The Exploding Home Offer. A simple strategy to help you secure your dream home in this crazy seller's market!

Let me start off by saying that the picture above has nothing to do with this article. I don't even drink wine anymore,( I hate feeling sluggish) but I'm posting this because I love how cute my wife looks, and I'm looking forward to the warm weather in the coming months!

Now that I got that behind me I want to start off by saying that I know how hard and frustrating this market is for buyers. I can see it on the faces of my team members as they go into battle each and every day for their buyer clients. So I wanted to share a simple strategy that has worked really well for us over the last month. In fact, we just helped 3 of our clients win contracts this past week using this exact strategy.

Now, I am going to assume that you are already doing the standard stuff to win a contract such as writing a strong offer with the least amount of contingencies you can stomach. Your agent should be developing rapport with the listing agent and uncovering important details that the seller is looking for. They should also be researching both the listing agent and the sellers in an effort to position your offer in its best possible light (which may or may not include a love letter depending on what your research reveals). Once the basics are covered we can get to the meat of the strategy.

It's critical that all the rapport building and research happen while the property is in the coming soon phase of the listing. This gives your agent ample time to start developing rapport before things get too crazy. Once the property goes live on the MLS you have to be one of the first to view the home.

Once you view the home and you are certain you want to make an offer your agent needs to write it up ASAP and present it as soon as they can. The details need to be presented verbally, (you would be surprised how many agents just send an offer and never pick up the phone to call the agent) while providing reassurance to the listing agent that you guys will get to settlement.

Sellers want certainty and the more certainty your agent can convey the stronger your chance will be to secure your dream home. Here is the kicker...your agent needs to verbalize to the listing agent that they assume they are more than likely going to wait till the end of the weekend to review offers but on the off chance your offer is reviewed today and ratified your client is willing to add a $X amount on top of your offer as an incentive to make it happen! This gives them a sense of control and entices them to take action of their own free will which is much better than trying to put a deadline date on an offer which tends to backfire in a seller's market.

The great part is that you are always in control, you decide how much you are willing to incentivize the seller. As an example, we recently won by adding 10K on top of our original offer as an incentive. Our clients were already willing to escalate to that number but instead of doing what everybody else is doing they used our exploding offer method and it worked! So why does this work when it seems like the logical thing would be for the seller to just wait?

It works because it makes your offer stand out while also playing into a phenomenon that drives all of us - fear of loss. But it's not fear of a loss alone. It's leveraging 3 key ingredients:

1) Building Rapport

2) Creating certainty

3) Leveraging urgency and fear of loss.

By using these three ingredients in the proper order you are increasing your chances of securing your dream home in this incredibly competitive seller's market.

Now go make it happen!