Looking at MLS Homes? How to get your offer ACCEPTED!

It’s not mandatory for the seller to know who is offering to buy their home. The seller doesn’t have a right to know anything about the buyer’s or their personal lives. For the seller, this is a very sensitive time and perhaps they have spent a lifetime with the home you are offering to buy.

In order to make the seller feel more willing to ‘accept’ your Offer, it may be beneficial to write a small letter about yourself and your family. The real estate agent should submit this letter with the Offer. Tell the sellers about your kids, how old they are and what they like. Give them a bio about your dog or your family’s plans in the home. You can tell them what kind of jobs you have or how long you plan on living in the home. You can tell the seller how long you’ve been looking for a home and why this home is perfect for your family!

This letter doesn’t need to include anything overly personal. It doesn’t need to recap your life story, but it should demonstrate that you are a nice family that will take care of the home for many years. The purpose of writing this letter and submitting it with the offer is to make the sellers understand that you are good people and you are worthy of owning their home.

Proving that you are pre-approved can be really helpful when trying to get the sellers to accept your Offer. The sellers don’t know anything about you (unless you write them a letter) and the real concern is whether you can successfully purchase the home before they accept your Offer. Proving you are pre-approved is very easy. All you need to do is have your mortgage broker/associate or bank write a letter stating that “Jon Smith has provided the correct documentation. Based on the credit check and income verification, the buyer has been pre-approved.” They will need to put their business logo and credentials on the letter. This letter should NOT state the amount you have been pre-approved for. The real estate agent can submit this with your Offer for the sellers to take into consideration.

Providing a pre-approval letters to sellers indicates that you have taken the necessary steps to guarantee you can buy a MLS home and proves that you are a serious buyer.

Statistically speaking, MLS Homes sell for 2-4% less than asking price. That means that the chances of the seller’s accepting an offer that is 20k lower than the asking price is very low. Your real estate agent should perform a Comparative Market Analysis on the property and should provide a list of comparable sold property to give you an idea of where you should write the offer. It is possible the home could be over priced based on the market analysis and if you can prove that the home is over priced then you should present that information! But if your making low ball offers on multiple MLS Homes, this practice probably won't work and the seller may not take you seriously.

Remember, cheap things sell for cheap prices. If you’re buying a good, solid home; expect to pay a reasonable price for it.

All MLS Homes are listed with an ideal possession day in mind. 30 days negotiable, 45-65 days negotiable or 30 days from the 1st of the month are all common possession days. The possession day is almost always negotiable, and most sellers will make any given possession day work. Sometimes a seller needs a very specific possession day.

In my practice, I believe it’s polite to let the other agent know there is an incoming offer. I want them to prep the sellers and have them clear their schedule to make time to deal with my offer. At the same time, I ask the seller’s agent “what would be the ideal possession day for your clients?” I ask this question because I need to know if it’s going to conflict with my client’s needs and I need to know how far apart we are.

This is just an easy way to find out what the seller wants and if that works for the buyer’s, great! If it doesn’t then we will find a day that works for both the buyer and seller.

Sometimes the best strategy is to ask the seller exactly what they want.

A deposit is a sum of money you must put down on a property at the time you make an offer. The deposit will eventually go to form part of your down payment. It act’s as your ‘hold’ on the property.

When you sign a conditions removal form that means you’ve approved the home inspection and have been approved for a mortgage, you are 100% committing to the property. If you sign the conditions removal and then for some reason cannot take possession of the home; you would forfeit the deposit to the sellers. If you provide a deposit and decide not to purchase the home due to inability to finance or a bad home inspection (as long as you haven’t signed a conditions removal form), you get your deposit back in full.

Including a large deposit in your Offer makes the seller’s more likely to accept because they know if they accept your offer and after conditions are removed if the buyer can’t take possession they get to keep the deposit. Now, obviously, the seller’s want the buyer to take possession of the home. A large deposit make’s the offer look very appealing and provides the seller some security.

Using these five tools will strengthen your offer and make it almost impossible for the seller to decline!

• Tell the seller about yourself
• Prove you are pre-approved
• Write a fair offer
• Find a possession day that works for both parties
• Provide a large deposit

There are tons of negotiation tactics and soft closing game’s Realtors® can use on each other. These 5 simple tricks are easy ways to demonstrate to the seller that you’re a serious buyer, that you will take care of their home and you are not trying to take advantage of them. MLS Homes will sell for the right price and to the right buyer, so put your best offer forward and buy that dream home of yours!