Read the blog below:
Anthony Lamacchia – April 26th, 2018
Hey, everybody. I wanted to talk about something that we discussed yesterday in that training room. It’s a beautiful day so decided I’d come out here to talk about the amount of buyers that are intentionally making their offers higher knowing that when the home inspection comes, they’re going to beat the seller down. This is happening a ton. Three of our best realtors yesterday; Sasha Anastasio, Diana Faucher, Michelle Wesson, they all talked about yesterday how this is happening.
Anthony LaMacchia here, on this awesome Crush It In Real Estate page and owner of LaMacchia Realty. How do you solve this if you’re a listing agent? How do you avoid this even as a buyer’s agent? Although, I will admit and this was discussed yesterday, there are some buyer agents who are telling buyers to do this, “Hey, just go high and we’ll beat them down on the inspection.” My message to those buyer agents doing that is probably not something you want to get the reputation for doing.
I would think that through. I would be careful with that. I would set the right expectations with the buyer and make sure that the buyer understands that, “Hey, there’s several offers on this home so even if you do pay $5000 more than the next person, so what,” right? As a listing agent, what I recommend that you do is you make it very clear to the buyer’s agent that you have several offers on the hold provided you do. Explain that. Explain that you have people waiting in line, I’m walking closer now because it’s windy, you have people waiting in line, you have people that want the home. That way, that message gets to the buyer and they feel some pressure that they better not pull any funny games.
It’s one thing if they do the inspection, and something is found that no one knew about, that’s different. The tactic of a bait-and-switch offering a lot and then try to beat them down later, not a great thing for buyer agents to be doing. I recommend that buyer agents be very careful with that and preferably not do it. Certainly not do it intentionally obviously. Listing agents, I would really drive the message home with the buyer’s agents that, “You know, what we’re not going to tolerate any of that”.
Sometimes, listing agents, if you suspect that a buyer agent or a buyer is doing this, it may make sense to take the lower offer and just explain to the seller, what may be going on there. That’s a reason why I say buyer agents don’t get in the habit of that because the word will spread. Anyway, just wanted to talk about that. It’s a complete function of the type of market that we’re in, very low inventory, very competitive, frustrated buyers who are trying like hell to land a home and they get a little desperate and start doing things that maybe they wouldn’t typically do.
That’s all. Wanted to mention it, hopefully, that’s a helpful tip for all of you. Have a great day everyone.
[00:02:36] [END OF AUDIO]