How to Pick the Best Offer for Your Home

If you sell your house and price it right in our market, there's a good chance you'll receive more than one offer. Here's how to decide which one to pick.

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If your home is for sale and it's priced right, you can expect multiple offers. The key to handling multiple offers is knowing how to engage with those buyers.

The first thing you want is for your agent to reach out to the buyers' agents and ask for their clients' highest and best offers. You want to let them know that it might be their final chance to put their best foot forward.

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Cash is king, but it's not always your best option.

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Then, you want to carefully consider the terms offered by the buyer. Inventory is tight in our market, and most people who sell their house have to turn around and buy another. A buyer offering the term where you don't have to move out of your house immediately after closing or allowing you to sell your house contingent on finding a new home would be very important factors to consider. We want to look at all the terms, not just the highest price. 

The next big thing to consider is the buyer's earnest money deposit, or how much they're going to put into escrow. This money goes toward the down payment, but it's also at risk if something goes wrong with the transaction and the buyer doesn't perform according to the agreement. A $10,000 earnest money deposit is much more powerful than a $100 earnest money deposit. 

Finally, you'll want to consider how well the buyer has their finances in order. Cash is always king as a buyer, but a cash buyer can back out of a deal just as easily as a financed buyer can. Similarly, just because a buyer is using FHA or VA financing doesn't mean they're not capable of submitting the best offer in terms of price and terms.

If you have any other questions about how to handle multiple offers when selling your home, give me a call or send me an email. I look forward to hearing from you!

How Does a Comparative Market Analysis Help Home Sellers?

A comparative market analysis plays an important part in a home sale because it gives agents an idea of how to position your home on the market.

 Thinking of selling? Get a free home valuation

 Thinking of buying a home? Search all homes for sale on the MLS

What role does a comparative market analysis play in a home sale?

A comparative market analysis (CMA) is important to determine the value of your home before placing it on the market. The way we agents determine a CMA is by comparing your home with the value of other homes in the neighborhood that have either sold, are pending, or are still on the market. 

Of those three categories—active listings, pending listings, and sold listings—sold listings are the most important because they give us a true picture of what homes are selling for. We use pending and active listings to determine other factors. The goal is to pull at least three to five homes that are similar to yours in size, number of bedrooms and bathrooms, and any type of amenities and make adjustments based on that criteria to determine where to price your home. 

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A CMA gives agents a good idea how to position your home in the market.

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Ultimately, the buyer is the one who will determine the value of your home, and you can price your home according to your specific situation. If you’re not in a rush for it to sell, you can price it on the higher side. If you need to sell your house contingent on finding a replacement property, then you may price it more aggressively to generate multiple offers. 

Pending data tells us where the market is currently at. If a home has been on the market for only five days and is in escrow already, we can assume that it sold pretty close to asking price. Depending on how many properties are active on the market, that will tell us the inventory level and if there is a lot of competition that could affect your pricing. 

If you have any questions or have any other real estate needs, feel free to reach out to me. I look forward to hearing from you soon! 

2nd Quarter Sacramento Real Estate Update

The market is still hot in Sacramento as we head into the second quarter. Home sellers can benefit from the low inventory and high demand while buyers can benefit from extremely low interest rates.

 Thinking of selling? Get a free home valuation

 Thinking of buying a home? Search all homes for sale on the MLS

Today let's take a look at what's going on in the market as we head into the second quarter.

The market is still extremely hot in terms of low inventory and high demand for homes from buyers. Without much to choose from, we're seeing multiple offer situations in certain price ranges and certain areas depending on desirability. In fact, we sold two of our recent listings above full list price before they even hit the market!

That said, it's still a great time to buy or sell a home with interest rates still low. Yes, the Fed did increase the interest rate by 0.25% recently, but rates are still extremely low from a historical perspective. Money is still cheap for a home loan.

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Even with low inventory, the low interest rates make now a great time to buy a house.

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If you want to sell your house, you can definitely take advantage of this seller's market and the low interest rates to move into your new house. This will be advantageous by saving you lots of money in the long term whether you're upsizing or downsizing.

Even with the market favoring sellers this strongly, you might be thinking that you don't want to sell your house because you'll have to compete to buy your next home. However, we have specific marketing strategies we use to help our clients get into homes in multiple offer situations that other agents and teams can't offer you.

If you have any questions about the Sacramento market or how we can help you take advantage of it whether you're buying or selling a house, give me a call or send me an email. I'd be more than happy to help!