Making Competitive Offers
I'm fairly familiar with typical strategies that make offers more competitive, aside from increasing the offer amount (increased earnest money, decreased inspection time, fewer contingencies, etc.).
However, in competitive markets, it seems evident that most offers will offer standard/healthy earnest money, normal-to-fast closing times, 1-2 contingencies (inspection + financing), etc. as table stakes, and the deciding factor seems to be the top-line value of the offer. That is to say, I'm skeptical that adjusting any of these factors would help push, say, a $200k offer over the top of a $210k offer, even if the $210k offer has "standard" offer terms and the $200k offer has shorter inspection times and a few extra percentage points of earnest money.
Couple of questions:
- Is this pessimistic of me? Do small tweaks in these terms really close a gap?
- Is there any way to consistently win in a multi-offer situation other than making the highest bid (and, thereby, accepting a leaner CoCR than every other bidder)?
- What if you're bidding against non-investors (i.e. folks who are willing to pay more to have a nice house, and don't care about investment characteristics)?
- Is it a bad thing if you're consistently getting offers accepted? Based on some of my reading it seems like getting an offer accepted should be a rare occurrence.