The Biggest Mistake Buyers Make

There’s one common mistake you must avoid as a buyer in our market.

Looking to buy a home? Click here to search for all homes.
Looking to sell your home? Click here to see how much your home is worth.

Currently, available inventory is down 27%, and the number of homes coming off the market has risen 50% the past two months. In these conditions, most buyers are committing the same mistake: submitting an offer without understanding the seller’s motivation.

Over the past couple of weeks, my team and I have encountered multiple-offer situations with 10 different contracts, and different homeowners had different motivations.

Some wanted the highest price, even if the buyer had a shaky loan. Some were content with a lower price as long as the buyer’s financing was rock solid or they were paying cash. Some had a deep emotional attachment to their home and wanted it to go to a buyer with whom they had a great emotional connection. Some were investors looking at the deal as purely a business transaction.

Don’t submit your offer without first finding out what the seller wants.

In any case, a purchase offer should be tailored for a home seller’s specific needs because the market is so competitive. We just listed a home that received three offers, but only a handful of agents called me beforehand to learn more about the seller—none of them included a buyer love letter.

If you’re a buyer, here’s my critical tip you must remember: Don’t submit your offer without first finding out what the seller wants. Your agent should dig deep on this to get more information on your behalf. What terms do they want? What kind of emotional attachment do they have to the home? When you ask the right questions, you give yourself a huge advantage.

If you’d like to know more about submitting the best offer possible or have any other questions about the home buying process, don’t hesitate to reach out to me. I’d love to help.