Pick the Best Offer With These 5 Tips

Deciding between multiple offers on your home will be much easier if you follow these five tips. 

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So you’ve received multiple offers on your listing. Congratulations! Today I’ve got five tips for ensuring that the selling process goes off without a hitch:

1. Stay organized. Design a spreadsheet that includes all offers along with a table of all criteria that’s relevant to your decision. This way, you can go down the line and compare each offer against these criteria. Having an organized process of elimination will help inform your decision.

2. Create a sense of urgency. Part of this is having your Realtor set and announce a specific review date for any and all offers that come in. By doing that, interested buyers and their representation will know how long they have to place their offer, and they’ll understand that indecision could mean a missed opportunity.

3. Obtain information on every buyer who makes an offer. Your Realtor should make it their mission to learn as much as they can about the types of buyers you’re dealing with. Are any of them all-cash buyers? Contingent buyers? These are things that will likely have a major bearing on your sale.

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Having an organized process of elimination will help inform your decision.

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4. Inquire about all offers with a loan officer. If the loan officer sees an offer in a favorable light ahead of time, the chances of it going through go up exponentially, so make sure your Realtor brings your offers to a mortgage professional before you make a decision.

5. Don’t cut ties with buyers who aren’t your first choice. Once you’ve accepted an offer, ask the second- and third-place buyers whether they wish to place a back-up offer. The incentive for doing that is they can lock out any additional offers in the event that the deal you’ve accepted fails to come to fruition. Should that happen, their backup offer would be moved to the first position.

If you don’t already have a spreadsheet, as mentioned in point No. 1, we’d be happy to provide you with the one we’ve developed for free! Just contact me and I’ll send a copy for you and your Realtor to use.

And if you have any other questions about how to best handle your multiple-offer situation or about real estate in general, please email me at GaryRaze@Remax.net or call me at 541-554-5825. I’d be happy to help!

Should You Borrow Money From Relatives to Buy Your First Home?

For today’s topic, we’re going to discuss whether borrowing money from a relative to purchase your first home is a wise move.

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Especially for younger buyers, having the financial wherewithal to purchase their first home comes with its challenges. With home prices continuing to mount, breaking into the market for the first time can be difficult.

If you’re one of these first-time buyers, how can you get into a home?

The obvious answer is to borrow money from a relative, but it’s important to recognize the good, the bad, and the ugly associated with this course of action.

Let’s first consider the good. It could be that your parents or grandparents have set aside funds with the express intent of helping you get into your first home, giving you a leg up. There’s no real downside to this because your relative saved money for that very reason.

Alternatively, if you’ve established a retirement plan such as a Roth IRA or the like, you can borrow from that account to pay for a home without penalty. Check with an accountant or a professional who’s familiar with your situation beforehand, though.

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It’s important to recognize the good, the bad, and the ugly associated with this course of action.

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Now, I’d like to share a brief example that’s representative of the bad (plus the ugly): About four years ago, I happily assisted one of my clients in her home sale, from which she extracted $75,000 to $100,000 in equity.

I recently learned that, with that money, she helped her children get into their first home. By doing so, however, she exhausted all of that money. What’s worse, she didn’t have a retirement plan in place. Because her children couldn’t return the favor financially speaking, she’s now stuck with little money to live on month to month.

Therein lies the problem with relatives lending money to children or grandchildren in order for them to buy a home. Without having a keen awareness of what it means for their financial future, some people, unfortunately, give in to emotion and pass along money that’s vital to their own livelihood to their children or grandchildren.

A word of advice: Think twice before borrowing funds from a relative for your home purchase. If you do borrow from them, make sure you’re borrowing surplus funds that don’t eat into their own retirement system. 

If you have any questions about today’s topic or anything else real estate-related, feel free to give me a call at 541-554-5825 or email me at GaryRaze@Remax.net. I’d be happy to help!

How Can Buyers Compete in a Tight Seller’s Market?

The key to winning the home you want in a tight seller’s market is following a few simple tips.

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Here in Lane County, as we close the book on May, we’re down to 1.8 months of inventory. This means there are more buyers out there than there are available homes.

As a buyer, what can you do to make your offer more attractive to sellers without overpaying for the home you want?

First, have your agent call the listing agent and find out as much as they can about the seller. Why are they moving? What’s their moving date? Have they already purchased a new home? Knowing the answers to these questions will help you craft your offer. For example, if you find out when they need to move, you can adjust your closing date so it’s more appealing.

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In this market, why would anyone choose a low offer when they have other offers that are either at or above their asking price?

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Next, make sure you have a strong pre-qualification and offer a good earnest money deposit. The higher your deposit is, the safer your offer looks.

Also, try minimizing your inspection timeline. The average timeline for completing inspections is about 10 days, so if you tell the seller you can get yours done in, say, three to five days, that sends a clear message that you’re ready to buy now and you won’t be picky in terms of what repairs you ask for.

Whatever you do, don’t try lowballing the seller. Remember, they’ll likely have more than just your offer to look at. In this market, why would anyone choose a low offer when they have other offers that are either at or above their asking price?

If you’d like to know more about how you can compete in a seller’s market or you have any other real estate questions for me, don’t hesitate to reach out to me. I’d be happy to help you.