5 Tips to Beat the Competition in Multiple Offer Situations

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I wanted to talk today about the topic of winning a bidding war and competing against multiple other offers on a home. I have five tips to offer to help you win, because the competition right now is fierce.

1. Come in with the right mindset. Treat the list price like it's the minimum bid on eBay; that’s the least amount of money that the home is going to sell for. Odds are the price will only go up from list price.
2. Come in with the strongest possible pre-approval letter that your lender can possibly write for you.
3. Come in with 1% earnest money if at all possible. It's going to make your offer look more serious and desirable.
4. Use an escalation clause. This is my secret weapon. The biggest challenge is that none of us know what the top sales price on these homes is going to be. While I want you to win the bidding war, I don't want you to spend $10,000 more than the next closest offer. The escalation clause states that we will beat the highest offer that the seller has in writing by $1,000 or $2,000, but we won't exceed a maximum capped sales price that you decide on before submitting the offer.
5. Offer the seller the best possible terms. We ask in advance if the seller wants to keep possession for 48 hours after the close. If so, we'll insert that into the offer to stand out from the crowd.

Finally, my request to you is this: Don't get too attached to any one home in this market! Even if you follow all five tips, you might have to write several offers to finally get one to go through. No matter how much you fall in love with one home, there is another one out there that you'll love just as much.

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These tips will give you the edge over other offers.

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I hope you find these tips helpful if you're looking to buy in the Salt Lake City area. For more tips or elaboration on how to compete in this market, give me a call today! I'd love to work with you.

How Utah State Law Treats Home Meth Contamination

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Meth labs in Utah have been a hot topic here for many years, but there’s a lot of misinformation out there regarding this. People have thought for a long time that Utah continually tops the nation for meth labs. While that might’ve been the case a decade ago, it just isn’t true anymore.

According to a 2014 DEA study, only one confirmed meth lab was busted in the state of Utah that year. If you compare that to a state like Indiana, which had 1,471 such cases, that’s making us look pretty darn good! Despite this low count, however, we’re still 7th in the nation for meth use. What a lot of people don’t know is that just having someone use meth in your home will significantly contaminate your property well above the Utah state limits, and you’ll be stuck cleaning up that mess. It’s hard to overlook someone setting up an illegal lab in your home, but it can be quite easy to overlook someone simply using the drug behind a closed door. Properties that you’d never guess would test positive for methamphetamine do indeed come back “hot.”

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You’re not obligated to disclose a past positive test if the home’s been remediated.

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What happens then? State law requires that if your home tests positive, you must use a state-approved decontamination company to clean it up. The good news is this process isn’t as destructive as it used to be. It is, however, still costly. Even a moderate cleanup can be around $5,000, and that doesn’t include the fact that, typically, the carpet, drapes, furniture, and anything else that can absorb that chemical have to be removed.

If there’s any good news here, it’s that there are laws that protect you if you have had to clean up a property. As long as it’s been decontaminated by a certified expert, you do not have to disclose that you ever had methamphetamine present in that property. If they don’t ask, you don’t have to tell just as long as it’s been professionally remediated. If they do ask though, the owner can’t lie in response to a direct question.

If you have any more real estate questions, please don’t hesitate to give me a call or shoot me a message right here on the website.

How We Helped Lee Buy a Home by Taking Care of the Details and Going the Extra Mile

“Belladonna met every expectation and fought through any obstacles in the way to get us the price we needed. She worked tirelessly on all of the details that needed to be taken care of in order to make the sale happen at the right time and the right terms. It was excellent. She contacted the appraiser and worked hard to provide additional houses in order to get them to reconsider the initial valuation of our home.”