How we won a bidding war on a fixer-upper by giving the seller certainty

The story

In January the market was quiet, but I could feel spring coming. This unit at 44 Sherman had been sitting a little while, it was a total fixer-upper, and it was priced to move. My buyer and I knew that combination would not last. Once the spring buyers woke up, this was going to be a real deal, and we wanted to be in front of it.

We were not the only ones who saw it. It turned into a bidding war. Here is where my time on the listing side changes how I play offense. I know exactly how a listing agent reads offers and how they talk through them with their sellers. Price matters, but what a seller really wants is certainty. They do not want a deal that falls apart three weeks in.

So we built our offer around certainty. We came in slightly above asking at $245,000 on a $240,000 list, and then we made the rest of the offer airtight. I had my buyer's lender call the listing agent directly so they heard the strength of the financing straight from the source. We waived inspection and appraisal where it made sense for my client, and we made it clear this would be a clean, easy transaction from contract to close.

We won because ours was the surest offer the seller had, even though it wasn't the highest number. A few months later, a smaller unit down the hall, one that needed the same renovations ours did, later sold for more than we paid even though our unit was larger. In a competitive market, a big part of my job as a buyer's agent is taking away the seller's doubt so my client gets the home.