How to Make Your Offer Stand Out in a Seller’s Market

San Francisco Real Estate Podcast with Durwin Cheung

How can you make your offer stand out when competing with other buyers on a home? Here are three things to keep in mind when submitting your offer.

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Navigating a seller’s market as a buyer can be tricky, especially if you find yourself competing against other buyers on the same house in a multiple offer situation. What can you do to make your offer more attractive to the seller? Here are three things to keep in mind when making your offer that will help you land your dream home:
1. Terms. You want to make your offer as clean as possible by having minimal contingencies. In order to do this most effectively, you’ll want to do your due diligence ahead of time before you write the offer. If this is a hot property with a lot of interest from other buyers, make sure that you make your preliminary inspections ahead of time so that you don’t have to include inspection contingencies on your contract. It’s also important to include short terms, meaning that you want to be sure that the close of escrow happens in the shortest possible time frame.

2. Include your pre-approval letter and proof of funds in your offer. This way, when the seller looks at your offer, they know that you are capable of getting a loan for the property and have funds available for the down payment. Including these two items in your offer is extremely important in a market like the one we’re in here in San Francisco. If these aren’t included, many times the seller won’t even look at your offer.

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A seller may not even consider your offer without a pre-approval letter.

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3. Have a good agent on your side. With a lot of the hands-off situations going on in the market right now, many times agents will simply email an offer to the seller’s agent and won’t communicate ahead of time. I find myself in this situation all the time, and when it happens, I question whether I should accept the buyer’s offer since I have never met the buyer or their agent. If you’re on the buyer’s side, make sure you let your agent contact the seller’s agent and establish a rapport early on.
Keeping these three things in mind when submitting your offer can only make your offer stronger. If you have any other questions about making your offer stronger or anything else related to real estate, give me a call, send me an email, or leave a comment below. I’d be happy to help you!