Agents Share Successful Strategies for Winning the Deal

Given the speed of today’s market, agents can set up buyers for success by preparing them to present their best offer swiftly and with confidence — even when it seems like a long shot.

That’s the consensus among four veteran real estate agents* who have been serving home buyers in markets around the country for decades. Here, they share some successful strategies for winning the deal.

Bring the whole toolbox

Agent Laurie Finklestein Reader has acquired a lot of tools and tips in her 25 years in the industry. In this market, she recommends presenting your client’s strongest offer right off the bat, rather than scaling up to sweeten the deal later on. 

Reader, the CEO of Laurie Finkelstein Reader Real Estate in south Florida, said she coaches her clients to offer the following as a minimum:

• A non-refundable deposit
• Scheduled inspections within two days of an accepted offer
• An agreement to pay a certain dollar amount above the appraisal
• A provision to rent the home back to the seller or allow them to stay for free for several months — or as long as the loan type permits — while they search for a new home

“Buyers are being asked for blood, their firstborn, you name it,’’ she said. “But in the end, you’re locking in a powerful interest rate and surety of payments over the next 30 years. Focus on that.”

Manage buyer expectations

Another tip from an agent? Spend time understanding your clients’ emotional states, and prepare them for the road ahead. Few buyers are prepared for the frenzied competition that can surround a new listing — and the dashed hopes that can come from losing out on repeated offers, said agent Joy Kim Metalios, managing director and associate broker of the Metalios Team of Houlihan Lawrence in Greenwich, Connecticut.

“We always tell our buyers to bid to the point where they’re uncomfortable, but to be okay with not getting the house if someone goes on to bid $5,000 more than them,’’ said Metalios, who has 27 years experience in the industry.

In the current market, she said, buyers can try everything and still come up short.

“We had a house list for $1.85 million. Our buyers went above $2.1 million and didn’t get it,’’ said Metalios. “There was another situation where someone threw in a two-week vacation on a Greek island. They didn’t win, either.”

Metalios suggests advising clients to identify the one thing that they’re unwilling to give up, whether it’s a preferred school district, a ground floor bedroom for aging parents or a large kitchen.

By asking buyers to identify what is most important to them in a home, agents can help clients focus their search and build the kind of resilience necessary to win the deal. 

Prepare clients to make same-day offers

Let your clients know that they’ll need to decide and act quickly — perhaps even within hours — to compete against buyers who are willing to make offers without even seeing the home, said agent Hao Dang, who leads the Hao Dang Team at Windermere Real Estate in Bellevue, Washington. 

He advises his clients to have everything lined up so they can make a clear-headed offer the same day they see a home.

Dang, who has two decades of experience as an agent, said he takes clients to see about six homes in a day and asks them “Which three would you like to make an offer on?” 

“You’re not going out there kicking tires,’’ he said. “The goal is to look at as many homes as possible.” Touring multiple homes in a day makes it easier to compare features because the experience is so fresh in their minds.

The urgency is tied not only to competition but to dollars, he said. With interest rates increasing along with home prices, delays mean your clients end up paying more.

Take a chance, even if it feels like a long shot

It’s always tempting to go after hot new listings, but your clients might stand a better chance by revisiting older listings that were overpriced or in need of work, said agent Bic DeCaro, lead agent at Bic DeCaro & Associates in Great Falls, Virginia, and a residential specialist with more than two decades of experience.

DeCaro helped one client place a winning bid on a home that had been listed for months before going under contract to another buyer. Though they were told there was only a small chance that the contract would fall through, DeCaro encouraged her client to submit a backup offer and invest in pre-inspections so they could waive that contingency and get their offer serious consideration by the seller. While under contract as a backup, they also increased their offer by $25,000 so the seller would not continue to grant extensions to the primary buyer, who had missed several deadlines.

It worked. 

After weeks of waiting with declining hopes, DeCaro got a call that the contracted offer could not close on time once again. The $25,000 incentive to the seller to not grant another extension helped seal the deal. Her client ended up being the winning bidder, and bought the home for $170,000 less than the listing price.

“The name of the game in this market is never give up,” DeCaro said. “You never know what can happen, so keep the hope alive and be prepared to act quickly when the opportunity presents itself.”

*The agents are all members of Zillow’s Premier Agent Advisory Board, a 27-member panel of agent partners who provide insights and industry expertise to Zillow.