Keeping Your Head in Multiple Offers

HOW IS THE MARKET?

Are people asking you this? What’s your answer? My favorite response to “How’s the market” questions is one of curiosity. If appropriate, I’ll straight up say: “It’s great! Why do you ask?” Sometimes folks just ask because they don’t know how else to engage with you, their new real estate professional friend. A LOT of people who ask this question have a genuine interest in your answer though, because they might be on track to making a real estate move in the near future and you need to fish those folks out and decide how to move forward in your conversation. 

My most recent response to that question was:
“The market has some steady pockets and some crazy ones. I just sold a listing in Brooklyn Park that had sixteen offers in thirty hours. Why do you ask?”

Sixteen offers. Yep I said it. This isn’t even close to a record breaker and yet it’s still a huge number to navigate, especially if you consider yourself on the greener side of being a listing agent. While navigating that experience with my Seller recently, I realized that I have tools and systems in place to handle it smoothly while giving the best service to my Seller. I’d like to share some tips with you.

KEEPING YOUR HEAD IN MULTIPLE OFFERS

How to be a great advocate for your Seller while being a rockstar business partner to the agents who submit offers on your listings. 

The most important things you’ll need to remember are that you need to stay organized and you need to be prepared. I’m going to walk you through both of those below.

BE PREPARED

1. Prior to listing Set expectations with your clients and ensure you’re on the same page for how to handle offers when they come in and how they’ll be shared. Oftentimes they’ll defer to you on this and you can guide them. In this particular market and for this particular listing, my client and I agreed that I should alert every interested party that we know the moment an offer is submitted. 
2. Assemble a one pager comparison so the big rocks are on one page. I use a google sheet for this so clients can see in real-time what’s on the table. My one-pager includes an estimate of proceeds and the following information:

• Offer Price
• Earnest Money
• Closing Date
• Financing Type
• Down Payment
• Inspection Contingency Information + Timeline
• Seller Paid Closing Costs
• Pertinent Notes

STAY ORGANIZED

1. When offers do come in, explain to buyer agents the plan you and your sellers agreed upon. Acknowledge receipt, review and ask agent for any missing information or clarity if needed.
2. Forward the Offer to your Seller ASAP. Remember, sending the offer to your client is NOT THE SAME as presenting and reviewing the offer with your Seller. You need to do both. 
3. Set a deadline and update the MLS and showing scheduler platform as needed. With permission from your Seller, email everybody who has already scheduled showings and let them know there’s an offer on the table and the seller will be reviewing at ‘x’ time. Include the agent who submitted first offer. They’ll need to know if others roll in. 
4. Meet with seller and review offers. If there is a significant number, try to narrow it down to the top three and then review each offer line by line. 
5. If seller has narrowed it down to several and they’re deliberating, take a moment to alert the buyers who didn’t make the cut so they can get back out into the field with their buyers. Stay in communication with the top contenders without getting their hopes up. 
6. Once a decision is made, obtain an executed Purchase Agreement. Prior to changing the mls status, make sure you alert the last rejected Buyer’s Agent. In my opinion, it’s  poor form for a Buyer to have to learn that their offer was rejected by seeing the MLS status change instead of hearing it directly from their agent. Give the agent a chance to break the bad news personally. 
7. Draft an email to ALL of the Buyers Agents whose offers weren’t chosen. Agents want feedback on their offers so track significant bullet points like number of offers, waived inspections, etc. Nothing specific but general information is helpful. Get permission from the Seller to share this information with the declined parties. Express gratitude for them taking time to show and submit. Stay grateful and positive. Below is actually a template I use for this exact situation.