Winning a Bidding War

Every homebuyer’s biggest concern is winning a bidding war when they finally find their dream home. And every home in today’s market is part of a bidding war. How in the world will your offer be the best offer so the seller chooses yours over the others.

How things have changed over the years

I’ve been a licensed Realtor since 1987. Things have certainly changed since then. It used to be, you’d look through the MLS book of homes for sale to find homes you would show your buyers. Heaven forbid if you let those buyers take your book and find their own homes. That was forbidden.

Then every day, new hot sheets would come out of new homes on the market. Granted, this was before we had computers. You would go look at a house and maybe make an offer. I don’t ever remember being up against another offer.

Showing houses in 2021

Today, buyers find houses they want to see sometimes before I even see them. After we’ve looked at between 10-15 houses right off the bat, we narrow it down to what they are really looking for. After looking at a number of houses, buyers know what they like, what they don’t like, and what they want to see more of.

My typical buyer is set up on an automatic search through our local Multiple Listing Service and receives new listings as soon as they are entered into the system. With each buyer, there is always the best time of the day for them to look at homes.

So every day, I plan my schedule around my buyer’s best time of day. We typically look at one house a day, maybe two. Then they have to decide 3 things:

1. do we like it enough to make an offer?
2. how much over asking price will we offer?
3. what other options will we offer to be the winning offer?

Winning a bidding war when making the offer

There are so many options anymore when making an offer. It’s no longer about price and the perfect closing date for the seller. And it’s definitely not about writing a Dear Mr. Seller letter.

What begins with feelings – ends up with paperwork.

Winning a bidding war has a lot to do with the Realtor you choose. As your Realtor, I want to know:

• what price will you offer?
• how much earnest deposit will you offer?
• what’s your preferred closing date?
• what is your escalatory price?
• how much over any other offer will you offer in the escalatory addendum?
• will you offer an appraisal addendum and if so, how much are you willing to pay should the house not appraise?
• will you sign the In Its Present Condition Addendum and are you willing to check box 2? I won’t let you check box 3!!!

Once we get past the price, earnest deposit and preferred closing date, the hard pieces of the puzzle come into play. And honestly, each piece builds on your past experience in writing offers.

Writing a winning offer

Writing an offer is tricky. It helps to know what other offers you’re up against and whether any of them are all cash. That’s not readily accessible information though. And very honestly, I’ve had sellers accept a higher-priced offer than an all-cash offer. So that technique doesn’t always work either.

You also need to know how offers on the home are going to be addressed. Will they:

• be presented as they come in
• collected for a few days or
• do they have a specific time the agent and sellers will be reviewing all offers?

With every home for sale, the whole scenario changes. You have different sellers, a different agent and a different offer rules.

But once you try one thing and it doesn’t work, the next offer you write will be stronger than the last one. You’ll take more chances and more risks the more offers you write.

Just remember, persistence pays off. And eventually, you’ll pull out all the guns and get your offer accepted. Hang in there.

In conclusion

If you’re looking for a great Realtor who has a good track record of winning the offer and has more persistence than you do, call or text me at (913) 515-3250 or contact me here to set up an appointment for a buyer consultation.

Be sure to check out today’s new listings in Overland Park below. Contact me if there is anything you’d like to see.

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(all data current as of 9/21/2023)

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