Login
iscover
It seems like a good problem to have, but it is a problem unless handled well. The most seamless way to negotiate when you have multiple offers on a property is twofold.
Firstly, there’s nothing like the transparency of an auction.
If you have multiple interested parties leading up to an auction, why make life difficult for yourself, the sellers, and buyers by going back and forth when you can create a transparent auction environment for all stakeholders to see, touch, and feel market value play out? The agent will be seen as the high integrity trusted adviser; the vendor will feel as if the highest market value has been achieved; and none of the buyers will be put offside.
The best approach on auction day is to conduct a world-class open for inspection just prior to the auction, distribute auction invitations the week leading into the auction and be sure to capture data on the day given most will be neighbours — this will create an outstanding lead generation opportunity the following week.
Also, be sure to have in-person conversations with all registered buyers on auction day as one final preparation meeting, ensuring their price indications are in line with your seller’s expectations. Finally, you need to brief your auctioneer to make sure there is a very clear and concise strategy in place. It’s essential that the seller, the auctioneer and the agent are all aligned to achieve a premium result.
Secondly, if the situation is a private treaty or pre-auction scenario where your seller has instructed you to sell prior, have all serious buyers submit their best and final offer in an unconditional format. For example, a signed contract, waiver of the cool-off period document (in NSW, a 66W), and deposit by a certain date and time. This way, when you’re sitting down with the vendor, it’s still transparent, given that you have advised all buyers that the only reason they will miss out is if another buyer’s maximum offer exceeds theirs.
You are opening up the offers and gaining instructions from your client to exchange on the spot with the most attractive offer, with multiple variables in place including price, settlement period and other terms.
Before any of this occurs, it’s critical that you manage your vendor’s expectations at the original “set-to-sell expectations meeting” upon the initial listing of the property. This sets the parameters for how and when you’re going to communicate with your client. You also let them know that early offers may come in on the property, reviewing other current live listings they may have to compete against, along with recent sales and your price guide strategy. In addition, let them know what to expect around the number of groups that should come through on the first open for inspection, and also how many contracts they should expect will be issued. That way, the owner walks into the sale process with some sort of benchmarking.
Newsletter
