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How To Deal With Multiple Offers

In this blog post, I look at how to deal with multiple offers for your home so that you can make the best decision for you and your family. When selling your home, you may find yourself in the enviable position of having multiple offers on the table. While this can be an exciting experience, it can also be rather overwhelming if you don’t know how to handle the situation. A good estate agent will provide invaluable assistance and support, but it’s also important to keep in mind some key considerations as you evaluate each offer:

Decide your priorities

Before engaging in a competitive offer situation, you should decide what is most important to you. For example, are you looking to achieve the best price, the simplest sale transaction, or the quickest completion? Make sure to communicate this clearly to your estate agent as soon as possible. For example, the best price might not be so important to you as someone who could move really quickly, and vice versa. You might want the simplest sale transaction so you might want to avoid anyone in a chain for example.

Best and Final Offers

An effective way of ensuring that all offers are being considered is for your agent to ask prospective buyers to submit their ‘best and final’ bids by a set date and time. This way, you can be certain that each party has had an equal opportunity to present their offer without having to drag out the negotiation process and can sometimes end in a bidding war which no one wants. Your agent should ask for bids in writing (or email) also stating their situation (eg renting, sale agreed etc), financial arrangements (eg cash, mortgage etc) and timescale in which they anticipate completing the sale. If a mortgage is required it’s a good idea for your agent to obtain a copy of the “decision in principle” from the lender which confirms that the buyers are good for the borrowing.

It’s not just about price

While getting the highest offer is usually the most important priority for most sellers, it’s also important to consider other factors that may have an impact on your sale. For instance, does the buyer require a mortgage or are they able to pay in cash? A mortgage will add complexity to the process due to extra time needed for lenders appraisals and approvals, whereas a buyer paying in cash tends to be much simpler. Has the buyer got a chain of sales beneath them? If so there’s an additional “risk” for every link in that chain to have problems.

Is “cash and no chain” still king?

In my view, yes, but only up to a point. In most cases a cash buyer with no related sale is the utopia position for any seller. It’s always worth considering an offer from someone in this position but not if their offers are way off the mark compared to buyers with existing commitments. Also, be aware of the source of cash. Some buyers may tell you they have cash available but this is often confused with them using proceeds from their own property sale. Real cash should be readily accessible in the bank or a form of investment that can easily be converted to cash such as shares or bonds, and this is something that a good estate agent will ask proof for when negotiating on your behalf.

Deal with empathy

When dealing with multiple offers for your home, remember that there will be one person who is delighted you accepted their offer, but the other people won’t be so lucky. Remember to deal with empathy! Your agent should keep in touch with them keeping the door open in case anything goes wrong with your chosen buyer.

Need my help with how to deal with multiple offers and other property related advice?

Check out our Selling a Property Advice video playlist on YouTube, there’s some absolute gold there that could really help you, and it’s all for free, so what’s not to like?!

I hope you found this blog post about how to deal with multiple offers useful. Please do feel free to put any comments in the box below. If you are currently considering a move in Crediton or any town or village in mid Devon please do reach out – you can book online or call me on 01363 777999. I’d love to hear from you!

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