5 Ways to Make the BEST Offer Possible (2021 Real Estate Market)
Brad: Hey guys, what’s up? It’s Brad here with the Tru Agency Tru Homes and Construction team. If you follow me at all and you’re on our channel or on our social media, you know that we buy houses, we remodel them and then we sell them. And if you’re paying attention to the market at all right now, you understand this market, it’s no secret, this is a seller’s market. In fact, buyers are having a really, really tough time. Multiple offers, houses selling for more than offer price.
So I thought I’d give you my ideas and my tips. In fact, five tips that I’ve come up with, stolen them from some other people, brought them together from our ideas to show you five ways to make your offer the best offer possible. So, as you guys know, we sell a lot of houses. So I’m giving you my perspective as somebody who is a seller, who is making decisions based off of the offers that we get.
So tip number one, if you are an FHA/VA buyer, see what you can do to get rid of the government program. It’s not that they’re bad loans. In fact, they can be great loans. They are just a little more problematic. Right now, conventional loans you can get in with as low as 5%. So check with your lender. The biggest part about conventional loans is they’re not as tough on sellers. So truthfully, we prefer the conventional loans. So tip number one, if you can get rid of those FHA government-funded loans, VA loans, do that. Use a conventional loan.
Tip number two goes right along with number one. Where your loan is concerned, get rid of as many contingencies as possible. Now that can be tricky, because you’re going to need an appraisal to get a loan. But what I’m talking about is if you already own a house and you need to buy and you’re buying another house, strongly consider selling the house that you own right now, doing something, either moving in with a relative, renting, moving into a rental for a short term. Because what that does, it removes the contingency of you having to sell your house before you buy another house.
When I get an offer from somebody to buy one of our houses and they have to sell a house before they buy our house, it just got a lot more complicated. So I’m not interested, truthfully, in selling to somebody that has to sell a house before they can buy a house. So get rid of as many contingencies as possible. Make sure your agent knows what is and what isn’t important to you. What are the deal killers? Because if there is something out there that doesn’t really matter to you, get rid of it in your loan. And for a lot of people, that’s not an option, but if it is, get rid of as many of them as possible. So remove contingencies.
Number three, and this is a big one. Does your agent have access or the person that you’re working with, your agent, do have access to properties that aren’t on the MLS? So you guys know we buy a lot of houses. Right now, at least 50% of our houses that we buy and sell are selling before they even hit the market. This house that I’m standing in, somebody knocked on our door and said, “Would you be interested in selling the house next door?” And you know what? I said no because somebody else had already called me.
They reached out to me on social media and said, “We saw the house that you’re remodeling. Can we buy it before you list it?” They came to us with a great offer that I couldn’t refuse. And so if the agent you’re working with doesn’t have access to properties that aren’t on the market, you might want to consider working with a different agent. Remember not all agents are created the same. They don’t all do the same thing. So take a look at that and see if there’s any other properties that they have access to.
So fourth tip, pretty simple, wherever you are qualified at, make sure you are overqualified for the property that you’re offering on. We just had a house that sold for … The list price was 349,000. It ended up selling for 380,000, give or take. Every offer that was competitive was between 350,000 and 380,000. Now think about this as a buyer. If you’re out looking at houses up to 350,000 and you come to my house that’s listed at 349 and you offer 350, I’m going to be honest with you. Your offer’s not even being considered. So if you are qualified for a $400,000 house, you should be looking at $350,000 houses because you’re going to have to come in above price.
In fact, the majority of houses right now are selling for sometimes five, 10, 15% above list price. So make sure that your mortgage is able to do that. Look, the other cool thing is when I see an offer, when we see an offer that comes in on a $350,000 house and the buyer is qualified for 400, 450, 500,000 in their mortgage, we know that’s a serious buyer who can actually perform. So use that to your advantage. Get overqualified. Buy something that’s less than what you can afford, which is always a good idea anyway, and you have a much stronger opportunity and a much stronger position to get a house that you can actually close on.
Look, number five, and this might be the hardest for you, you have to be realistic. If you think that this is a market where you can come in and negotiate hard as a buyer, ask for a lot of furniture inclusions or ask for a lot of time after close or you make crazy requests of the seller, just know your offer’s not even going to be really serious, or nobody’s going to consider your offer seriously. And if that’s the kind of buyer you are, that’s okay. Just understand this may not be the market for you.
And that’s what I would end with. If you’re a buyer who has to get a deal, you have to be doing something else besides just looking on the MLS, although they can be found there, but it’s a lot harder to just find a deal on the MLS. So if you’re one of those people and you’ve got to find a deal, this may not be a market for you. And that’s okay. You might want to consider sitting out, but I’m going to tell you, you’re going to be sitting out awhile because this market, this is here to stay for just a little bit. No telling how long, but it’s not going away this year, at least not from what I can tell.
So those are my five tips. Remember, not all agents are created the same. Not everybody does the same thing. If you want some expert help, consider contacting an expert and not just somebody who may or may not have just gotten their license. These are my tips for today. If you find them useful, give me a thumbs up. If you think their garbage, give me a thumbs down. Like always check us out on all the different social medias. Have a great day. Peace.
