I’ve written a lot in the past about how many agents handle a multiple offer situation, and unfortunately, most of the blogs I write involve poor experiences.

On Tuesday night, I had a great experience, with a true professional, and I’d like to share that in great detail.

Every listing agent handles multiple offers differently, and while some will scratch and claw, others will follow a stringent set of rules that he or she puts in place.

I only wish this were a blueprint that all agents followed…

I’ll tell you right off the bat – my buyers did not get the property.

I don’t want you to think that I only enjoyed this process because I “won” something.

In actual fact, we were the second-highest offer, and I don’t believe that the gap in price was that close (price hasn’t been released yet).  Being the second-highest always stings the most, but hindsight is a you-know-what, isn’t it?

As I said at the onset, every listing agent has his or her own way of handling multiple offers, and while some are unethical and shady, others will act as true professionals.

And on Tuesday night, I dealt with the latter: a true professional, in every sense of the word.  The process was streamlined from start to finish, but best of all, it was fair, and transparent.

Here are the actions that the listing agent took throughout the process; something I wish every listing agent would do:

1) Constant Communication

Many listing agents are completely out of touch on the day of offers; some by design and strategy, and others because, well, they’re just terrible at their jobs.

As a buyer’s agent, on the day of offers, you want to have easy access to the listing agent to ask questions about the offer process, or the seller’s wishes with respect to items like a closing date.

On Tuesday, as soon as I registered my offer, I got a call from the listing agent, telling me when offers were presented, where, how many there were, and that updates would be sent throughout the day.  It was probably within three minutes of registration, and I was able to reach him at other points during the day, with ease.

If it sounds like this is nothing, believe me when I say that it’s important…

2) Number of Registered Offers

Normal procedure on the day of offers is for the buyer’s agent to call the listing brokerage over and over and over, asking the receptionist, “Can you please tell me how many offers are registered on the property?”

You do it every hour or so, partially because you want to keep your buyers updated, and partially because you are dying to know the answer to the great riddle!

The number of offers registered on the subject property is the single-most important piece of information you need as a buyer, and as a buyer’s agent, to determine what the likely sale price will be, and thus what your offer needs to look like.

So I was surprised, and quite pleased on Tuesday to be on the receiving end of an email from the listing agent EVERY TIME another offer was registered.

I have never seen this before.

I was the 5th offer registered on the property – around 1:30pm, and at 2pm there was an email, short and sweet:

“6th Offer Registered on 123 Smith Street.”

Then an hour later:

“7th & 8th Offers Registered on 123 Smith Street.”

I received subsequent emails for the 9th, 10th, 11th, 12th, 13th, and 14th offers registered on the property, and it saved me having to call the listing brokerage continuously, and allowed me to keep my buyers fully informed.

I’m not sure why more listing agents don’t take this approach.

Some listing agents actually try to disguise the number of offers, which I think is counter-productive.  The more offers, the higher the sale price will likely be.  So why not keep buyer agents in the loop throughout the day?

Again – this is something so simple, but it’s something about 99% of agents don’t do, and I have never seen it done exactly like this.

3) Ordered Offer Presentation

The listing agent told me from the very beginning that the offers would be presented in order of registration, which is nothing new – most agents do this.

But in actual practice, most listing agents make exceptions.

Some buyer agents insist on presenting first, or last, depending on how they see their ‘strategy’ playing out.  Some buyer agents ask for a ‘favor,’ saying that they have a showing to get to, kids to pick up, or an event to attend.

Most of the time, the listing agent will try to structure the offer presentation in the correct order, but there’s always a few that don’t present where they should have.

On Tuesday night, everything went exactly in order, and there were no exceptions.

The listing agent sent me an email at 6:30pm:

“You were the 5th offer registered, and thus you will be presenting 5th of the 14 agents.”

Very simple, and he stuck to it.

He called me at 7:20pm to ask me to come inside and present, and I told him that I was still stuck in traffic, and I’d be 10-15 minutes.  He said, “No problem, we’ll wait.”  He didn’t move on to offer #6; he waited, and played the process out as he said that he would.

4) Emailed Progress Report

Here is something I have NEVER seen before.

At 7:05pm, I received an email saying:

“Offer #1 Has Presented.”

A few minutes later, I received another email saying:

“Offer #2 Has presented.”

You get the idea.

Each time one of the 14 agents went in to present, the listing agent simply clicked “send” on an email to the entire group, updating everybody on the progress.

It meant that we were all in the loop, and knew what was going on.

It also made it a lot easier to plan our evening!

Sometimes, agents will take a half hour per offer.  Other times, they’ll blaze through them in two minutes.

When you’re presenting 5th, and you get that email that says #3 has presented, you know you’ve got about 5-10 minutes to go.

It also helps when #12, #13, and #14 have presented, and you can call your clients and say, “They’ve gone through all the offers – we should know soon,” since you never know if the process is going to take four hours, or forty minutes.

5) Speed of Presentation

Some buyer agents complain when the listing agent whips through the offer in 3 minutes, but I don’t.  In fact, I prefer it.

Why belabor the process?  Why take longer than is necessary?

In multiple offers, you’re looking at four things:

1) Is the offer conditional?  If it is – throw it out.  If it’s not, move on to the next point.
2) What is the price?  This is ultimately what is going to win the process.
3) Is the closing date what you want?  And is the deposit sufficient?  They usually are, but just check…
4) Is there anything “weird” about the offer?  Did they ask you to include your grandmother’s cuckoo-clock?  Is there a bizarre clause in Schedule A?  There usually isn’t, if the offer is unconditional, with a great price, and the closing date is what the sellers want.

The offer “presentation” need not take more than three minutes.

You come inside, shake hands, make twenty seconds of small-talk, congratulate the sellers on having a lovely home, and then hand the offer to the listing agent.  He or she notes the price, then the deposit, then the closing date, and then the Schedule A.

That’s that.

When there are fourteen offers, you really don’t need to pull out a cute photo of your buyer-clients and tell a long story.  It’s not going to do you any good if you’re beat by $40K…

On Tuesday night, fourteen offers were presented by 8:13pm (I have the email confirming), and it saved a lot of people, a lot of collective time…

6) Offer “Rescinded”

I was shocked to receive an email, in between two emails about offers being registered, that read:

“One Offer Rescinded On 123 Smith Street”

Don’t get me wrong – you are supposed to tell agents if an offer is withdrawn, but most agents don’t do this.

It’s so easy for an agent to say, “I don’t know how many there are, or were – they just kept coming.  Thirteen, fourteen, fifteen, thirteen – who knows.  Does it even matter at that point?”

But the ethical thing to do is tell every agent with an offer just how many registered offers there are.

This agent did NOT need to email us every time there was a registered offer, nor when an offer was rescinded.  But he emailed us about the rescinded offer in the exact same way he emailed us about the registered offers, as if it was just business as usual.

–

If you’re not a Realtor, and you’re reading this, you’re probably saying to yourself, “What’s the big deal?”

Unfortunately, this is a big deal in an industry with no set procedures in place for dealing with multiple offers.  These six bullet points might seem like no-brainers to you, but in reality, they’re not actions that every agent takes.

And if you think the grass is greener on the other side, it isn’t.  I heard about a multiple offer frenzy for an east-end house last week where the sellers were “selling privately,” but had it listed with a discount brokerage online.  They had NO rules, NO ethics, and didn’t have to adhere to anything remotely resembling a guideline.  They took actions that were worthy of litigation, but who would really bother with that…

I can’t change the industry, but I can certainly report on it.

And although I often favor the squeaky wheel, and blog about poor experiences, it’s nice to share a story where things went “as they should.”