Hello and welcome back to the next episode of Say What You Want About Real Estate. I'm Michelle Elliott. And today we are talking about winning offers here in San Jose and the South Bay in general. So everyone knows homes go for multiple offers, but how do you win? That is our topic for today. So, Christina, have you seen a home where the top bid did not win? Yes.
I'm Christina Rogers.
Speaker 1 (05:29.472)
Okay, so let's say it's like a one point six million dollar offer, but something one, five, eight, nine wins. Why is that? Because certainty is currency. Okay. All right, so we're talking today about what is gonna make your offer win. So let's talk about what I always say is number one is the lending. Okay. Yes. So I think people do not consider that your lender.
matters. So let's get into it right now. Our number one tip is make sure you have a great realtor on your team. So what do you think people should consider when they're looking for a lender?
I think that your lender is just as important as your realtor. And I say this to my clients all the time, where I tell them, I can do the best job in the world and get your offer accepted. But if your lender can't see through that loan and can't get us to the finish line, it doesn't matter how many times I win the bid on the home for you. So lenders, I
Right, right. So
Specifically like it when my clients not only have a pre approval but when they've been fully underwritten.
Speaker 1 (06:40.992)
Okay, all right. That's a hot take is fully underwritten pre-approval. Yeah. Okay, let's pause on that and we'll come back to that one in just one second. And I'm gonna give you my tips, what I tell my clients. And remember, on this show, we give you all the tips that we tell our private clients. So this is top secret, top agent information. This is real estate gold right here. So listen in. Okay, so what I tell my clients is that.
Your lender is part of your real estate team. Okay. We're all on the same team. Your lender is not off on the side. Okay. I have had deals ruined by clients coming, BYOL. Yes. Bring your own lender. And the lender doesn't understand our area. Right. So tip number one: you have to have a local lender. That's number one.
an online lender, please. No. That's like my biggest nightmare. Yeah.
Yeah.
And let me give you an example. I literally just had a sale where I was representing the seller, and the buyer came with a national online rocket mortgage, right? And they're trying to buy a home here in the Bay Area. It was a condo, and what we got stuck on was they wanted the HOA president to write, fill out a form to say that the condo
Speaker 1 (08:14.21)
would never sorry that the the condo association couldn't get in the way of the lender foreclosing on the loan. Okay? And they wanted this HOA president to put this in writing. Let me just explain something to you. In the state of California, that's not even legal. Okay, so like if you have a local lender, they're not gonna require anyone to put that in writing because a a
A local lender, okay, even if it's a national brand, Wells Fargo, Chase, those lenders have a department that reviews things per state rules. Yeah. Right? And so that wouldn't even come up. We almost didn't close because of that issue on the Rocket Mortgage. So you need a local lender.
You need a local lender, and I tell my clients that all the time, you're welcome to use any lender you want. However, I recommend this person. Yeah. Because my experience with them is they are on time. We are in a contract. We have deadlines we have to meet to stay in the contract. We've got appraisals that need to happen by certain t certain dates. And so I always tell my clients, I don't get paid.
for whichever lender I recommend or whichever lender you use. However, I know that I can't get you to the finish line unless we have a great lender working with us. Right. And so it is in all of our interests to work with someone that we know is gonna make it happen. Right. Because you end up in situations like that.
Right, absolutely. And what I think people underestimate is the fact that online lenders and lenders that are outside of the area don't understand, like you said, our timeline.
Speaker 2 (10:01.26)
They don't understand how fast we move.
Right, right. Everything here moves very, very quickly, right? We're from a lender from another state, you may be dealing with you know, clauses that they have to get through and turn we're we're dealing with completely usually non-contention offers and the lender has to be on time to the close. They don't have any milestones to meet during the transaction. So it's gotta be fast, right? We have no other way, we gotta make it fast, right? Okay, so I know you brought up having a fully underwritten pre-approval.
Okay, so let's talk about the types of pre-approvals. And by the way, one caveat we should we should mention to you. Us as realtors, we cannot tell you which lender to go to, anyways. No. Right? So we're we're legally we're not even allowed to do that. We give our recommendation, it's of course up to you. But there's good and there's bad. I've had people come to me and they've told me, we had another lender before, or we've or we've had another agent before. They never told us to switch our lender. And they had lost so many offers before they came to me.
I met them in with one week they were in contract and that's because they were using the wrong lender and no one told them before, right? Yeah. At least give them the advice. They can take it or they can leave it. All right. So let's talk about the different types of pre approvals that you can get from your lender and let's start with the pre qual. Prequal.
Yeah, so your pre-qualification, you you fill out your application, the lender reviews it, and then based on what you've inputted into the computer, essentially, they decide what you qualify for. So you get a pre-approval letter that says you can purchase up to X amount with 20% down, for example.
Speaker 1 (11:44.354)
Right. So and your lender is looking at this based on just no under underwriter has looked at your file yet. So there's a difference between a pre-qualification, which is like just basic information, a pre-approval is that someone on the lending team has looked at everything, right? So that's like a step above that pre-qualification, if I'm not mistaken. And then a a notch above that is a fully underwritten pre-approval.
Exactly. And fully underwritten approval means that the lender has collected the documentation. By documentation, I'm referring to pay stubs, W-2s, and it has gone to underwriting. They've looked at it. And so your fully underwritten pre-approval, all that you need is an address. Right. You need an address. You need to have one the contract on a home. The address is provided, like you're ready to go. It can move very quickly.
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Okay. So, and that pre that fully underwritten pre-approval, that's basically going to give you the ability to have your file looked already approved by a bank's underwriter. And then that means that your your your deal's gonna go through. Okay. There's no other issues that your lender has to go through. It's already done. You've already gone through underwriting.
Already done, already gone through underwriting. The only thing you really have left is the appraisal and whether or not your offer is contingent on the appraisal depends on what what you decided was best with your realtor. but yeah. Yeah.
All right, we're gonna get into the the appraisal in another section. Okay, so our second tip for a bulletproof offer is going to be rentbacks. So this is a little bit less of an issue than we have seen in past years, but let's talk about the rent back sweetener. So we'll explain rentbacks to you. So essentially what a rentback is, is that here in the valley, most escros take
Speaker 1 (13:44.086)
Let's call it 30 days. 30 days, yeah. Okay. Most escros take 30 days. A lot of sellers will put their home on the market to try and get that spring market activity, but they're not quite ready to move yet.
Co
Speaker 1 (14:02.648)
Sorry, woo.
Speaker 1 (14:11.672)
So they're not quite ready to move, but what they are ready to do is get that spring market activity going and then they want to stay in the home past the closing date. Okay. So explain how that one goes, Christina. So
A lot of times I see that frequently with like families. So they put the house on in the market in April. They get into contract. It closes, you know, in May, but the kids aren't in school till June. Right. So they want that extra 30 days to stay in the home. Like we have a very competitive market. So what I typically see is a no-cost rent back, meaning we've closed escrow, the buyers now own the home, but they are allowing
the sellers to remain as essentially tenants for, you know, thirty days is usually what I see, or twenty nine days as we like to say. Yeah. 'Cause once we hit more than thirty it it becomes longer term. And so that's what that's what I see a lot is usually about just under thirty days is pretty typical.
So families want to be able to stay in the home till the end of the school year. Yeah. It makes it very difficult for them to to move when their kids are in the middle of school. So they'd like to see you know, the ability to stay in the home, and that makes the offer very sweet for a lot of young families. even preschool, I think it's more difficult to move kids when they're in a rhythm. Like once you get to, you know, summertime, it's a little easier for families.
But here's the trick is that by the time everybody's ready, you know, June, our market kind of softens out in June. So smart sellers are putting their home on the market earlier and they're hoping they're gonna get that rent back. Okay, let's talk about 29 days, why we do 29 days. So here in California, a residential lease is considered 30 days or more, okay?
Speaker 1 (16:15.146)
And when you have a residential lease, then the tenant has rights. Okay. That's number one. Number two, if you are going to have an owner occupied home and you say, All right, I'm gonna give a rent back, if you rent it more than 30 days, your lender is gonna say, you need to move into that home. Otherwise, it's not a primary residence, right? It's an investment property.
Primary
Speaker 1 (16:44.94)
Investment property, totally different rules on lending. Okay. So investment property often you have to put 30% down and you're gonna have a higher interest rate. So if you want that personal property lending rules, software rules, you are gonna wanna take that as your primary residence and you're gonna wanna move in. So we usually try and keep it about thirty days. So if you're a seller and you're thinking, all right, I want to catch that spring market, what lineup did you say? April?
Yeah, I'd say, you know, w once homes start going on in April, typically I see, you know, rent backs 'cause they're closing in May, school ends around June. The other time I see a lot of rent backs too is with folks that have been in the home for a and they have a lot of equity and they wanna move, but they n maybe they need that equity in order to purchase their new place. Maybe they don't know exactly where they're going. And so they need that interim to like pack up and have the funds in the bank account also.
Right, right, absolutely. Okay. And then people are nervous sometimes, you know, buyers are nervous, like, what do you mean I have, you know, to rent back? Okay. This is a misnomer, this idea rent back. And actually it drives our attorneys insane. because it's it's something like a colloquialism. It's not an actual rent. Because like number one, Christina said, usually there's not even money that takes that that changes hands. Right. And then number two, you're staying underneath that
like rental period, that leasing period for legal reasons.
It's like this gray area almost, right? Right. Where you're like, Okay, it's not you're not a landlord, it's less than thirty days. We do twenty we prefer twenty nine days. Right. Unless absolutely necessary.
Speaker 1 (18:23.49)
Right, yeah, absolutely. Right right. So if you're concerned about that on the buying side, just remember that twenty-nine day rule and you can keep it under that. If you absolutely don't, you know, feel like you can provide that to a seller, maybe you know, it's just not the right deal for you. Maybe you gotta look for another property because you may have to give that seller a rent back. And a lot of times like Christine is saying, if your seller needs the money or if the timing doesn't work for them, they're gonna need that in order to make that deal go.
Yeah, there's a lot of reasons why people need extra time sometimes. And a lot of times I find if sellers have been in a home for a long time, they'll ask for a rent back and then they'll actually be able to move sooner. Yeah. It's just like that anxiety of like, my God, like if they're living in the home when it's for sale, that's when I see that anxiety in my sellers. So I typically love it when my sellers move out first.
The other thing that I I see is you know, if they're doing an estate sale and it's like mom or dad's property, you know what I mean? It's like thirty years of stuff in there, you know. They want to get the home on the market. Maybe they're running up against time in terms of the timing they have to sell. Maybe we should do a podcast on that. Yeah on selling mom and dad's house. We should. my gosh, I love Yeah. A lot of nuances in there.
Nuances that we should talk about. And we can talk about why people sell mom and dad's house when they do. I mean
Yeah the timing. Yeah, the timing. We should talk
Speaker 2 (19:49.56)
Back to Tax implications. Okay, topic for an hour.
Stay stay on topic, stay on topic. Okay. All right. So so yeah, so there's a lot of reasons why our sellers may w need some extra time. So if you want to win the bid and you're a buyer, keep that in your back pocket. You may have to provide that. Okay. So we're saying, hey, this may not be the highest offer. These are some of the reasons why you can win without being the highest offer. You know, I have people coming into my open house all the time and I, you know, I say to them, have you written any offers?
And they'll be like, yes. I'm like, How many? How many offers have you written, right? And they'll be like, well, you know, I took a break last year, I came back, da da da. What's been happening? Haven't won anything yet, you know? These are the things they don't understand about the market and no one has advised them. So getting a good lending team going, getting someone that's familiar with our market, being flexible on your move in time and giving that extra time to the seller. All right.
The third thing I'm gonna say is appraisal gap. So let's discuss appraisal gaps. All right. So to discuss appraisal gaps, we need to explain to you what an appraisal is and how it works on the contract. So there's a couple things that happen on the contract in terms of your contingencies. We use the California Association of Realtors contract or car contract here in the South Bay primarily. Some people do they use PRDS anymore?
I think they do on the Cupertino Los Gato side. Yeah. I think that they start going up the peninsula, I think they like
Speaker 1 (21:25.184)
Okay. I think I Peninsula, I think they're still hanging tough on that one. Yeah. Okay. But here in the South Bay, the most common form, if you want to look it up, it's called CAR Residential Purchase Agreement. and then yeah, if you want to see a sample of that, just reach out to Christina or myself and we'll get you a sample of the contract so you can review it a little bit more in depth. but there are contingencies that are pre-written on the contract.
And one of them is the appraisal. there's two other major contingencies. One is your buyer's inspection contingency. We can talk a little bit more about that on another time. Yeah. And then the other one is your loan. Okay, so loan and appraisal are actually separate. Okay. So on appraisal contingency, this is how this functions. So let's say that you were making an offer.
And your offer was $1.6 million dollars. Okay. And when you and the seller agree, that is you're an escrow. Okay. And you have a ratified purchase contract. So once that purchase contract is ratified, if you have a loan, your lender is going to send out an appraisal on your behalf, right? That you have to pay for.
Yeah. I mean it's in it's a line item in there. Right.
You're closing item in there, right? Right. But it but it is a cost additional cost to you. So you're gonna pay for that appraiser to come out, okay? And the appraiser is going to tell you whether or not your offer is in line with the market because what the lender's trying to do is protect their investment. Yeah, they want are protecting themselves from fraud, they want to make sure that you're not overpaying for the property, and there's a variety of other reasons why they want to send out an appraiser, but that's generally the idea, okay.
Speaker 1 (23:19.52)
So the appraiser will come out, and let's say in this case you offered $1.6 million. Let's say the appraiser says, okay, actually the house is only worth $1,550. Right? That $50,000 is called the appraisal gap. Okay? Now we normally don't see $50,000 appraisal gaps. This is just for easy math. Okay. Okay, so
Oof
Speaker 2 (23:42.51)
Easy Mac.
Speaker 1 (23:46.892)
There may be an appraisal gap when you are making your offer, but let's explain how that can happen. Okay. The way that happens is the market is ascending faster than the comps are catching up. So if every house that comes on the market, someone bids higher and higher and higher and higher, the comps for the property, okay, have not caught up.
With those prices, okay.
'Cause those higher price ones may still be pending and so they haven't closed, which means the appraiser's not gonna see that data.
Think back to when we said that every escrow is 30 days. Okay. So when the appraiser goes to pull the comps, and that's how the appraiser decides whether or not that the property is, you know, the appraised value, they they determine the appraised value using the comps. If the comps are in escrow for 30 days, they sold 30 days ago, but the data won't post until 30 days later. So it's essentially old data. So when the market's moving really, really fast.
you could end up having to bid above the last comp in the neighborhood to beat out the other bidders. Yeah. That's how that happens. Okay.
Speaker 2 (25:06.69)
The appraisal is one of the first things that gets ordered once you are in contract, meaning you're probably gonna have an appraiser out to your property within seven days of getting into contract. Meaning like we're we're just not moving fast enough with those other properties.
Right, absolutely. Absolutely. So there's gonna be some lag there, right? So and so that's how you end up with that appraisal gap where it's the the comps are not pacing with the market. The market's moving faster than the comps can close, essentially, right? We've had this a lot, over the history of this market. I would say right now, what do you think the market's doing right now in terms of concerns on appraisal gap, Christina?
I think, you know, I have not had a property that hasn't appraised in quite some time. I think we have low inventory right now, so we're s they're competitive. The good homes are seeing competitive. and I I do see that things are appraising currently. That's that's what I'm seeing. what I do, and this is why your realtor matters also, is anytime my client is doing an appraise, anytime there's an appraisal on a property, it doesn't matter if I'm representing the buyer or the seller.
It is a buyer's agent's responsibility to be there. However, it is also in my client's best interest, if they are the seller, for it to appraise for everybody's sanity. Yeah. Right. So I always show up to the appraisal. I always run the comps for the appraiser on on their behalf. And I go above and beyond and I call every single pending property to find out how many offers did they get. That gives them a true gauge of how competitive this was. What was the demand on the home?
And then I ask them what a ballpark, some agents will tell you what it's pending at, others will kind of give you a range, and then I provide that to the appraiser along with what has actually closed because then I can give them a that idea of what that lag looks like.
Speaker 1 (27:07.766)
Right. Yeah, take a second. Sorry. No, you're you're good, take a second. Take a second too.
Speaker 2 (27:26.86)
So yeah, so that I think really helps with the appraisals. I always provide that to the appraisers just to make sure they understand the competitiveness, especially if I get an out-of-area appraiser. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. That's a whole nother challenge. and then you know, it's it's like everything else. It's really nice when you start seeing the same appraiser and you're like, it's you again. Great. Yeah. We've worked together before. Like And I'm never pushy with the reports that I do run for the appraisers. I always say, Hey.
Another challenge, yeah.
Speaker 1 (27:49.462)
This is good.
Speaker 2 (27:54.774)
I wouldn't be doing my due diligence for my client if I didn't provide this. I give it to them, I let them know. I'm like, hey, d you know, and conversationally like, hey, you know, that one around the corner that had five offers, it it's pending, you know, fifty or seventy-five thousand over asking and just to kind of put that in their ear a little bit so that they know what the market is doing because I just need the home to appraise for price.
Yeah. Yeah. And I think you're hitting on it exactly, which is, and I think you hit on a couple of good things here. So number one, number one is we have plenty of comps, which is the reason why we're not getting the gap. And the reason why we're having print plenty of comps, if you hear that out in the market, it's super competitive here in Silicon Valley. That's what we're dealing with, like super competitive Silicon Valley, yes, but only for certain properties, right?
So we have this sort of uppy-downy market, right? Where one property will kind of sit on the market and one property will fly off the shelf. But buyer fly off the shelf and sort of meet comps. Even though we're seeing properties, they have multiple offers, the market is not moving past the previous comps, not usually. Yeah. Okay. So that's why we're not seeing so many appraisal gaps. So not a huge issue, but the way that you determine your risk on this.
is to do a very good comparative market analysis, which leads me to my third, is my third? My third tip. Okay.
I'm sorry. I'm dying today.
Speaker 1 (29:26.062)
You know, this is a day, huh? For like Mondays, bro.
I know, I feel like my eyes are gonna cry because I'm like trying not to cough.
no.
I know but I don't know why I got such a tickle. And then it like lingers. Okay. We don't win need to make Ryan edit any extra.
Sorry. Sorry, babe. Okay, so that is our third tip. And this is gonna be a controversial one, which is your agent matters. Yes. Okay, sorry, people. Your agent matters. If you're thinking about using your cousin that lives in Modesto, your cousin doesn't understand our market. I'm sorry. We move so fast. So fast.
Speaker 2 (30:06.67)
Move so far compared to other areas. And it's like anytime I'm representing a seller and I see an out of area agent, I'm like, no, no. Honestly, they're usually not close. Right. They miss a mark.
But here's the other thing. Here's the un unwritten rules and you didn't hear this from us. But we are judging, okay, if listen, if you're a listing agent and you have offers coming in, there are very strict rules about what your seller can determine about your offer. And the only thing they can judge on are things like money, the skill of your agent, and whether or not they think that your offer is solid.
Okay, you thinking you wrote this cute little letter about your kids or your dogs or whatever, news flash, that's discrimination. You can't do that. So our sellers are very savvy these days. They don't wanna get caught up in a lawsuit about anything, they don't wanna take any chances, and really they just wanna judge by how well your offer's written, how strong your offer is. They
Want the offer that's most likely to make it to the finish line without falling apart. It's that simple. And so what are they looking for? They're like for me, I look for a clean offer. When I say a clean offer, I mean I am judging the agent. Is there paperwork filled out properly? Are there mistakes along the way? Right. Because that is gonna give me an indication of what the next 30 days are gonna look like for me and my client.
Amen.
Speaker 1 (31:42.84)
Okay. And listen, first impressions matter. Let's say you're the listing agent and your cousin is coming from LA. The first impression of their what's the LA zip c or area co like and you see a 310 coming in, you're already thinking this is not gonna go well. Okay. And you're like, no, listen, my agent, my agent works in Beverly Hills, they know da-da-da. They don't know. Okay, I'm sorry, they don't know. They don't understand our area, they don't know how fast we move, they don't understand our rules, they don't get it, right?
You wanna know if you're Regina.
Speaker 1 (32:11.424)
And I'm not saying that they're not going to take your offer because your agent is out of area. What I'm saying is is they're already making little notches there about, okay, who's going to be the strongest? Because we don't have that many criteria we can judge about.
And if there's another offer that comes in very similarly to an out of area agent, but the in area agent has communicated, has clean paperwork, you've done business with them before, like who are you gonna lean toward?
Cause like you said, what they're looking for is someone to get over the finish line. They can be two hundred thousand dollars over the last comp, but if they can't close, you're not getting any money. It doesn't even matter, right? So you are trying to look for the agent who is gonna get the deal done. First impression, you want someone who's local, okay? And don't get caught up in these like, okay, but this person's this little section neighborhood agent specialist, blah blah blah.
Exactly.
Speaker 1 (33:01.72)
We're not talking about that. No. Right? We're talking about someone who works regularly in your market and who has done business. If you're like, okay, but my BFF, you know, we went to high school together, she's only sold one house. Okay, you you can they if that's what you want to go with. But just understand that when we meet people at an open house and they told us they've they've written seven, eight, nine, ten offers and they haven't gotten one accepted and they're using
you know, a a a discount agent or somebody that they knew from high school but they don't sell a lot of properties, then that's probably what's going wrong.
Yeah, I always ask those those buyers, I go, Well, why haven't you one?
Yeah, what did he say?
I always ask them, I said, are you not listening to your realtor's advice? Or are they not providing you with feedback on these offers? And I and I mean I will be honest, I don't take other people's clients, but I will say, you know, if you've lost this many times, you have to stop and ask yourself. It's either A, you're not willing to do what it takes, or B, you're not listening to your agent. And if you're not listening to your agent,
Speaker 2 (34:07.874)
then perhaps this isn't a good fit. This is not a good relationship. Perhaps you need to consider alternatives. Doesn't have to be me, don't care, but you do have to evaluate if you're losing that many times, either you're the problem or your agent's the problem.
And you know what? Here's my tip about determining your agent. If you're a buyer or you're a seller, you should be interviewing the person that you're going to work with before you sign any paperwork. And you can, you know, interview three agents if you want. I don't even think you need to necessarily do that, but what you do need to do is have a sit-down conversation with that person and make sure that they are a good fit for you and it's someone that you will take advice from.
If you think that you are going to be the one to control everything, then I guess you're the type of person who cuts your own hair and does your own dental work because you need to be trusting the professionals. Yeah. Right. Okay. So if you're interviewing the agent, make sure that the person works in your market, understands your market, and has done a good amount of business so that they can help you.
You want them to guide you with what's happening in the market at this moment in time, which is why you want someone that's full time that's really in it. Right. Because it's like every other week, like the trends kind of shift, right? Right. So we've got market advice market conditions advisory for a reason. Right. It is changing. I tell all my sellers like, here's what I think your house is worth, but we'll decide 24 hours before going on the market. Absolutely. Because when did I run those comps for them?
Thanks a
Speaker 2 (35:48.134)
At least, right? Or when did we sign the contract? Right. Two months ago? Right. How long did it take us to prep it? Like, yeah, the market has shifted since then. Yeah.
And like you said, I think it's two-week increments, right? Little micro markets, two-week increments that can make a big difference. Yeah. Okay. All right. So that takes me to my fourth and final tip, which is earnest money deposit. Okay. Earnest money deposit is on that same contract, California Association of Realtors contract. And their typical EMD is gonna be three percent. Yeah, right of the purchase price. Okay. So
Three percent of your purchase price.
That 3% needs to be liquid assets. It needs to be in a bank account, accessible, something that you can easily transfer because.
Ding ding ding. You need it right away. So the contract defaults to within 72 hours, right? 72 hours. However, in our market here, typically what's expected, okay, and this is where if you have a local agent, they'll know this. It's expected typically within 24 hours of acceptance. Yeah. Meaning, like it better be sitting in the bank if you win. Cause you gotta go to the bank tomorrow.
Speaker 1 (36:56.93)
Right, right. Meaning if you ratify your contract tonight, that means tomorrow AM you need that three percent earnest money.
Like we want you at the bank before noon. Yeah. To make sure the funds hit escrow.
Yeah. Because otherwise your your money may not make it by the end of the day, right? Okay. So yeah. So your local agent is definitely gonna help you with that. So those are little things you can do that are not gonna cost you any money.
Yeah, they give you that competitive advantage. Right. Absolutely. Without throwing more money at it.
Right. And I think the difference between a winning bid and a losing bid is that secret sauce with your agent who's going to be someone who like let's say there's the agent who's next to you, they know the rules. They know that they're gonna ask for a rent back. They know that they're gonna write one day End, earnest money deposit. They know that that what was my other tips?
Speaker 2 (37:56.959)
EMD alone.
Appraisal gap. They know that that you know you have to be wary of the appraisal gap. They're gonna know these things. But I always say it's like this, okay? Here's real estate. Okay, if you're a baker, you're gonna understand this. So people always ask me, I make the best pie crust, by the way. I just wanna let you know I make the best pie crust. But people ask me, like, what do you do? What's your recipe? What's your secret? The secret is not in the ingredients, it's how it's done. Okay. So, like my pie crust, you gotta let it rest. You gotta use super cold water, you don't overdo it.
It's not the ingredients, it's how it's done, right? So communication, Christina, you hit on it. How your agent communicates with the listing agent, how your offer is presented to them. And I'm not talking about writing a letter about your dog. I'm talking about communicating your strengths as a buyer.
And also like your agent's relationships out there with other agents. So you want your agent to be calling the listing agent and saying, hey, what is your client looking for? What does your client need? Do they need a rent back? Maybe they do. Maybe they don't need anything. Maybe they're just looking for the highest price. But when you have an agent that knows how to communicate with the other side, that's where you're gonna get that most valuable feedback so that you can put together an offer.
That is compelling that sets you apart from the competition.
Speaker 1 (39:18.318)
Absolutely. And I think too, I'm gonna say something mean, but
Go, stay at all.
Okay, here's the truth. No one wants to work with your grumpy agent. So if you have an agent who has kind of a grumpy reputation, I swear to you, other people know it. Okay. And so if your agent is not communicating, is not advocating for you, and and and you're thinking, well, you know, everybody works with this agent, but even though they have like a little bit of an attitude, they don't want to. I promise you, they don't want to. And that can harm you. Yeah. You just won't see the harm. Maybe your house didn't sell for as much.
Because your agent's a grumpy agent who doesn't answer their phone, right? Maybe your agent's a grumpy buyer's agent who won't make those phone calls for you. Doesn't matter if they've been around for a million years. If they're that grumpy agent, they're not doing the best job for you.
I am always shocked when I represent a seller and I receive an offer from an agent that never called me once. I'm like, please tell me there's a better offer in this pile. Because there was no communication. You didn't ask what my client needed. You didn't I could have given you tips. Listen.
Speaker 1 (40:17.038)
Because
Speaker 1 (40:24.942)
Like girl, being an escrow is like being married, okay? It is like a 30 day marriage. Am I right? Right? Okay, you do not want to get married to somebody who doesn't even ask you if you want to get married before they propose, okay? Which is what you're describing. Which
Just boggles my mind when I receive offers like that. Like just, where'd they come from? Okay. Guess what? They're usually not the best offer. They never asked what we were looking for. Right.
Yeah.
Right, usually not the best offer.
Right, absolutely. Yeah. I mean and again, the agent that you want to work with communicates well with you. If they don't communicate well with you, they're not gonna communicate well with you.
Speaker 2 (41:02.818)
They're not gonna communicate with the lender fast enough. They might not communicate with Title and Escrow fast enough. Like they still have to work with their client to guide them through the process.
Say it, sister. Okay. So I feel like we're telling you everything
We told you it's gonna get spicy. We're gonna get spicy. We're a little spicy here. All right. So here's the takeaway. The market isn't rigged against you. Okay. It's not about the ingredients, okay? It's about how you use the ingredients. So watch this podcast. Follow us for more information. Thank you so much for watching, and we'll see you on the next one.
now. We told you it's gonna get spicy. We're gonna get spicy. We're a little spicy here. All right. So here's the takeaway. The market isn't rigged against you. Okay. It's not about the ingredients, okay? It's about how you use the ingredients. So watch this podcast. Follow us for more information. Thank you so much for watching, and we'll see you on the next one. Thanks again. Thank you.
