**WE NEVER RECOMMEND YOU WAIVE YOUR HOME INSPECTION**

This option can be tricky, however if you are planning a large remodel or are willing to tackle any defects found, then you can make your offer stronger by accepting the home as-is.

In this fast-moving, competitive real estate market, it’s important to make your offer stand out from the crowd. This is a great ways to show the sellers that you’re serious about buying their home

Cheese Letter

We’ve seen many of these letter that our buyer clients have submitted or our seller clients have received, in many cases we’ve seen the seller forgo a higher offer and accept an offer with a cheese letter.

Purchasing or selling your home is typically one of your largest assets and typically emotions come into play. The cheese letter is a silly yet extremely powerful tool that you can have in you home buying arsenal. It is a heartfelt letter written from you the buyer to the seller. In this letter you should include the things you love about the house, and a little about you and your family and anything else you’d like the seller to know when they are considering your offer.

Get Started with your home search at www.LLHomesTeam.com