How to win against cash buyers

You’re probably wondering where this picture comes in to this story.

We’ll come back to it.

Let’s say you’ve found a house. You really, really, really want it. How are you going to pay for it?

Cold hard cash? Nope. You don’t have it. But, it’s likely what your competition has.

You, like most of us, don’t have $200,000 sitting in your bank account. You, like the rest of us, need financing.

Here’s what’s happening in the Phoenix metro area real estate market. Low inventory. That means multiple offers.
Winners of multiple offers. usually have cold, hard…you know what I’m going to say. But you can put up a good fight.

Here’s how. Your real estate agent should be going the extra mile. Your lender too. Your lender can add a letter to the offer or phone the sellers’ agent and enforce what a great borrower you are.

Your real estate agent shouldn’t just submit an offer, they really need to write a letter. Selling you. They need to paint the picture.

Heck, I’ve even had a client give me their family picture to submit with the offer. The message underneath said “Look, we’re cute!” Here’s where the family portrait above comes in.

If your family picture looks anything close to this, do not, I repeat, do not submit it.

Your real estate agent needs to paint a picture to the sellers about who you are. Your real estate agent should describe how badly you want this house. That you have a family. You have a wonderful spouse, two great kids. Of course, be honest. Name names.

“Billy is so excited about putting his bunk beds in his new room.”

“Tommy can’t wait to play catch in the back yard with his Dad, Bob.”

Personalize this offer. It’s worth a shot. I do it.

It feels like it’s impossible right now to buy a decent two-bedroom, two-bathroom condo in South Scottsdale under $100,000. For a while, new listings were put on the multiple listing service in the morning and sold two hours later.

Argh!

After I submitted an offer, I called up a sellers’ agent and told him that my client, Peter, is a hard-working ASU student with a part-time job on top of his studies who had lost out on five other places. He’s from Wisconsin and his parents just want him to be in a safe place so they can sleep easy at night and not worry about him when he’s so far away.

Sure, you have the people who don’t care and just want the most money for their place and least amount of hassle. Cash means no appraisal and the fact a seller can usually get his hands on his profit much more quickly than a financed deal.

But don’t lose hope.

There are still a lot of people out there who feel good that a great family or couple or person is going to take great care of their home, or feel good about giving it to someone deserving.

As for that condo in South Scottsdale? Mom, Becky, and dad, Paul, from Milwaukee are now getting a full night’s rest.

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Diane Brennan is Your Voice in Real Estate for the Phoenix, Arizona metro area. She also co-hosts That Real Estate Show with Linda Williams every Saturday at 3:00 p.m. on News/Talk 92.3 KTAR. She failed miserably at pursuing a career in Gold Digging and currently helps people buy and sell property everywhere in the Phoenix metro area from Scottsdale to Paradise Valley to Goodyear and Chandler. Rumor is she knows her stuff and can be quite enjoyable to be around for long periods of time. Her driving…not so much.

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