My client recently closed on a home that initially was under contract by someone else. Here’s a little background.
- My client was only looking in a specific area because of the school district her kids were already in.
- They had already seen the home a few days before and loved it.
- There was next to no inventory in that area in their price range ($200-250,000).
We wanted to make once last effort and submitted our offer even though we had heard that the buyers had already done the home inspection. What my client’s had a strong offer compared to what I thought the seller’s already had from the prior buyer.
- 20% down offer (my guess was the other offer was an FHA with 3.5% down)
- 2% in earnest money (my guess was other offer was $1,000 in earnest money)
- Conventional offer
- Closing in 45 days or less
- Offer was just under list price considering that past sales were all below that number
My client had to wait a week to know that her offer was accepted because the sellers had to cancel the previous offer. Protocol per the contract is to give the buyers an opportunity to match the back-up offer. The strongest thing I believe was the 20% down because now the sellers did not have to worry about FHA delays (if in fact they used FHA). Moral of the story, if you are limited in options, try submitting an offer. You may have strong enough offer to bump out what is already there.