Let’s do a bit of role play to talk about creating bidding wars and getting multiple offers on your properties as a real estate agent.
Conversations With Sellers
Mr. And Mrs. Seller, it's my fiduciary obligation to get you the highest amount of money and the best terms. I know that right now, we are in a very competitive market. In fact, a lot of agents will say that marketing is not important. You don't even need to do it right now because houses are flying off the shelf. Have you heard that before?
“Oh yeah. I interviewed three other agents and they all said the same thing.”
That is completely untrue. In fact, what I'm going to do is when I'm done with this appointment today, I'm going to give you a really quick four minute video that you can watch. It's going to show you how we're able to get between 18 and 22% more for every single listing that we sold in 2021, more than our competitors. Between 18 and 22% more, okay?
Marketing is essential. So if we market properly and do it for the proper amount of time, we are going to drum up more offers. In fact, anytime that I ever hear an agent say, “I sold a house on the first weekend”, or “I sold a house on the first day”, the first thing I think about is, oh my gosh, you left money on the table. Your agent left money on the table, and they did you a disservice. My job as a real estate agent is to get you as much exposure as I can. That means selling within a day is irresponsible because you’re not seeing all of the offers.
Mr. and Mrs. Seller, according to the national association of realtors, 67% of buyers will walk through a home that they see online. Now, I don't know about that because we expose our houses to thousands. But if 67% of buyers are more likely to walk through a home that they see online, it is my moral obligation to get your home in front of as many people as possible. That means I need to market your home online.
Think about this, when you’re out of town and you want to go out to eat, where do you find restaurants? Online. If you want to buy a car, where do you go? You go online. The National Association of Realtors shows that, on average, buyers start looking online three to six months prior. So we're able to market to and target people that were looking at our properties that are just like yours. Matter of fact, three to six months ago, we sold nine properties that were four bedrooms, two baths, just like yours. I'm able to target people right now that were looking at our properties three and six months ago.
Create Bidding Wars
I can now market your property to them. And that is how we're going to get you multiple offers. So how do we now get multiple offers and create bidding wars? We do it by getting as much exposure as we can for our properties. We start like this: We're going to shoot to list it on Thursday, this is because people start searching on the weekend. So we're going to have the house on the market no later than Thursday. We'll send our professional videographer and our digital marketer out there. Then we'll start running our ads on Facebook and Instagram and LinkedIn. We are going to get massive exposure. In fact, on average, every one of our listings gets anywhere from five to 800 hours of watch time and we reach well over 100,000 people.
And why is this important to you? Because, remember, the national association of realtors says that 67% of buyers are going to walk through a home they see online. By marketing your home online, this is what's going to create bidding wars. Now, once we do that, what I'm going to do is I'm going to set an offer deadline date.
So we're going to list the house on Thursday. We're going to let the house be on the market for a minimum of seven days. Now here's the deal. If we get a cash offer that's $400,000 above list price, then hey, by all means, we'll look at it, right? But we're going to let people know that we have an offer deadline date.
Creating Competition
Once we give this offer a deadline date, I'm going to call every single mortgage officer, find out if they'll tell me how much money they're putting down, show that they've got the proof of funds, see how much extra money they have in their bank account. Find out how long they've been on their job, what their actual credit score is. Ask if they have TBD approval or desktop underwritten approval. We're going to find out truly how well-qualified they are.
I'm also going to call every single real estate agent. I'm going to let them know how many offers there are. Then I'm going to tell them to submit their highest and best offer. I'm going to say, “By the way, we've got 11 offers on the table. Now that you've got me this offer, now I want you to give your highest and best offer. The highest price with the best terms. And that is going to be due in 24 hours.” So now what happens is I have all these offers, I’m letting them know what they're competing with. Once they know they're in competition, the bidding wars start.
I'm also going to make sure to find out from those agents if they’ve educated their buyer. I want to know if they understand things like the market, what's customary for payment, that it is a seller's market currently, etc. Sellers have all the control so buyers will most likely need to pay above the list price and give us the very best terms. If my seller wants to remain in the house for an additional 59 days, buyers will likely need to accommodate. I'm now going to educate the buyer's agent on what we're looking for as a seller. I make sure they educate their buyers on what's happening right now in the market and let them know we have all the control as a listing agent.
I advise my client on the best possible price. So, Mr. Mrs. Seller, now that we've gotten all these offers and we've asked for the highest and best, and I've talked to the lenders and realtors, then we're going to sit down and meet each other. Then we're going to review all the offers. The terms make a big difference in which offer you're going to choose. If it's a cash offer, there are no contingencies, you can close in 12 days and they're going to allow you to have 59 days back, it might be the best offer. It's probably better than taking an offer that has financing or a low down payment or something like that.
We're going to review all the different options. Then I am going to send at least two counter offers to the other agent. Now I'm going to counter their highest and best terms, and many times we counter higher than the highest and best terms to both parties or whoever we're sending the counter offer to.
That is how you get the best possible price and the highest terms. You market your home correctly, start bidding wars, and you will get the highest and best offer on your home.
