5 Ways To Get Your Offer Accepted
If you’ve spent any time looking for a house in the past year you’ll know how tough it is to get your offer accepted when up against multiple bids and all cash offers. Here are a few tried and tested strategies that can help you standout in an increasingly crowded field:
Use an experienced Realtor.
Navigating a real estate purchase is a complicated process. That’s why you need an experienced Realtor who understands the intricacies of the market and can save you time, money, and heartache by helping you find the right home and make and negotiate the right terms on your behalf.
Offer more earnest money.
Once you find a home that checks all your boxes, you may want to put down earnest money as a show of good faith. Why? Because depositing earnest money means you have skin in the game and decreases the likelihood that you’ll place offers on multiple homes and then walk away after the seller takes the home off of the market (although not likely in today’s housing market!).
Write a heartfelt letter.
When there are more buyers than homes for sale, and you’re bidding against ten other hopeful buyers, a personalized letter could help seal the deal. Most people have an emotional connection to their home. They may be moving, but it’s the place where many of their memories reside – birthdays, first dates, family dinners – and they’ll want to know that the new owner will appreciate its potential and reap the same joys and rewards.
Be flexible.
Being attune to the seller’s needs, and responding accordingly, can often mean more to them than having the extra cash in their pocket. For example, maybe your competition outbids you by a couple of thousand dollars, but you have the flexibility to give the seller the extra time they need to close and move out, or, you could let the sellers have a rent back for a period of time. On the flip side, maybe the home is vacant, and the seller is anxious to get someone in the home, and you offer to close in a shorter time frame. This is another scenario where your Realtor’s advice and guidance can be invaluable.
Ask your lender to pre-underwrite your loan.
A pre-approval letter shows the seller the maximum amount your lender is willing to loan you, providing you meet certain conditions. However, pre-underwriting goes one step further. It means your lender has reviewed your financials and is providing a guarantee that it will give you a home loan up to a specified price. By the time you find the home you want to buy, you’ll have already cleared any conditions that the lender may have relative to your financial position and credit worthiness, and in return, they will have issued you a firm commitment letter. This is just one more step you can take to make you more attractive to sellers. With a firm commitment in hand, you won’t need to include a financing contingency and you can close faster. As you can imagine, offers with fewer contingencies are very popular with sellers.
