Navigating Multiples

Welcome to the Spring market in Minneapolis/St. Paul! With warm weather and a few more listings comes the multiple offers. It's been a rite of passage the last few years as the market continues to grow and improve and more buyers flood the market. All while sellers continue to hold their homes thinking they would lose money or barely break even. However, that's not the case as many sellers have realized, just not quite enough of them.

Multiple offers are one of the most frustrating parts of buying home. It takes time to get approved, find the right agent, look at all the homes that match your criteria and finally find the one you love just to lose it to another buyer who made a better offer. So what can you do? Here are a few things to think about when you get into multiples:

- Some agents believe in trying to separate your offer by having you write a letter about how much you love the home and while I believe that can work sometimes, in multiple offer situations the sellers are acting more like a bank, simply taking the highest offer, than a regular seller who is letting emotion get involved in the process. This isn't the sellers fault. Most likely they are overwhelmed with the response they are getting on their home. So, while it may help it definitely isn't the most important thing you can do.

- Talk to your lender about costs. Many buyers in this market will need closing costs covered by the seller (some as much as 3% of the sales price). Talking to your lender about them eating some of the closing costs or finding ways to shave fees will help make your offer stronger. It means you can offer the seller more money, while also hopefully not paying more yourself. In this market it definitely pays to get a second opinion from an extra lender just to see the cost difference.

- Have your agent look at FUTURE market trends. Although this business is cyclical and no one can predict the future, your agent should have a good idea of where the neighborhood and the market is heading thus helping you make the decision of offering another $2k to put your offer over the top. If the market is super hot (like NE Minneapolis), most likely this home would be worth more in just a few months. 

- Closing date: more and more we are seeing 60 day closing dates. Separate yourself by being able to close in 30-40 days. Unless the seller needs that extra time it will go a long ways to making your offer standout. 

- Ask your agent about pre-list homes. Edina Realty offers a system called NETWORK ONE where Team Fellman can get our clients into homes that aren't even on the market yet. It's a way for us to go above and beyond for our clients making sure they get a home they love, while not having to compete with 7 other buyers. Ask us about it if you're interested in finding out more!

At the end of the day, no matter what you do multiple offers are going to be a difficult situation to deal with but taking into mind a few of these steps, hopefully you can separate your offer from all the others and get your dream home!

If you have any more questions we always love to answer them. Feel free to reach us via one of our many contact avenues or simply leave a comment and we'd be happy to reply!