Winning the Bidding War
by Alex Wang | Discuss » | Contact Alex Wang w/ Questions
It’s a sweet day when homeowners discover they’re getting multiple offers on their property. But for buyers competing for a house, it’s a nail-biter.
Over the years, I’ve developed two novel strategies to help buyers win bidding war.
First, I aim to be the last presenter. Why? I can often gauge what offers sellers have already seen and probe them to identify their concerns. Also, by that time, they’re ready to make a decision.
In addition, I always try to bring my clients when I present offers to the listing agent.
If my clients are sitting in the same room, we can often cut the negotiation time from a couple days of phone calls down to a matter of minutes”?something desirable for eager sellers. It’s an enormous strategic advantage to be able to discuss and ratify changes on the spot.
The other benefit is that buyers are humanized when sellers can meet them and talk with them.
Such was the case in a recent negotiation for a highly desirable Sunnyvale property. When I discovered there were two offers on the table, we opted for a full-price offer.
At the presentation, one offer was rejected immediately, and the listing agent let me know our competitor’s offer was better than ours. So we countered with a higher price–an additional $5,000 over the asking price–and removed our contingencies. I later learned that our competitor’s offer was still better than ours.
Yet, the sellers had met my clients, an engaged couple enthusiastic about buying their first home together. It turns out that the groom-to-be and the husband of the seller both worked for the same high-profile technology company, though neither knew one another. Nonetheless, that shared experience created something of a bond. My buyers were no longer just a generic couple. The sellers, rather than seeing just figures on a page saw faces and personalities and had some insight into the buyers’ aspirations.
The result: My clients won the bidding war. And the sellers even decided to give the house to them for a thousand dollars less than our final bid as a courtesy.
Had my buyers not been at the presentation, I’m convinced the competitor’s offer would have been accepted.
Related: Not Overpaying for Buying a Home
June 21, 2008 | Filed under: Home Buyers
If you have elderly relatives or friends who live in San Mateo County, you may be interested in this announcement from the office of San Mateo’s Fifth District Supervisor Adrienne Tissier. 
There is a new luxury development that has been getting a lot of attention lately because of its location and close proximity to downtown Mountain View. Not only is it close to the downtown area, but it is also within walking distance to the Mt. View Caltrain station, has freeway access close-by, and is surrounded by single family homes, parks, the Center for the Performing Arts and City Hall offices. The Wild Orchid development is located on the corner of Dana Street and Calderon Avenue. 
The exclusiveness to this area is because of the very convenient location to downtown. It is only a ½ mile walk to the heart of where all the action is; downtown restaurants, unique shops, night clubs, coffee shops, and independent book stores are just a few of the niceties. And if you get in now to one of these homes you won’t have to fight the parking situation of the ever-so-popular 
With the exception of the building pictured here, located on Fair Oaks currently leased to Paramount Tumbling and Gymnastics, various new developments have sprung up throughout the area such as City Park and Verona by luxury builder Toll Brothers, Parkside Villas, Tasman, and Crossman Place built by popular local builders Barry Swenson and Palo Alto based Classic Communities. 
Whether you’re preparing to sell a home or are in contract to purchase a home in Silicon Valley, you likely will be faced with the prospect of hiring professionals to inspect your home. This can run hundreds of dollars, a thousand dollars or more. The potential liability, though, could be much higher than the cost of paying the professionals to inspect your home, so you’ll want to hire very carefully. 
Don’t be fooled! Homes in Silicon Valley come on the market in a variety of conditions from horrible to breathtaking. Some are dirty, cluttered, and perhaps even run down. I saw one this week that desperately needed exterior paint, landscaping to be tamed, and the removal of large quantities of faded plastic flowers that droop down over the living room window (all this in Los Gatos, with a million dollar price tag). 
In most of California, the purchase agreement form used when writing an offer to buy residential real estate is the California Association of Realtors form, the Residential Purchase Agreement. Along the San Francisco Peninsula and in Silicon Valley, though, often we use another form, the Peninsula Regional Data Service purchase agreement (PRDS contract). 
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