Multiple offer situations are unavoidable if you’re in the market to buy a house in the Tacoma area right now. To be successful, you’ll need to be well qualified, ready to act quickly, ready to write a strong offer and – most importantly – you’ll need to be working with an experienced broker.
Winning the Day in a Multiple Offer World
Since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, most of our listings have sold in multiple offers. Listings priced below $600K have generated as many as a dozen offers. Listings priced above $600K haven’t generated quite as many offers – but still more than one. It’s kind of like a game of musical chairs - with multiple players and just one chair. Buyers who lose out can become incredibly frustrated - and for good reason. Buying a house can be a stressful experience under the best of circumstances. Competing in a multiple offer situation and losing out only adds to the stress.
I feel badly for some of the buyers submitting offers on our listings because I don’t think they’re being effectively represented by their real estate agents. That can put them at a huge disadvantage in a multiple offer situation. Some Realtors just don’t have the experience necessary to help buyers understand a home’s true market value or set appropriate expectations about what they’ll need to do to win the house in a multiple offer situation.
Mark and I tend to represent more sellers than buyers. Over the years, we’ve reviewed hundreds of offers creatively written by brokers from all over the Seattle/Tacoma metro market. We’ve taken note of the strategies that work and those that don’t, and we’ve been able to harness that knowledge when making offers on behalf of our own buyers.
If you’re a buyer who has submitted offers on multiple listings without success, it could just be bad luck - but it’s worth asking the question. Are you working with an agent who has the skills and experience necessary to write an offer that’s going to get you the house? Winning in a multiple offer situation is often about more than just price. It can also be about a buyer broker’s reputation among their colleagues, their knowledge of the local housing market, their knowledge of what it takes to win a house and their ability to effectively apply that knowledge to formulate a winning offer on the house of your dreams.
Jeff Williams is a top-producing Realtor with Windermere Chambers Bay, specializing in residential real estate in Tacoma, Gig Harbor, University Place and Lakewood.
Jeff Williams: (253) 303-1135
JeffWilliams@windermere.com
