Creative Tips for Winning Offers

In any kind of South Florida real estate market there can be multiple offers on a property for sale. In today’s market despite the current economic situation, buyer demand is still outweighing the lack of supply for many types of homes. So the question is how can you make your offer more competitive? Here are 6 creative strategies to consider.

Tighten up the home inspection

You can do this in a few ways. Rather than a 10 day period for inspection, shorten this to 3-5 days. Also, once you have your inspection you may want to be more open to working with the list of items that are found and deal with them on your end unless they are so significant that they make you no longer interested in purchasing the home. 

Appraisal gap coverage

You may find yourself in a competitive offer situation where you offer more than asking, but that can cause a problem when it comes time for the home to be appraised. What if your offer is more than the home appraises for? You can offer appraisal gap coverage as a potential solution. Basically you can offer to pay any overage of the appraisal value in cash.

Increase earnest deposit

Your earnest money deposit displays good faith as well as your level of commitment to buying the property. There may be some ways out should there be issues with inspection or the like, but generally the more money you put down the higher the risk you are taking as a buyer. In a seller’s mind increasing this amount shows that the deal may be more solid with a better chance of it closing.

Pay your own closing costs

Buying a home calls for a lot of money up front for both your down payment but also for your closing costs. For anyone with less money readily available or especially first time buyers it can be common to negotiate that the seller pays for a certain amount of the closing costs. It would be best to avoid doing this if entering a competitive bid situation as a seller will most likely choose a deal where they don’t have to pay anything.

Escalation clause

This can be a very powerful and creative option for a winning dollar offer. Basically you can craft an offer stating something like you will pay $1,000 more than any other offer up to a certain capped purchase price. This can give you a big advantage if any of the competing offers are within your comfortable amount that you want to spend. 

Accommodate the seller’s timing

This can be achieved in a few ways too. First, if you can be flexible you can inform the seller that you can close in the fastest possible time or that you can work with them on a more preferable closing schedule. In some cases sellers may need more time before moving to their next home. Finally, should they need to close but stay in the home for a short time you could provide temporary occupancy for them. In instances like these you can even collect rent or a flat fee for them to stay in the home as short term tenants.