House hunting can be a really fun experience, as long as you don’t allow yourself to get too attached to the outcome when you're ready to make an offer. It’s incredibly disheartening when you make an offer on your dream home that gets rejected. An unsuccessful offer doesn’t have to be the end of the world. It just means you may have to dust yourself off and try again.
The pandemic created the fastest decline in housing inventory the United States has ever seen. The houses that come on the market have been selling right away, often within twenty days! For buyers, especially in the most competitive real estate markets, that can mean you may face several rejections before finally finding the one. This means you'll need the perseverance to keep trying until you land the winning bid on an amazing home.
Be A Strategic Player
To win the offer on your dream home, you need to prepare for a possible bidding war. In fact, the home buying process has been compared to the game of chess. Like the game of chess, the home buying process requires you to plan and think about your strategy.
You will need to prepare before you shop. Make sure your finances are in order. Your credit should be in good standing, your down payment ready to go, and your pre-approval letter ready as well. The pre-approval is the best opening play to make as a home buyer! When you have a pre-approval from a lender, it tells the seller that you're serious about buying. It also gives you the confidence boost you may need to put an offer on the home. While having a pre-approval letter is not a guarantee for the loan, it gives you an idea of the maximum amount you are qualified to borrow and how much your lender is willing to lend to you.
Go In With Realistic Expectations
This may be easier said than done, but try to keep your options open. Don’t get too attached to that particular home you fall in love with. Be prepared to lose multiple offers before one is accepted. If you go into it knowing what to expect, it may not sting as much when your offer gets rejected. Understand that many amazing homes are coming on the market every week. Just because you lose the offer on one outstanding property doesn’t mean you won’t find something even better for you!
Be Prepared To Pay More For Your Dream Home
In this current housing market, where lower housing inventory often results in competitors bidding on the same home, you may need to offer more money to win the bid. You may need to get creative and sweeten the deal with the seller in other ways. Putting down more earnest money, a good faith deposit you put down to demonstrate the seriousness of your intent to buy the home may help you win your offer. If you can afford bigger option fees (nonrefundable sums paid to the seller for taking a home off the market), it may help you knock out the competition. Of course, if you can afford an all-cash deal, your offer may automatically rise to the top because the seller won’t have to worry about you having problems with the financing.
How To Move Forward And Focus On The Future
If you’ve experienced a lot of rejections on your offers and feel like you’ve exhausted all that you can do, you may feel like giving up. It’s easy to get stuck in your disappointment. While it’s normal to experience these emotions, the key is to focus on what’s next and now stay stuck in what was lost. There will always be more listings and more neighborhoods to explore.
You may find that the plan you started out with is not how you want to continue your house-hunting journey. You may think you want to settle down in a certain part of town, only to realize that it wasn’t what you thought it would be. Keep an open mind when house-hunting. Try looking at homes in a different neighborhood instead. You may realize it’s not as far a commute to work as you originally thought. Maybe it’s closer to your favorite shopping centers than the other areas you were searching. The possibilities are endless, and you might just find something better than you originally planned for!
Call In The Experts To Find Your Dream Home
Let’s face it, when you have to pull out all the stops to win the offer on your dream home, you don’t want to go it alone. When you bring on an expert Realtor, you have a partner who is fighting for you and with you. Your realtor will have inside industry knowledge that may help you find creative ways to win the offer. They will be right there with a fresh list of available properties for all the offers you don’t win. The best part is that you will have an expert there to help you plan your strategy and any negotiations that may take place.
Are you ready to plan your strategy to find your dream home? Contact us to help you get started!
