Tips for Making a Strong Purchase Offer

Rejection is never pleasant and perhaps seldom more devastating than when you fall in love with a house and the seller rejects your purchase offer. There are plenty of reasons a seller might not select your offer, from higher bids to a stubborn refusal to accept a reasonable purchase price on an overpriced home. While you can’t control the vagaries of the seller you are working with, there are several reasonable steps you can take to strengthen your offer. Here are a few:
1) Know the market. You can set reasonable expectations about your offer’s chances if you understand what type of market you are operating in. When inventory is low, multiple offers on a home can be a harsh reality that homebuyers must face. Offering a little more money or waiving contingencies might make your offer stand out as more attractive to a seller with several offers on the table.

2) Show flexibility. Even if you don’t have a lot of extra to offer in terms of money, there might be other ways to make your offer stand out. Offering to work within the seller’s time line rather than your own can be appealing to a seller who needs to sell quickly or one who needs to hold on to a home for an unusual length of time.

3) Don’t be greedy. Asking for a lot of “extras” – small repairs, inclusion of appliances, payment of certain closing costs – can turn off a seller. To make the strongest offer possible, consider whether asking for concessions is worth the possibility of having your offer rejected.

4) Waive superfluous contingencies. While some of the contingencies designed to protect a buyer during a home purchase are not advisable to exclude from your offer, talk with your lender about which contingencies you might reasonably omit in order to make your offer stand out.

5) Get pre-approved for financing. Not only does a pre-approval letter from your letter show that you are serious about buying a home, it can also provide you with peace of mind. The last thing you want to have happen when you have fallen in love with a home is for your financing to fall through at the last minute – and this is a much less likely scenario if you have gone to the effort of working through the pre-approval process with your lender.

6) Put your money where your mouth is. Many sellers find a sizeable amount of earnest money to be persuasive. Make sure to include a copy of your earnest money check along with your offer.
Your real estate agent has experience in crafting purchase offers designed to catch a seller’s attention. Once you’ve decided to make an offer, consult your agent for advice on how to make your offer the most attractive it can be. Good luck!

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