Real Estate: How to be a winning buyer in today’s real estate market

By Richie Vraux

What I tell my buyers in this market is simple. You are in a hurricane of buyers all around you, be patient, expect to be let down, and most likely you will lose some properties before you are the winner of your next home. You have to stand apart from the other, several buyers looking at these same homes. 

First- Get pre-approved. There is a difference between getting pre-qualified and pre-approved. A prequalified buyer is one that has been given an estimate of the amount a buyer could qualify for, based on their current financial situation from a lender. This is usually a fast estimate from a lender based on what is told over the phone.

A pre-approval is a much more detailed review of your financial assets and debts you really have. A pre-approval letter from a lender is much more widely accepted in accompanying an offer today. Before looking at homes get one of these because most agents will not bring you to properties without one.

You have to be on the fast-track and aware that there are 50 other potential buyers waiting to buy this home- so be prepared!

Another winning method is the inspection clause. While I always, always, always recommend my buyers to have a home inspection after you go under contract, some agents are winning these offers by foregoing the inspections process to stand out over other offers. This can be very dangerous to buyers but some are willing to accept this in order to be the winning bidder.

Another method is writing in an appraisal gap addendum. What this means is that the buyer is willing to make up the difference if the bank appraisal comes in short from what the contract states.  The buyer will need to make up the difference. If the buyer is lucky enough this will not happen.

So, your offer meets the asking price, but the buyer is approved for way over asking price. The buyer may choose to write an escalation clause. This is a means of bidding higher than your offer without coming in way over on price.

This addendum allows, that if another offer comes in higher than your offer, this addendum allows you go higher in increments to beat the higher offer.

Example: your offer is $400K on a certain property, this addendum automatically allows you to incrementally increase the price by $1,000 up to, let’s say $475K so the other offer is $460K. Your accepted offer would be $461K.

Team up with a good broker who knows your wants and needs and knows the neighborhood. Listen to his/ her advice and you will be in your new home before you know it.

There are many ways of being creative to put you at the top of the offers, but it always comes down to the highest and best offer. And remember, cash is always king.

In my 25 years in this business, I have never seen a market like the one we are in today.       

Richie Vraux is a broker/ Realtor with Better Homes and Gardens-The Masiello Group, 76 Tandberg Trail, Windham. Call Richie if you need real estate advice 207-317-1297 or by email at richardjvraux@gmail.com <