Greetings and a glass of frosty frozen lemonade on crushed ice comes to you from Palm State Mortgage in Orlando.  It’s high summer in Central Florida!  It’s hot, glowing, incendiary, and blazing!  And so are your opportunities if your sale of your “old” home is yielding multiple offers!

As promised last week, this article will continue with some tips and informative strategies for your multiple offer situation.  If this happens to you, we know your realtor will be of great assistance, but the more you know about this situation, the better questions you can ask and the easier it will be to handle your offers

In Treasure Chest Number !:  The Cash Offer! 

A very powerful weapon in the hands of someone making an offer is Cash.  Since anything can happen in a loan situation, the buyer with a treasure trove of cash is going to be one you highly consider.  Likewise, when cash is the offer, there is no appraisal needed.  Wow, that’s one more variable to strike off the list.  What could be the downside if your buyer possesses such treasure?  We have one word for you:  Contingencies. Cash or credit, we tell our home sellers to be positive they carefully review the proposed terms of the deal.  You see, if a buyer is offering a treasure trove of cash in one hand, he might have unacceptable contingencies in the other hand.  Then Palm State Mortgage Company would say to take a look at a buyer with a solid loan. 

Treasure hunt for house offers while you sip lemonade at Palm Sate Mortgage.

Treasure your offers as you sip refreshing Lemonade!

In Treasure Chest Number 2:  Contingencies

We know it is smart, cool, and okay for a buyer to list contingencies in their contract.  While it’s generally a smart idea for the buyer to include contingencies in their contract, they create more opportunities for deals to fail.
Whether your best offer is cash or credit, if the buyer has loaded his offer with contingencies, it might be overloaded with complexities and last-minute excuses  to back out of their deal.
For example, if the buyers list a contingency that you must wait until they sell their home, then you might want to avoid that deal.

Likewise, if their offer “hinges on mortgage approval, it might be worth skipping.”  In fact, a mortgage approval might be a qualification contingency for you to even consider an buyer’s offer.

In Treasure Chest Number 3:  Appraisal

What value do you place on headaches and delays?  An appraisal contingency can be a headache.  What if the appraisal is below the purchase price?

Then the mortgage company might refuse to “lend the difference.” Unless you know in advance that “the buyer is willing to make up the difference out-of-pocket, your sale may fall through.”  Another treasure, lost!

In Treasure Chest Number 4:  Pre-approval

Offers by Pre-approved buyers offer almost as good a treasure as those with cash.  A few pre-approvals might fall through, but such an offer is a much better treasure than a treasure buried under mortgage contingencies.

Treasure Chest Number 5:  Closing–What’s In Your Schedule?

Treasure of Many Offers: Choose the Least Risky!

Treasured Advice: Choose the least risky move in a multiple offer situation.

Time is often our greatest treasure.  We spend it and save it, just like money.  When does the buyer want to close?
It can make a vast difference if they want to set the closing date in one month or four months.

For example, we know college professors who wanted time to get settled in their new town before the first semester of the school year began.  Likewise, we know folks who were moving to Alaska and they wanted to get their property settled before the winter arrived.

It’s all about balancing your schedule with the buyers proposed offer.  Time is your treasure, so…weigh the all the offers…then choose the offer that fits your own calendar and schedule.  As in the treasure hunts of old, Palm State Mortgage Company warns, “things are not always what they seem.”

When you have several offers, explore all the details before you chose a buyer.  And watch the horizon for pirate ships and fake treasure chests (bad bids) before you sail into harbor with an offer.

Special note:  If you are on the other side of the multiple offer situation, as the buyer, not the seller, you need to know these strategies also.  For the other side of the treasure hunt, we suggest you investigate the tips in an online magazine, “Homes.”