Seller’s (hot) markets come and go. If you’re selling your house in Coachella Valley or around the 92211 zipcode during a seller’s market, then you might get multiple offers. Here’s how to review seller’s market offers in Coachella Valley…
A seller’s market occurs when there are more buyers than properties available. For sellers, it’s an exciting time to sell because you may be able to get a higher asking price. You might also get multiple offers on your house at once.
If you’re selling your house and you received multiple offers, you might be asking yourself, “now what do I do?” Although multiple offers might be exciting to receive, it can also be overwhelming. Fortunately, there are 4 things you can do to help ease the burden and approach your multiple offers to your greatest advantage…
How To Evaluate Multiple Offers To Buy In Coachella Valley
When evaluating offers to buy your house, the highest price is NOT always the best offer!
- Contingencies – A contingency is basically a “weasel” clause that let’s a buyer cancel with no consequences to them, i.e. they get 100% of their deposit back. An offer with few or no contingencies is a stronger offer than one with them. The most typical contingency is inspection and appraisal because the lender will not issue a new mortgage without them. That’s why “all-cash” is usually a much stonger offer because the buyer does not have to wait and see if it passes inspection and appraises. (plus, the scheduling of the inspection and the appraisal can take weeks).
2. Close Of Escrow- This is basically how long it will take from the time you accept their offer to the time you get paid. The most typical escrow time in Coachella Valley in this market is still about 45 days because most offers have some kind of financing, and financing can be a lengthy, drawn out process with inspections and appraisals.
3. Preapproval and Creditworthiness- If a buyer is not pre-approved, or just barely qualified, there is a greater chance that the escrow will fall out. Even approved buyers will sometimes get denied at the end because they make a purchase that thows off their debt ratio. Remember, just because a buyer is approved doesn’t guarantee the loan will always get approved at the end.
4. Cash Reserves- If a buyer does not have any extra cash other than the bare minimum they need to put in with the loan, then if the appraisal doesn’t come in they won’t have any cash to make up the difference. In this case, you as the seller will either have to drop the price of the house or cancel. So even if they started out with a higher offer you end up taking LESS. So typically the more cash the buyer has to put down and also has in reserves, the stronger the offer.
5. Consider Going “Highest and Best”- If you have multiple offers, you can either evaluate which offer you think is the strongest based on the first 4 points and accept it, OR you do what is called a “Highest and Best” counteroffer. This gives all of the buyers a chance to put forth their best shot. They may come up in price or decide they can remove the inspection contingency. The downside of this method is some buyers take it personally or feel intimidated, and may withdraw their offer.
If this is overwhelming or if you don’t have as many offers as you’d like, or if you don’t have the offers that you want, there is another way to sell: you can sell directly to us at Coachella Valley HomeBuyers.