Dealing in a housing market with multiple offers can be stressful

A topic that popped up multiple times over the last two weeks is multiple offers.

They are the good, the bad, and the ugly of multiple offer situations.

Recently, I was chatting with one of my favourite realtors and she mentioned she is working with clients who won’t look at writing an offer on a home if the selling realtor indicates there are multiple offers coming in. They refuse to get drawn into a bidding war on a property. I get that.

They won’t even look at a property if it seems there is too much interest or likely to be too many offers.

They have been looking for months and have found several great homes in their price range that tick all the boxes. They have chosen not to write any offers because there are always other offers coming in.

Multiple offers on a property by definition means a bidding war. Writing a solid offer with reasonable terms may win you the home without going into a back and forth and crazy price escalations, which I feel is more what bidding wars are seen to be.

Housing inventory is still low, and demand is still high. This isn’t going to change any time soon.

There are many great realtors who are able to navigate through this market to help clients buy their perfect homes. Realtors with a strong knowledge of current market conditions and excellent negotiation skills work tirelessly to hammer out deals that work for both their purchasers and the sellers.

I’ve talked about one family in a few columns over the course of this year. The price point they have been searching in seems to be a very popular one and homes that they have been looking at are snapped up almost faster than they can get in to view them.

I am pleased to say that after nine months and 15 days of struggle, they finally closed on their first home this week. It has been a frustrating journey for them but they are now the proud owners of a beautiful home. Yes, they wrote several other offers over the last nine months. Yes, there were multiple offers on the home they bought. And yes, the offer on this home was a stressful process.

They were firm on their maximum price because they had no wiggle room. The other offer was actually slightly higher. The seller chose their offer because they had done their due diligence, had their ducks (aka financing) well in order and they were super flexible with respect to the closing date.

I’m sure most people have no idea exactly how hard realtors and mortgage brokers work behind the scenes to help purchases come together in this crazy market.

Tapping out because there are potentially other offers coming in may mean you are renting for a long time to come.

It may not happen the first offer you write, or maybe not even the second, but trusting your realtor to negotiate an accepted offer may mean you are in your dream home sooner rather than later.

This article is written by or on behalf of an outsourced columnist and does not necessarily reflect the views of Castanet.