Multiple offer tips for sellers

Key Insights

• Attracting multiple offers on a home is one way sellers can set themselves up for the best closing price.
• Multiple offers don’t come uninvited. Sellers should optimize their listing and prepare their negotiating skills to score big on their home sale.
• Timing and original listing price are two of the most important factors sellers should take into account when trying to draw in multiple offers.

As a seller, you’ll want to score the best offer on your property. By attracting multiple offers, you’ll be able to accept a final offer that nets you the best terms and the highest closing price.

Use these tips to draw in multiple offers and work toward the net-pay closing day you’ve been dreaming of.

How to attract multiple offers on your home

1. Hire a REALTOR®

If you’re looking to draw in multiple offers, it’s important to hire a REALTOR who knows the local market and who understands how to drum up buyer interest. When searching for the perfect agent, try interviewing multiple REALTORS so you can pick the one that feels like the best fit.

Remember, they’re the experts helping you sell your home, so ask them about the entire process, and why they’re the best person to help you close quickly and for top dollar.

Specifically, you can ask:

• How often their clients’ homes sell for listing price or above.
• How they handle negotiations and counter offers.
• If they can make strategic recommendations for how to improve your home to sell for a higher price.
• What they recommend to get the most attention for your home, such as offering broker compensation to attract more potential buyers
• What they do to ensure the property gets online and in-person traffic in the first few weeks after it’s listed on the market.

2. Success in staging

One important recommendation your agent might make is to stage your home, which is a process where you optimize (and neutralize) the space to make it more appealing to a wide variety of buyers.

You may be wondering — is it normal that sellers put money INTO their house in order to sell it? And the answer is a resounding “yes.” You can boost your resale value by making small, but impactful changes like new carpet, fresh paint, modern landscaping, staging and more.

3. Timing is important

After you’ve staged your home, it’s time to list! The first two weeks after posting a home on the market are the most critical for sellers, because buyer interest is at an all-time high during this period.

Talk with your agent to optimize your success when listing. You can plan ahead to accommodate for:

• More showings
• An open house or open house weekend
• A broker open, which is where an agent holds an exclusive house open for other agents, who look around on behalf of their clients
• The best time to sell – according to your circumstances

4. Determine a “sweet spot” price

Although you’ll want to set yourself up to attract a great price, make sure you don’t price your house too high. Even in today’s market, where sellers hold an advantage, pricing too high can mean more time on market and fewer offers coming in -- which ultimately could result in a lower sale price.

Be sure to work with your agent to compare your property to similar homes that have sold recently in your area. It will work to your advantage to come up with a “sweet spot” listing price — one that is not so high that it turns buyers off, and not so low that you receive a series of low-end bids that you do not wish to consider.

5. Consider offering buyer incentives

You might consider offering to pay the buyer’s broker compensation as a way to open up your property to the most potential buyers. Many buyers don’t have the cash available to pay both a down payment and their real estate agent, and the offer of the buyer’s broker payout makes buying your home an option for them.

You may also be competing with other sellers who are offering a buyer’s broker payout, making their home available to more buyers, and when more buyers compete for a property, they make offers with terms and prices that are often more attractive to sellers.

How to negotiate multiple offers like a pro

You’ve put in the effort to set your home up for a successful listing. Now it’s time to handle the multiple offers. Here’s how it all works:

• Your REALTOR will receive offers through buyers’ agents.
• You and your REALTOR will consider the advantages and disadvantages of each offer.
• Your agent will support you as you assess each bid.

At first, you might be drawn to simply accept the highest price — and when all other variables are the same, that’s an easy decision. But! It’s unlikely that everything else will be identical within competing offers. And in some cases, non-monetary advantages could mean more to you than a few hundred dollars.

For example, you may want to accept an offer with:

• A flexible closing date — depending on where you are moving or if you have a "Plan B" housing option.
• Fewer (or no) contingencies.
• More down at closing, pre-approved buyers or other factors that indicate the mortgage will be approved.
• Closing costs that will be paid in full by the buyer.

It’s possible that after receiving multiple offers, you will be able to select one of the original offers based on their bid or other factors. In this case, you will work with your agent to sign the purchase agreement and proceed to the closing table.

However, if you would like to see if you can win an even higher price or more favorable closing terms than you received in round one, you can work with your agent to propose different terms, which is called making a counteroffer.

How to navigate counteroffers

There are various approaches to see if you can receive a higher closing price or better terms than those offered by the buyers in the first round of bids. For example, you can sign a counteroffer with specific terms and send it to a select buyer you’d like to work with. If the buyer agrees to your terms and signs the counteroffer, you’ve got a deal. The buyer could also respond by submitting their own counteroffer.

Alternatively, you can work with multiple buyers by asking some or all to come back with their best and final offer. That means that they may increase their initial bid, and/or make the sale easier on the seller — including by removing contingencies, offering to pay full closing costs or offering a closing date that is best for the seller.

When navigating counteroffers, you’ll want to work closely with your REALTOR to develop a strategy that will maximize your sale. Your REALTOR will also help you select a buyer who is not only coming in with the best bid and terms, but who is also likely to be approved for the final loan. Your REALTOR can help you weigh the pros and cons until you determine the buyer whose bid you’d like to accept.

Get in touch

New listings are a hot commodity right now and sellers with desirable properties can sell quickly and with multiple offers on the table. If you’re ready to make a move on your selling journey, contact Edina Realty or your agent. We’ll help you make the best plan for attracting multiple offers.