A Look Behind The Curtain As To How The Process of Multiple Offers Go From A Seller's Point Of View

We just accepted an offer on my listing on Enadia Way and I will give you a little insight as to how this process goes from our side when I get multiple offers.  This should be a very interesting read for the buyers out there wondering how this process looks from the seller's point of view. 

Every transaction is different as every seller and buyer's needs are different.  I really try to tailor each transaction to each clients' particular needs while staying in-tune with what is going on with the market.  I knew when we put this house up on the market that there was a deep shortage of homes that were move-in ready in the price range.  The sellers and I agreed on a price to list it at that would most likely draw in multiple offers. Along with pricing the home I did a lot of pre-market advertising including paid Facebook ads, a "coming soon" sign in the yard, Newsletter emails and going to office meetings to pitch the upcoming listing. This type of advertising gets the attention of buyers and their agents who have been out looking for a home just like this and allows them to plan to come see the home as soon as it hits the market.  The sellers have small children so I knew that showing appointments throughout the day and evening would be challenging.  We decided on 3 back-to-back open houses to try to consolidate the showings and make cleaning up and vacating the home a little easier on the family.  We had a huge crowd of people for each open house.  It's not always possible for buyer's agents to join them for open houses however, if a buyer is interested, it is always a good idea for the agent to reach out and ask what they seller is looking for and what to expect when submitting an offer.  I had a number of agents speak to me about this.  While it is still a strong seller's market and buyers are putting a strong effort into getting a home, it benefits no one to try and "wheel and deal" with prospective buyers.  I've seen strong buyers walking away from putting in offers or countering offers when it is perceived that they are being toyed with.  For this reason, I asked the buyer's agents to submit their best offer and we would just choose one.  It is very common these days for multiple buyers to submit offers and then receive a Multiple Counter Offer back that says "Best and Final".  This means you are blindly bidding against yourself and/or other buyers.  This can irritate many buyers and leaving them feeling at the mercy of the sellers.  It is my personal opinion to try to start off a transaction on a positive note and so that's why we did it this way instead.  We received at least 6 offers, some great, some good.  I don't just read offers for what they say the price will be, but also, how well the offer was put together.  I personally find it Very important that buyers work with agents that really know what they are doing because when they don't, it can show up right away in things such as how the offer is written. And the way in which a buyer's agent engages with me also makes a huge difference.  Best case scenario is to try to get a buyer with a good offer and an agent who seems to be professional and knowledgable.  I also prefer that buyers work with direct lenders.  They have more control over how the loan will go and although the loan process is a very behind-the-scenes thing, it can be very tricky and a seasoned direct lender will know how to navigate foreseeable problems the best.  In my experience, if you have a good agent and a good lender, that can speak volumes and sometimes go further than the price of an offer.  So we choose the offer we felt was most appropriate and from here on out, we hope for the best.  I hope this gives some good insight to buyers out there on what to do, or how things work from the other side when you are in a seller's market.

 If you or anyone you know is looking to buy or sell a home, please give me a call. I'm always here to help.  

                                                                     

Price vs Value: An Understanding of The Real Estate Market Everyone Should Know About

Anyone who is looking to buy a home or sell theirs should know about Price vs Value. There is what a home is priced at, and what a house is valued at, and those are two very different things. Anyone can list their home for any price they want, but they may not get it. Or they may get more that what they were asking.  I'm currently working with a client who had to come face to face with this last week, as many of my past clients have when they have been in multiple offers.  The agent working for the seller sent us back a counter offer that was $35,000 over the asking price.  My client couldn't wrap his head around going that far above the asking price, which I understand 100% what he was feeling.  And while I won't argue a with a client, because ultimately, every client has to do what they are comfortable with, I can at least write about to try to put perspective on it. 
For one reason or another, some homes can get multiple offers on it.  Maybe they priced it low, maybe there aren't a lot of homes out there to choose from, or perhaps everyone just really likes the front porch swing and wants to call this home.  Whatever the reason, going up against another offer can feel stressful.  Some people have felt that once their offer was accepted, that maybe they were paying too much...because their offer was the highest.  Other people have looked back and regretted not going higher on their offer when they didn't get them the home. But there is something that everyone should try to understand...there is an appraiser that will come by the house you have an offer on and tell you whether or not you are paying too much.  The appraiser's job is to tell you the Value of the home.  And just because the seller of the home is asking a certain amount for his place, that does not necessarily represent the Value. So if you find yourself up against multiple offers, and you choose to go forward and your offer is accepted, there is a portion of your contract that allows you to get an appraiser in the home to verify that you are indeed paying the value of the home at that time.  So yes, some of my client's have had to go over the asking price to get a home.  But then they got a home and they were happy to know that they paid for the value of the home, and not more. 
                                                                          

Now Is A Great Time To Sell Your Home!

Hello 2013 and welcome to a seller's market once again. If you have been keeping up with Real Estate headlines here in LA then you have surely seen headlines that read something like..."Real Estate Prices are up!" or "Multiple offers on multiple homes".  I'm literally being stopped by people in the market or coffee shop asking me about the exciting news in Real Estate that is going on. I think people that have been waiting to sell, or are just thinking about selling, are finally getting excited about this change in the market. Here is some of what is going on:

1. Interest rates for home loans are still very low for buyers. But they may not stay this way for long so buyers are getting out there to get something now. 
2. There aren't a lot of homes for sale on the market right now (which is a huge reason you should be listing your home now)
3. There are so many buyers looking for homes and just not enough for sale. 
4. While prices have gone up and continue to gain momentum quickly, buyers have a feeling that now will be a better time to buy than next year or years after that (and they may be right)
5. There will be more buyers coming to the market very shortly when everyone gets their taxes finished and see where they stand financially in terms of a home purchase. 

I'm not going to claim that I am a fortune teller for where the market is headed, but if you read any of my past blogs regarding the future of LA real estate, you will see that I have been right on the money with every single one of them. And I believe that Now Is A Great Time To Sell Your Home!! Call me if you are considering selling your home. You need a strong realtor that knows what is going on and how to market your place right and I am just the Realtor to do that. www.amberdolle.com

"Best and Final"- Have You Been Hearing This A Lot Lately?

At this time, the market has switched from a buyer's market to a seller's market. A lot of homes here in Los Angeles are getting multiply offers on them and you may be one of the buyers who has put in an offer, and received a counter offer that simply said "best and final". What does that mean? And what should I do with that? Well, first things first.  "Best and Final" is referring to you making your best offer you are willing to make to the seller and there will be no more counter offers after that. The seller will simply choose the most appealing offer from what they receive. And what is most appealing to one seller, may not be the same for the next seller.  So have your agent call the listing agent and ask the question, "What is it your seller is looking for in the offer they will choose?"  This bit of information, if provided will go a long way.  Do they want a short escrow? Do they not want to make any repairs to the house? Do they want a very qualified buyer in terms of a large down payment or perhaps a high fico score? Or maybe, they just want the highest priced offer. There are a lot of ways to make your offer more appealing to the seller, which I will not get into simply because, well....it's not that simple to explain.  But one piece of advice I can leave you with is: If it comes down to the dollar amount, think to yourself, "What is the price I want to pay for this home?" After you have that number, then think to yourself this question, "If I lost this house to a higher bid, at what price would I be telling myself, man...I would have paid that to get this home." Now write down that number, scratch and ignore the first one you had written down, and tell your agent to put the 2nd price you came up with on that offer. If you are up against multiply offers again and again, please remember, you are not alone. And do yourself the favor of finding a good agent, hopefully me, that will know about how to make your offer look as good as it can and get you a home.

Multiple Offers City

The days of multiple offers is back. If you are a buyer and you feel like you keep "hitting the wall", as they say, with putting in offers on homes and being out bid, you are not alone. I just want to post this so that you are aware that there are a lot of homes that have 10, 20, even 30 offers in on them and most are over asking price. There are options of how you can work with this type of market, but it is very important that you are using a local realtor to work with you. The relationships we build between us can help when putting an offer in on a property. All things being equal with two different offers, if I know the realtor selling the home, and the other person's realtor is from somewhere else and they don't have a relationship with the selling realtor, they may choose to work with me just because they know me. Why you ask? Because I may have worked on deals with them in the past and they have the knowledge of how I work, whereas they are unfamiliar with the other realtor and that person could potentially be a bad business risk.  So, look for a local realtor during these times of multiply offers so that you have better chances of getting the home you put the offer on.