It’s no surprise that there’s competition in the market right now. And it’s particularly challenging to get your offer accepted to purchase a home. If you’re preapproved, using financing to buy a house and you’re having a tough time getting your offer accepted, here are a few things you can do to spruce your offer up.
Creativity is the name of the game as it relates to financing in a particularly tough real estate climate. So, you can shorten your close of escrow. Shortening your close of escrow will deliver your ability to perform on that contract sooner. If the seller has a motivation for a quick sale, can easily help your offer stand out. This also is going to mean having to potentially pay a little bit extra for an appraisal to get it turned around faster if this is something you choose to do.
You can, depending on your catch position and supporting comments in the area. Remove your appraisal contingency, this is something you should talk to your real estate agent about and get their advice. Essentially the real estate agent and you would mutually agree to remove your appraisal contingency. What this does is means that if the house doesn’t appraise for what you’re agreeing to pay then you come up with the financial difference. For example, if the house is $600,000 but the house only appraises for 590,000 you would have to come up with the additional $10,000 difference. Remember an appraisal is only one professional’s opinion of the value of the property. A no-appraisal appraisal contingency will make your offer stronger and will also help make it stand out.
No loan contingency, this one is a bit dicer. There are so many things that the lender does not control your job, your credit, your debt, or your income. Any of these elements are subject to change at any time and the lender has no control over those things. Most lenders will recommend not doing this. If you choose to do it, be highly advisable to have your loan in and out of underwriting 1st. This is to make sure you have a loan guarantee up front, and that you take responsibility for making sure that your financial house is in order. This is effectively saying that you’re as good as cash in the bank and it can help your deal in a tough Real estate climate. You need to be aware when doing this is if your loan doesn’t go through, you lose your earnest money deposit. Again, this is something you should specifically make sure that you’re speaking to your real estate agent about.
Have your lender call the listing agent upon presentation of your offer. A good lender, that’s local in the area in which you’re looking to purchase. Or, even if they’re not but are responsive, clear concise, direct, and can give the listing agent clarity about your ability to perform on the contract from a financial standpoint is huge. If the lender and the listing agent strike it off, that could be a good conduit to getting your offer accepted as well.
If you’re doing all the above elements and you’re still not getting into a contract on a house, your expectations for the type of house that you’re looking for in the area in which you’re looking maybe incongruent. The 3-bedroom 2 bath house on acres lot out in the country, might not be in the cards right now. It might be better to get something like a 3-bedroom 2 bath house and maybe you sacrifice a little bit of land sized temporarily to get your foot in the door. Let the market do its thing and then trade up as your equity income and finances permit in a couple of years and then buy that type of house when the market is more supportive of those goals.
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