By Brian Teyssier | Brian Sells Pittsburgh

Welcome to the third part of how to get your offer accepted in a multiple-offer situation. My name is Brian Teyssier, and this is Road to Closed Quick Hacks.

Last month, we left off about home inspection contingencies. Back when I was greener, I thought you could just skip the inspection – put waivers, we’re not doing a home inspection, but still have it anyway, and I was quickly corrected. Brian, we can’t do that. So, you can write in there, make a note in the summary section of the body of the email like we already spoke about, and on the actual offer, inspection for informational purposes only. What this means is, listen, I’m not going to ask you to fix anything, I’m not going to ask for a price reduction, although I’ve written that in, found some stuff. I didn’t ask them to fix it, but I asked for a price reduction, and I even got it to compensate for the problem because what happens is when once they come off the market, they don’t want to go back on, even with a bunch of offers waiting. So, you have a chance, but anyway, enough of the parentheses here. So, you can do it. That means I can have a home inspection and I can get out with my hand money if there’s something catastrophic.

So, a backup idea to that is put a price in there. I’ve seen all kinds of different options. So, I’ve seen buyers say, “Hey, listen, we’re going to do a home inspection, but we won’t ask for anything under $10,000.” What that basically means is I’m not going to nickel and dime you; I’m not going to ticky-tacky you. So, if there’s like an interior door to the bedroom and it’s a hollow door and somebody puts a hole through it with their fist, we’re not going to ask you to fix that kind of small, dumb stuff. Or if there’s like one shingle missing. But if there’s something massive wrong, like something wrong with the foundation, all the windows are broken, I mean, something high dollar, we can get out with our hand money. We may ask you to repair it, we may not. So, for informational purposes only, put a dollar amount on the inspection. I love those.

Okay, step eight. If you’re going to have an appraisal contingency, which again- so it depends on where we’re at in the market, right? If we’re in the unicorn market, you’re not going to ask for an appraisal contingency. But as interest rates slide down, we’re going to slide into that. So, there’s going to be an opportunity for you to get some of this stuff before we go into the unicorn market. You’re not going to get any of it. So, one thing I love is appraisal contingencies. A lot of times, when we have a mortgage, most of the time we have an appraisal contingency. If it’s FHA, you must have one, right? It must be appraised. So, what you can do is put a dollar amount on there. Let’s just say that from round numbers, right? We put an offer in- we got the house for $100,000. We think it’s worth $90,000. So, all we can say is, “Hey, listen, we will cover $10,000, up to $10,000 shortage with extra money from our bank.” I say cash, and I mean green cash, I don’t mean crypto, I don’t mean Venmo. So, you could cover- you could say if you think there’s a shortage, even if you don’t know, you can even put it in there, “Hey, we will cover the shortage.” It depends on the price range.

Stay tuned next month for the next steps in my series Road To Closed. If you have any questions, feel free to contact me by email or directly on my cell. Give me a call/text at 412-901-7522 or DM me on Instagram @brian.sellspittsburgh. Looking for more information about buying and selling in Pittsburgh? Visit my YouTube channel for more tips and insights www.livinginpittsburgh. us. n