Don’t Give Up, Buyers! In This Market, You Might Get a Second Chance

For the last couple years, if a buyer missed out on a house, it was truly gone. There were no second chances. With so many homes selling in multiple-offer situations, you could be sure that the buyer who “won” was extremely solid and the chances of the deal falling apart were nil. The seller wasn’t going to choose a risky offer that might fall apart.

Now, though, the market is changing and buyers have second chances again! Here are two recent examples just from my experiences:

1) I represented a seller who received multiple offers on their home, and we chose what we thought was the best one of these offers:

• Offer #1 was for under asking price.
• Offer #2 was for asking price, but the buyers needed to sell a home in order to buy the new one.
• Offer #3 was for asking price, and the buyers needed to sell a home, but that home was already under contract.

The seller chose offer #3, which appeared to be the offer that was most likely to close. But wne week before closing, the people buying our buyer’s home were unable to secure financing. Which meant our buyer couldn’t buy my seller’s house, and it was back on the market!

I immediately reached out to the other two buyers who had first offered, and they both still wanted the house! This time my clients chose the full-price offer from the people who had to sell their house (offer #2), because in the intervening months they’d sold their house! Those buyers were thrilled to have the house they’d wanted all along.

2) I showed many, many homes to some buyer clients. They finally wrote an offer on a house, but it was contingent on them selling their house first. The seller rejected their offer.

My clients were bummed, but we kept looking. A few weeks went by, and my clients decided to offer again after they saw the seller do a price reduction on their favorite house. This time the seller accepted the offer!!

So that’s two recent sales which involved a second chance for someone to get the house they wanted all along. This used to happen a lot in the “before times,” but almost never happened during the pandemic. It’s good to see this old standby back in action.

Moral of the story for buyers: Don’t give up hope in this market. Write a strong offer on the home(s) you want, but if you don’t get it right away, you might have a second chance down the road.