In today's hyper-competitive market, listing agents are sorting through offers to find the ones that are written well and demonstrate the buyer agent's knowledge and expertise.
With multiple offers still ruling the day, it is not uncommon to hear a buyer's agent say, "The best offer is all-cash with no contingencies." "Au contraire," stated a high-volume listing agent I talked to recently. "We don't automatically accept the 'highest' or 'all-cash' offer," he informed me.
"In fact, they are frequently the most poorly written the buyer's agents either do not fill in key information, fail to include required documentation and, in some cases, fail to factor in their buyer's limitations. To be honest," he added, "We typically use badly written offers to leverage better offers from more competent agents."
The goal is to write an offer that does not need to be countered or corrected.
Whether written on the MLS or included in a disclosure package, many listings have specific instructions designed to pave the way for effective offers. Our team not only puts clear directions in the Agent Comments section of the MLS, but we also include Instructions for Writing in the disclosure package.
We include basic requirements such as pre-approval letters, proof of funds for the down payment and other critical items we want to see included in any offers. While designed to help buyer agents succeed, they come with one caveat: agents need to read them. I am astonished at how many agents seem to lack fundamental reading skills.
In addition to building rapport, a lot of pre-negotiation can happen during these calls that can pave the way to an accepted contract. You may also discover that they have already received offers higher than your buyer's maximums, which may save you the need to write an offer that will effectively be dead on arrival.
Nothing is more frustrating than offers that have key information missing or data written in the wrong area. We do two things to help our team members write the best offers possible.
First, we set up templates that preload critical information that must be on