Top 5 ways to make sure you have the winning bid | Monday Minute October 19, 2020

What can I do to make my offer win?There are a lot of different things that can help you win an offer in a multiple offer scenario.It is stressful but there is a way.First - Money. That may mean that you can't go above a certain price range or you didn't go above a certain price range and someone just bid a little more than you.There are a couple of things we can do. If we are in a price range where we find we can't go higher, we may want to go to a lower price range so we have room to go higher. Another is maybe you didn't realize that people are going to bid as much as they did, and in those situations there is such a thing as an escalation clause. This is where you can offer what you feel is very reasonable but we have a contingency with an amount you are willing to go up to and above the highest bid.Next - Closing Help. Maybe you need closing help to make the deal work. You have enough for your down payment but you don't have enough for the down payment and closing costs and reserves required for the loan. How do we ask for closing help? One, you could be looking at certain state and county grants that sometimes offer money toward that. And right now with interest rates being super low, you could talk to your lender about raising your interest rate so that they could give you money back towards your closing costs.Next - Inspections. Right now if you want to win a house you're going to have to go in AS-IS or no home inspection. I do not recommend doing no home inspection. It's always good to have that set of eyes to make sure you're not getting into a set of problems. So how can we buy a house if we are not comfortable not doing the inspections. You can actually hire an inspector to go with you to look at the house. I would only recommend doing that if you are very sure that this house is going to be the one. Obviously that will be a little money up front but that money up front might help you have a better offer up front.Next - Write a letter to the sellers. Tell them a little bit about yourself. The real estate process, especially on the residential side, is emotional. There is a lot of emotions in this home that they raised their family and spent all of this time and had all of these experiences. I found that sellers that connect with buyers, often take less favorable offers based off of the connection they have made. If writing a letter can make that happen, it's worth thinking about.Lastly - Home to Sell Contingency. Right now in this market if you have a home to sell, you should have your home already under contract before writing on a property. You can do sellers home choice. Meaning you can have your home go under contract contingent on you being able to get a contract on a home for you to buy.If you keep losing out on offers, don't give up hope. There will be more homes coming up and I promise the market will not be this way forever.