Get your offer accepted each and every time with these nine tips.
Hi, there I am Joe Janus with HomeSmart here in Phoenix, Arizona, and here we go. Number one, call the listing agent. It’s really simple. Call him up, have a conversation, build rapport, but also the most important thing is you want to find out what’s important to the seller. Do they need to stay in the home after they close? Do they need a particular close date? If you don’t have a conversation with the listening agent, [00:00:30] you are just kind of shooting in the dark. So make sure you do that.
Number two, include a checklist. With as many offers as most listening agents and sellers are getting these days, you really want to make it as easy as possible for them to see the highlights of your offer. Don’t make them go through all the different paperwork, make it easy. So include a checklist with the highlights. The price, any particular terms and conditions, earnest deposit, things like that. Make it easy.
[00:01:00] Number three. Now I want to make sure I make this clear. Write in the additional terms and conditions section that the buyer waives any repair requests, just repair requests. You’re not waiving the inspection because you need to still have the property inspected. Unless of course you’re cash and you just don’t care and you’re going to be tearing down the home, but most buyers want to inspect the home to make sure that there aren’t any huge issues. Having that language in there [00:01:30] will give you the opportunity to still do the inspection but you want to also let the seller know that you’re not going to come back with all these repair requests. Because right now in the seller’s market, most people are waiving those anyway. So you got to be competitive.
Number four, write a larger earnest deposit. Here in Arizona, traditionally, an earnest deposit has been about 1% of the offer price. That has gone out the window [00:02:00] with the small inventory we have, the very competitive market we have. So I’m seeing and I’m suggesting three times the earnest deposit 3%, 4%. As much as you possibly are comfortable with, come in with that because it’ll tell the seller how serious you are about buying the home and that’s the goal. We want to show sellers hey, I really want your home. I just want to make sure that it’s not falling down and I’m going to buy it. That’s what you want to do at the end of the day.
[00:02:30] Number five, and this goes along with the inspection stuff that I just talked about, is shorten the inspection period to five days. The default here in Arizona is 10. That doesn’t fly anymore. So make sure you have your inspector lined up, you’re ready to go. Have a look through the house and make sure again, five days, maybe even shorter if you can have your inspector get out there quicker. Again, you just want to make sure that the home isn’t falling down. So I would suggest [00:03:00] again, five days or less.
Now a lot of people are doing letters these days. So number six is writing a letter. You want to stand out for sure, because sellers and listing agents are going through a lot of offers these days, but I would suggest writing the letter that focuses on the property as opposed to your buyers. Stay away from fair housing issues, things like that. So focus on if it’s a newer kitchen, say [00:03:30] your buyers love the new kitchen or the backyard or the landscaping, things like that. Focus on that as opposed to the buyers themselves.
Number seven, and again, with folks upsizing, downsizing, not sure where to go, free occupancy, a post-session free occupancy, whatever you want to coin the phrase as, might be something to write in too. Find out from the listing agent if that’s important and if it is, write it in there. [00:04:00] It might be two weeks. I’ve seen up to six months where the seller’s saying, “I need to stay in my home for six months. If you want my house, you have to agree to that.” So find that out in advance.
Number eight, we’re going to call this appraisal shortfall language. Basically in the terms and conditions you’re going to write in, because right now offers are coming in way above list price and they’re writing in appraisal shortfall clauses, which basically means [00:04:30] if the home does not appraise for the contract price, the buyer will come in with the difference out of their own pocket. That’s what an appraisal shortfall clause is.
Last but not least is in addition to making sure that your buyer is well qualified, perhaps even through underwriting, is have your lender reach out to the listing agent. Have that communication, have them reach out, go through their preapproval minus any personal information of course, [00:05:00] because you want to make sure that this is a team effort between you, the buyer’s agent, your lender. You want to present your buyer in the best possible light and to have a conversation from your lender to the listing agent is also very powerful. So I hope you liked those tips. Please subscribe to my channel. I’m going to be doing videos, submitting videos once a week on Thursdays. Bye for now.
If you want to talk with me about Metro Phoenix Real Estate feel free to email me at joe@joejanus.com
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