How to Win a Bidding War
We’re going to give you five tips to win a bidding war. Welcome to the Bergen County Real Estate Show where the Gibbons Team presents all you need to know to be an educated buyer or seller here in Bergen County. When you get into a competitive market bidding wars are inevitable especially when you’re in the Spring here in Bergen County so you want to have the best strategy to get that house.
Bergen County Homes for Sale
| Under $400,000 | Under $800,000 |
| Under $500,000 | Under $900,000 |
| Under $600,000 | Under $1,000,000 |
| Under $700,000 | Over $1,000,000 |
Write a Good Offer
Tip number one is write a good offer and a good offer is not just having the right price.
You can over bid everyone else but your offer may not look as good as the other ones. How much money are you putting down? The more money that you put down the better a buyer you look to a seller. If you’re only putting a little bit down the seller might be a little concerned that the house won’t appraise and you won’t be able to purchase it.
When is your closing date? You want to be able to close as quickly as you can to help that seller or if the case is that the seller wants to close a little later you want to be able to adapt to their needs and get a good closing date. So if you can find out what they need beforehand when do they want to close, what exactly are they looking for in the buyer, that’s going to help you when it comes time to put that offer together.
2. Have a Good Pre-Approval
Number two is have a good pre-approval. This is very important when you’re looking at a bidding war. Who it is your pre-approval with? Is it someone that the the sellers agent has actually heard of? Having a good strong pre-approval is going to help you when you’re going against other offers.
Pro Tip
And another tip is getting a pre commitment. That is is going through the process, doing all of the loan paperwork before you find the house and what happens there is when you go to find that house and you have that house and you put the offering all the bank needs to do is make sure you’re paying good value for the house in an appraisal, do title work and a little bit of work and you can close a lot faster. And you become a much better buyer if you have that pre commitment. If you need a little advice on that we can give you some information on who to contact and how that process works.
3. Don’t be Contingent on Selling Your Home
Now this one can be tough if you’re if you’re a home seller. Try not to be contingent on selling your home. I know it’s not always possible if you have to sell that home to get the equity out to buy your next home but that’s just another step to get you to becoming a better buyer. So if you don’t have to sell your home, if you can have your house sold already, or if a lender will allow you to purchase and then sell your home you become a better buyer to those sellers. So try not to be contingent on any factor when you’re working in a bidding war.
4. Write a Letter to the Homeowners
Number four is write a letter to the homeowners. I’ve had great success with some of my buyers using heartfelt letters about how much they love the home, how much they always wanted to move back to that town, how they’re going to be near their parents or family, or they really want to get into that great school district. A lot of times if you have a family that’s been in a home for a long time and they care for it and they care for the community they want to see the home going to someone maybe like them or at least someone that’s going to be caring for the home and wants to stay there for a long time. It has great success and it’s certainly something that you should consider.
5. Send a Video to the Homeowner
Our number five tip is something new and something that hasn’t really been used very often but it’s using a video. Video is such a huge part of our lives right now. So much of our content is becoming video so using that same idea of the letter and doing a little video about yourself, showing your family and talking about how much you love that house and how much you want to be in that community and how much you love those schools can go a long way to getting your bid to the top of the list. And sometimes these things can actually outweigh someone offering a higher number.
So these are our 5 tips to help win a bidding war when trying to buy a home. Again these are very prevalent here in Bergen County especially in the springtime so you want to be prepared to get your offer to the top of the list. The Gibbons team is committed to bringing top-quality content and information to homeowners sellers and buyers in Bergen County so you can be an educated consumer when it comes time to buy or sell real estate here in Bergen County.
More Resources
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- Millionaire to Millennials: Don’t Rent a Home… Buy!
- Use Your Refund to Jump Start Your Down Payment Savings
- Benefits of Homeownership go Beyond Financial
- Which Comes First Marriage or Mortgage?
Homes for Sale in Bergen County
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