How can those buying a home in San Diego, CA negotiate the best possible deal?
Between attractive, but rising homes prices, and extremely low mortgage interest rates, it’s a great time to buy a home in San Diego, California. Still, it always pays to negotiate the best possible deal. This applies whether you are buying a new residence, second or vacation home, or investing in real estate for a profit. So how can San Diego home buyers negotiate the best possible deal on their next property?
1. Plan
Buying a home can be a significant financial and life decision. It is well worth spending a few moments to think about what your goals are in buying a new home in San Diego. This will act as a valuable guide in making purchase offers, and keeping on track during negotiations.
What’s the purpose of buying a property? Is it landing the home of your dreams? Pleasing your spouse? Staying within a certain budget? Or is the amount of work and timeline the most important factor to you? List these items in order of priority to retain perspective throughout the process. Know where you are willing to compromise or not.
2. Know Your San Diego Home Seller and Agent
Understanding your home seller and real estate agent better will go a long way in landing the San Diego home you want most, and negotiating the best deal with ease. Know their motivations, priorities, worries, and aspirations and you’ll be able to fast track through to successfully bidding on your new home with the least amount of hassle. Why are they selling? Are they more worried about selling a home fast, for the most money, or just with the least amount of hassle? Asking can be one way to find out, but so can taking a look at property records, and doing a little homework via social media.
3. Boost Your Appeal as a Qualified Home Buyer
Contrary to popular belief, the offer from the best qualified buyer is the one selected by sellers – not the highest bid. It is not uncommon for a lender or seller to accept a far lower offer if the buyer is well qualified, and the deal appears to offer the least hassle, and most chance of going through. In some cases, offers 30% less than the asking prices are accepted if everything else suggests an easy transaction.
Improve your appeal as a home buyer by offering the right combination of terms, submitting a strong earnest money deposit, and providing a mortgage pre-approval letter, or proof of funds for a cash purchase with your home offer.
4. Tell Your Back Story
While some may find writing personal letters to accompany real estate offers frivolous, it has reportedly helped SoCal home buyers land the homes they want in very tough markets. Written, or spoken, your personal back story can work to help you be more liked by San Diego home sellers. Explain why you would make such a great buyer candidate and how much it would mean to your family to buy the property in question. Some sellers might just decide they want to help make a difference, more than they are worried about making a profit.
5. Low Offers
Everything is negotiable in real estate. Most home sellers will expect to do some negotiation. They price their homes this way, and will expect to bring your offer up a little too. Offering slightly less than you are willing to pay might be a good move in some scenarios. How much lower really depends on how important landing this home is to you. If this is your dream home, you might want to offer the most possible right away. If you are bidding on multiple potential investment properties, sending out low ball offers significantly below asking prices may be okay. However, do keep in mind that going too low can simply offend the seller, and make their agent believe you aren’t serious. If this should occur, you may be eliminating any possibility of further negotiating on this property at any price.
6. Leave Room to Negotiate other Terms
A successful house offer is about far more than price. Savvy and educated property sellers and San Diego Realtors will look at the net proceeds, not just the top line offer price. These two numbers can often be substantially different based on varying scenarios. Again, other terms such as closing dates, inspection periods, closing costs, deposit amounts, financing contingencies, and repairs versus buying as-is can make a world of difference.
7. Negotiate other Perks
There may be other areas to negotiate perks in. This can even involve what the builder or Realtor is willing to do to make the deal work. This might include extra parking spaces, home warranties, kitchen upgrades, use of property prior to the closing date, and the right to re-market the home before the closing.
8. Fast & Strong
In the current Southern California real estate market, going in fast and strong can be critical. Get in and ink a deal before others have the chance to make competing offers.
9. Find Off Market San Diego House Deals
Finding deals before they are even publicly offered for sale can provide San Diego home buyers a huge edge. This may include REOs from banks, corporate real estate, rehabs not yet completed, and getting on the list of local San Diego wholesalers.
10. Negotiate Third Party Services
Negotiate deals on third party real estate services to improve the overall deal. Insurance, liens, taxes, and mortgage costs can all make a huge difference in negotiations.
