BiggerPockets

I put an offer in yesterday and the listing agent is now asking for my highest and best. He's being kinda shady because first he said there were no other offers but one was coming in soon, then he said another offer came in about two weeks ago. Is he lying about the multiple offers just to get me to go up? Also how can I make my offer look better besides a higher price? More earnest money? Quicker closing? Please help, I need to give my offer today.

In Las Vegas we are having multiple offer situations on REOs. The banks don't want to be dealing with counter offers so they request a "highest & best", which they will either accept or reject.

:cool:

Do banks ask for highest and best when they actually have multiple offers? Or, just to bypass the offer/counteroffer process on a single offer?

I believe it is a seller negotiating strategy and should be considered as such by buyers.

I put my first offer in a little bit low hoping they would counter and we could meet in the middle. But once I realized his stories weren't matching up, I got worried that he was just trying to make me outbid myself. He might have figured that I'd be willing to go up since my pre-qual was for a loan higher than my offer. When he called for my highest and best, I raised it a couple thousand. The listing agent came back and said that I was outbid by 30K! I really don't believe him and the house is still listed. What do you guys think? Are they just holding out for more money?

I put in an offer of $80K on a $95K listing. I waited one week and the agent told me two other offers were coming in and to give him my highest and best. My offer was a cash offer closing in 10 days. The bank contracted with another purchaser for OVER the asking price but it was a financed offer. This has happened to me twice in the last month.

A very wise man recently told me two things that are relevent here.

If you negotiate with yourself you will lose every time.

And

As an investor, if you are find yourself with multiple essentially equivalent investment possibilities, it should not matter to you which one you buy. However, the person selling you the investment does care if you buy someone else's instead of theirs. In other words, the once in a lifetime deal comes along with incredible regularity.

Just got my 4th REO in the past 45 days under contract (3 are already closed and number 5 is coming in a couple days). As to highest and best, which was a part of EVERY deal except for 1, here's a hint: cash, financed, earnest, days to close, good karma and a free slice of cherry pie at closing - none of this matters. It's all about the bottom line, even if it's down to 20 bucks. That's all. Asset managers are employees that report to a manager over them and fill out a financial report to make themselves look good. If you can make them look 20 bucks better, it's you.

I believe everyone is offering you the same basic "advice" here, so I will also throw my 2 cents in....

There are way too many REOs in this country right now to squabble over prices on just one! Make your offer (50%) and don't accept anything over 55% - period. The bank NEEDS to get these non-performing debts off their books. They will either accept your offer, submit a counter-offer or reject it.

Keep making offers!

I put my first offer in a little bit low hoping they would counter and we could meet in the middle. But once I realized his stories weren't matching up, I got worried that he was just trying to make me outbid myself. He might have figured that I'd be willing to go up since my pre-qual was for a loan higher than my offer.

This happened to me too. The seller accepted my first offer, then my agent called to say they had 2 other offers higher than mine and did I want to increase mine? I was naive at the time and did just that, which they accepted. The inspection turned up multiple problems and I cancelled my offer.

Amazingly, the other 2 offers disapppeared :wink: The sellers chased me for several weeks but refused to budge more than $2K on the price, despite an inspection that showed about $20K in necessary repairs. I now have my lender give me a pre-approval letter very close to my offer price.

My offers on REOs have not gotten counters. They ask for highest and best, and that's it.