3 Ways to Make Your Home Offers More Competitive

Can these tips help you get an offer accepted?

Home prices have been surging in recent years and despite rising mortgage rates, demand for properties has remained strong. As a result, many would-be home buyers are finding it difficult to get an offer on a property accepted.

Obviously, if you're losing out on homes, the easiest way to make your offer more attractive to sellers is to offer more money. But getting into a bidding war or making an offer for asking or over could lead to you paying more than you planned, or may be impossible if you can't get approved for a larger mortgage.

If you don't want to raise your price any more, or can't afford to do so, you can try some of these three other techniques to make your offer more likely to be accepted.

1. Be smart about your inspection contingency

Most people make their offer contingent on a home inspection. You don't want to skip this contingency entirely because by doing so you could end up with a money pit if it turns out there are tons of costly issues with the house that need to be fixed.

But, if you want to make your offer more enticing, you could ask for an inspection but agree that you'll go through with the sale without expecting the buyer to fix anything as long as any problems that are discovered would cost less than a certain limit such as $10,000 or $20,000.

By putting it in writing that you will only walk away if the inspection reveals major issues, you could put the seller's mind at ease that you won't try to renegotiate the deal once they've accepted the initial offer.

2. Pay cash if you can or get pre-approved for a loan

All-cash offers tend to be much more competitive because you can get to closing more quickly and the seller does not have to worry about the deal falling through if you can't get approved for financing.

Of course, not everyone can afford to pay cash for a house. If you can, this will go a long way toward making your offer more appealing. If you can't, make sure you are pre-approved for a home loan. Getting pre-approved shows the sellers you're serious about the purchase and likely to be able to get a loan to afford it. It also helps you close quicker.

3. Offer flexibility around closing dates

If you can be flexible with the date you take ownership of the house, it can also help make your offer stand out from the crowd. Some sellers want to move quickly, while others may need time to find a new property of their own before they relocate. Agreeing to close on their schedule may convince them to pick your offer over others.

Ultimately, you do need to make sure the price is fair because none of these techniques are likely to land you a home if others offer tens of thousands more than you do. But if you're putting in an offer at a competitive price, doing one or more of these things could make all the difference in convincing the seller to choose your offer over similar ones that are on the table.