A buyer’s market exists when there are more homes than buyers in the market.  Investory will rise with many homes on the market for many days.

Here’s how to write a buyer’s offer geared towards your advantage:

1. Request email listings and updates – Almost 80% of home buyers will now look online for a home.  It’s important to get up to date listings but sometimes real estate agents will leave expired and sold listings as active as a way to generate calls.  To avoid wasting time, ask your real estate agent to send you listings or sign on sites like ziprealty.com which has up to date listings.
2. Price reductions – If you plan on low balling an offer, you’ll be more successful if the listing has been on the market at least 30 days or more.  New listings won’t be as flexible.
3. Comparable Sales – When you find a home that you like, make sure to request your real estate agent to send you a list of similar homes in the same neighborhood over the past 6 months to evaluate, active listings, pending sales and sold listings.  Compare the data of address, age of home, square footage, lot size, sales price and bedrooms & baths.
4. Ask for Contingencies – Since you’re in control of this market, make sure to make the offer contingent upon the property appraising at the agreed up on sales price.  Ask for a reasonable time period to perform an inspection, approve title and pest reports.  Typically, contingency periods allow the buyers to back out without risking a good faith deposit.
5. Reduce your closing costs – Closing is paid by the buyer to cover title insurance, property taxes, recording fees and escrow.  Usually in a buyer’s market, the buyer can ask the seller to pay these costs which can add up to 1 or 2 percent of the sales price and are usually paid out of pocket by buyers.
6. Renegotiate after the home inspection – All buyers should get a home inspection done.  Most contracts will allow the buyer the right to cancel a contract if the home inspection shows repairs and defects that are unacceptable.  Although, don’t ask for a price reduction if the repairs were evident when you first saw the home.
7. Request Extras – Seller’s usually have to give a little extra to entice a sale.  Ask for a home warranty protection plan that covers you in an event that an appliance breaks down or the plumbing or heating malfunction.  These plans will typically cover you for about a year after closing.
8. Shorten the acceptance period – There is usually no reason for the seller to give more than 24 hours to make a decision.  Don’t give them days to decide.  There are a lot of homes on the market.