It’s no secret that the real estate markets everywhere are red hot as we are entering the warmer months, and sellers often have the ability to be pretty choosy about which offer they accept. Let’s prepare to hit the ground running by going over how to compete with other buyers when buying a house in Chicago this summer.
Go Above and Beyond
The easiest and most obvious way for your offer to be unique is to blow your competition out of the water with your price.
Offering the seller more than the asking price will, more often than not, instantly eliminate the majority of other buyers from the running, but it could make some sellers skeptical.
Another method for creating an uncommon bid is to make a full cash offer. Granted, this requires having the assets available to close on the property, but it’s not often that sellers will have a buyer show up ready to purchase the home right out from under them.
Another plus for the seller by taking a cash offer is that it means concluding business faster and easier than usual.
Streamline Your Offer
Speaking of attempting to conclude business outside of the norm, there are few things more enticing to a seller than an offer that gets straight to the point and doesn’t come with a lot of strings attached.
Doing everything you can to remove additional potential points of contention – whether that be unnecessary inspections and testing or repair contingencies – can only help you out. A seller that receives an offer above the asking price with a laundry list of contingencies is certainly likely to pass in favor of a slightly lower offer containing no contingencies.
Simply put: By taking out the excess, you make your offer substantially more attractive and speed up the process of buying a house.
Show Your Commitment
There’s more to putting an offer on a property than the total price, and you can bring a couple of things to the table that helps reinforce your position with the seller.
It’s likely that you’re acquiring financing through a mortgage lender, and that lender will provide you with a pre-approval letter once they are confident in approving your loan. Adding this pre-approval letter to your offer shows the seller that you have financing available and means the transaction is more secure moving forward if they accept your offer.
You can also put down a larger earnest money deposit as a show of good faith. Remember that earnest money is refundable if things do go south for whatever reason.
Try a Failsafe
A way to do your best to ensure your success in bidding on a property is to include what is called an escalation clause in your offer.
What this escalation clause does is it states you are willing to beat any additional offer’s prices up to a certain amount. The seller has to agree to this in order for it to take effect, but if it is accepted this allows you to have a leg up against other buyers for a period of time.
The escalation clause gives you the advantage of controlling your spending on the home in tandem with swatting away the competition without giving the seller a chance to think things over any further.
Stay in Communication
As things continue onward, it’s extremely critical that you and your agent stay in contact with the seller and their agent. The last thing you want to happen is a missed phone call or email blowing up your chances of buying your dream home, and it happens more often than you’d think.
Check-in with your agent regularly if you’re in the midst of negotiations and haven’t heard anything from them in a day or two. And be ready and willing to make concessions in negotiation in order to beat out the other buyers.
Your Partner When Buying a House in Chicago
If you’re looking to start the process of buying a house in Chicago, contact us today at 773.233.2301!