How to make sure you Really are in multiple offer situation? This could be a trap! Home Buyers, Beware!

Bidding war at Multiple offers

 I am in real estate for about 5 years now and have seen a lot of very interesting situations. The most significant of all is the multiple offer situation. The buyer likes a home and so does many others. The result; more than one offer on a property and all buyers and their agents pitting against each other, bidding war on and guess who's smiling? Definitely the seller and his listing agent. :-) This makes sense if you as a buyer are at the site and you see lots of car parked, whispers of other buyers with their agents or most secretive talks inside the cars. Even the most talkative and loudest person is speaking that is barely audible. Lol! In nutshell, no body wants the other buyer or his agent to get a wind of what he/she is offering and this makes perfect sane sense. My advise to all my buyer clients is to walk away from such situation. Why?  Well the only winner in this case is one and one only and that is the SELLER. All others lose! The one who gets the so called 'winning bid' and the others who can't make it. The winning bid buyer paid more than he should have from his hard earned money and in my personal opinion he did lose his many hard working hours, sacrifices of his family in making letting him spare time, away from his family and children and here in one go, he goes $5-20,000 over asking price. Not only this he is refrained from doing the most important diligence measure; the home inspection let alone putting him to risk of mortgage refusal and ultimately landing him trouble far serious than just getting the house.

The above scenario definitely tells you that there were more than one offer as you were witnessing all this activity. But now let me take you to a far more serious problem in buying a home.  Consider the following scene.

The home is listed for a while, say 60-90 days and suddenly you discover it, like it and ask your agent to put an offer. Then suddenly you hear from the listing agent that he has another offer on the property and the seller wants all the offers by fax/e-mail/any other means except physical presentation. Now what will you do? I advise a word of caution here.  Even if your agent suggests you to remove those important interest securing clauses like home inspection, mortgage, & re-visits to the property before closing, apart from offering a higher price, simply say NO or if you have a real interest in the house and it serves your long-term purpose, ask to be protected against the so called 'multiple offer' situation. Ask your agent to write a clause in the offer, if you agree on removing above conditions and pay more price than you were initially ready to pay, that would make sure that there indeed was another offer. The clause should give you a right to re-negotiate the offer is the listing agent couldn't prove existence of another offer/offers and keep your interest not just safe but I would say the safest.  I use this clause in such situation for all my  buyers that I heard from one of the training session at a convention and eventually fine tuned it for specific use. 

Many times such multiple offer scenes have been found to have been crafted and staged cleverly and it is not uncommon to fall for them. In summing up I would advise you:

1. Don't get attached emotionally to any property 
2. Walk away from multiple offer situation and look for another home. Maybe you find another great deal without making a big hole in your pocket
3. Ask your agent to take steps in the offer that leave no doubt about existence of another offer
4. Don't ever remove home inspection. Well if you are offer the highest price, what issue does the seller would have in allowing you to do the home inspection?! If not for 5 days, write the condition for 1 day. Most of the agents can provide a home inspector in as less as 2 hours and maximum of 24 hours and you will have the home inspection report at the site itself and finally
5. BEWARE! BEWARE!! & BEWARE!!!

Hope you buy a home and stay happy thereafter! For great resources don't forget to visit my website at www.quicksellnbuy.com.   Should you have any comments or questions, please feel free to post them.

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