Central Florida Real Estate Market Is Going Multiple Offer Again

Well today marks the 5 deal straight where we’ve had a multiple offer situation on a traditional sale in the Orlando real estate market. The crazy thing is that buyers are still trying to sneak in provisions like 3% towards closing costs and prepaids, thousands of dollars in repair limits, and extended closing windows. We can tell you from our experience backed by what we’ve seen in 2013 is that if you want to buy a home in Central Florida, you need to make quick aggressive offers with no contigencies. Each buyer that has won one of our listings this year has had to do so by submitting what we call a “clean offer”. I know what you’re thinking Central Florida buyers what’s truly a clean offer? Well we’ll tell you exactly what works with our buyers and sellers. First and foremost, you have to provide a strong deposit. A good rule of thumb is at least 1% of the purchase price or more depending on your financial capabilities and desire to purchase that particular home. A good deposit says alot about the buyers intentions and is one of the first things that a seller looks at. Just below that on any standard real estate contract is the obvious factor, the price! If you want to buy a home in the Orlando real estate market, then you need to be aggressive right now. We don’t recommend you blindly offer full price because of the poor listing practices of some people who over price houses just to take listings. Instead, we recommend you hire a professional Realtor to look at the hard core numbers for the last 90 days. Factors to consider at solds, actives, and pending homes for sale. We also suggest that you keep the radius within 1 mile when finding comparable properties. After the price, you need to strongly consider a closing date that is both quick and actually attainable. There’s nothing worse than promising to make a date and then having your lender tell you at the last minute you need to acquire an extension. To be a strong buyer, your mortgage lender needs to tell you with absolute confidence when they can get the deal closed by. Following a closing date would be repair limits. The contract standard verbiage is 1.5% of the purchase price which many people simply leave blank so that it defaults to the 1.5%. The buyers when they’re called on it will then say “oops we missed that” and then try to make a last minute change. In the Orlando real estate market, $500 for each repair category is pretty standard and we don’ t recommend going above that unless you feel there could be substantial problems with the home. In speaking about repairs, getting the home inspected in a timely fashion is paramount. This is a major hurdle for both parties and the faster it’s done the faster both sides feel good about proceeding. Some contracts stipulate 15 days, others 10, etc. We recommend performing inspections within 7 days to be aggressive. Most professional inspection companies can be scheduled, complete the inspection, and have you a report within 48-72 hours, if not faster. Again, short inspection windows show the seller you mean business and this can be achieved by pre-scheduling the inspection to coincide with your offer submission, you can always cancel the inspection if necessary. A strong buyer will also order an appraisal shortly thereafter receiving a green light on an inspection. The appraisal is one of the last major hurdles to jump which truly lets both parties know that the likelihood of the sale proceeding to closing is high. Lastly, we recommend avoiding any uneccessary contigencies like requesting 3% of the purchase price to be put towards a buyers closing costs and prepaids. This may work in some cases but in recent times here in Central Florida, it’s simply not flying anymore. Is this a sign that we’re moving away from a buyers market? We would say it’s certainly a sign but only that a sign, we still have more steps to take to get back to where most would like to see the Central Florida market. There are obviously more things that you can do to tighten up your offer but these are some core concepts that if put into practice will help the majority of home buyers in todays Central Florida real estate market win bidding wars. Happy hunting and please don’t hesitate to contact us if we can help you in house hunting or the sale of your current home. If you’re needing to sell your home in today’s market we might certainly be able to add you to the list of our multiple offer properties!