How Buyers and Sellers Should Navigate Multiple Offer Situations

Real Estate Podcast with Donald Payne

Whether you’re a buyer or a seller, knowing how to navigate a multiple offer situation is very important in our current market. Here’s what I had to say about this topic in a recent Facebook Live interview. In your current market, are you seeing a lot of multiple offer situations? Yes, we are seeing quite a few multiple offer situations. Right now, we only have 1.8 months of inventory. There are more buyers out there than there are sellers, and they’re writing multiple offers. In our market, cash is usually king, but the highest-priced offer isn’t always the one that gets accepted. Sometimes it can depend on the conditions and contingencies in the contract. Should buyers be pre-approved in this environment? You have to be either pre-approved or able to show proof of funds. Sellers won’t even look at offers that don’t show documentation of the buyer’s ability to close. If you’re a seller and you expect multiple offers for your home, what should you do before listing the property? Set a timeline for when you’ll start accepting offers. At that point, sit down with your agent and review the best ones. Remember—the highest-priced offer isn’t always the best one, so look closely at the terms and contingencies of each offer to really determine which one’s best for you. “Sellers won’t even look at offers that don’t show documentation of the buyer’s ability to close.” If you receive multiple offers within the first couple of days, should you decide right away or wait for more offers to come in? That depends on what type of offers you get. Most of the time, sellers will extend their timeline by 24 to 48 hours and announce that they’ve received multiple offers so it gives other potential buyers a chance to submit their best offer. What kind of circumstances would make it a good idea not to take the highest offer? If the highest offer in question has a lot of contingencies or isn’t as “clean” as other offers, you may not want to accept the highest offer. In a multiple offer situation, buyers should try to make their offers as lean as possible in terms of contingencies, so if your highest offer has a lot of contingencies, you might be better off going with another. If you have any other questions about dealing with multiple offer situations or our market in general, feel free to call, email, or message me on my website. I’d be happy to help you.