How Many Offers before I’m a Home Owner?

August 10, 2009 · Shokoofeh Nowbakht

Recently, it seems like buyers are writing several offers on multiple properties simultaneously before they can ratify one. One of my clients has 3 offers on short sale properties. He asked me yesterday to show him two more properties. There is no certainty that he ratifies any of the offers. Good thing is that he is not giving up and in fact, he is certain that one of these days he will own a house. Is this a numbers game? How many offers do you have to write before you actually ratify one and become a home owner? What has been your experience lately?

Here’s the story of how I became a home owner … I bought my house about 9 years ago. I looked at properties for about a month, found a house and made an offer. I got countered to give my best and highest offer because there were 2 other offers. I came back with my best offer which was $25,000 over asking. Luckily, I wrote the winning offer. The point is that I only wrote ONE offer and I became a home owner.

Shokoofeh Nowbakht http://www.shokoo.com/

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Filed Under Important Thoughts, Real Estate for Buyers and Sellers

Tags: $7500 tax credit, experience, numbers game, Shokoofeh Nowbakht, short sale

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5 Responses to “How Many Offers before I’m a Home Owner?”

Rod on August 10th, 2009 11:11 am

The world from 9 years ago is way too different. Those days are gone. Especially working with short sales.
Brian Boisson on August 11th, 2009 9:12 am

Shokoofeh,

Great job on working with your motivated buyer.

I wish you luck in finding the right home him.

Brian
Larry Franzella on August 11th, 2009 1:54 pm

As difficult and frustrating as it can be, if a buyers does not write offers they will never be a homeowner.
Kathy Wall on August 12th, 2009 12:20 pm

The key right now is to do exactly what your buyers are doing…throwing offers at everything they are interested in. It truly is a numbers game. A colleaque joked recently that he wants to get paid for the number of offers he writes rather than the ones that go through. At least we’re getting lots of offer writing practice!

Hang tight buyers…If you’re patient, you will get a house!
Adam Chinn on August 16th, 2009 1:03 pm

Of course there is no magic number of offers, no one can predict the future or know it all. I have clients in a similar situation. They are highly motivated and are writing great offers. Competition is high for the homes they like, first time buyers looking for a move in ready home for them to start a family.

We do our best to do every little thing to make our clients offer strong and stand out from the rest, with short sales it can be difficult due to the amount of time it takes for the bank to respond. In the end it will all be worth it. The buyers will get their new home they wanted and finally be homeowners.

Things definitely have changed from nine years ago, if your house was put back on the market today how many offers do you think you would receive? If priced correctly, I bet more than 3.

Thanks,
Adam