The Buyer Advantage No One Is Talking About (How to Win Deals in 2026)

Most buyers think the market is still crazy competitive… but that mindset is costing them thousands.

In this episode of Real Estate Unfiltered, we break down the biggest shift happening right now: buyers actually have leverage — they’re just not using it.

We dive into what’s really happening in today’s market, why some homes are sitting while others sell fast, and how smart buyers are negotiating better deals, credits, and terms.

We cover:

🏡 Why “Is it a buyer’s market?” is the wrong question

📉 How days on market creates negotiation power

💰 Seller credits vs price reductions (and how to use both)

📊 Rate buy downs and how to lower your payment TODAY

🧠 The fear-based mistakes buyers are making

📑 How to structure offers that actually win AND save money

🚪 When walking away is the smartest move you can make

If you’re buying, thinking about buying, or just want to understand how to win in this market, this episode will change how you approach every deal.

🎧 Subscribe for real, unfiltered conversations about real estate, money, and strategy.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Everyone keeps asking the same questions right now. Is it a buyer's market or should buyers wait for the rates to drop? Welcome back, guys, to Real Estate Unfiltered, host memo with my co-host. Co-host Chris Clauswol.

SPEAKER_00 0:16

Welcome back. All right. So, Chris, why don't you start us off? Well, I think the real question to that is should they wait? But do buyers actually have leverage right now? I mean, if you have leverage in the market, what's the reasoning for waiting? So I would say so.

SPEAKER_01 0:31

With buyers, I mean it's a it's a different situation every time, right? Yep. So I think we're kind of in that weird area where buyers can have leverage in certain situations, but sometimes they can't. So for example, so let's go off on the leverage thing right now. So there are houses that have been sitting on the market for months, or they're overpriced, or they just have bad advertising or cell phone photos, something that's not making it stand out to the masses, right? So with that, buyers have that leverage to be able to go in there and negotiate a little bit harder for their agents.

SPEAKER_00 1:09

And that's when it comes to people like you and I who know how to strategize and use that leverage to help our buyers. Yes, we work with buyers, and in both cases, we have to give our clients them the best deal.

SPEAKER_01 1:22

So with the with the leverage thing is, I mean, and it kind of sucks to say it, but you could go in there hard. Like, hey, this seller's probably desperate, or this agent that they're working with might not be the most experienced. So we're able to take advantage of that to give our clients the best deal. Um, because at the end of the day, that's why they hired us, right? Hey, I'm either trying to get the house that I absolutely love. Hey, I'm trying to keep my mortgage at X amount, or I just want to get the best deal, whatever the case might be. Right.

SPEAKER_00 1:50

I think a lot of times buyers focus too much on the price of the house when they need to be focused on their monthly payment. Because um, yeah, a big price reduction or a few thousand dollars isn't gonna change all that much. Yeah. So that's sometimes how we have to lead our clients and say, hey, we need to be more focused on your monthly payment, other than you know, this drastic price reduction.

SPEAKER_01 2:12

So, so in general, from a buyer's perspective, so we're talking about buyers or it being a buyer's market, right? So would you say it's it's leaning a little bit more towards a buyer's market, right? So what are you seeing in the market? Like what are what are the houses that you're seeing? What are the time frames that you're seeing that would make this seem like a buyer's market?

SPEAKER_00 2:29

Do you know what's weird? I think it varies per area. There is definitely certain pockets, you know, running down from Corona, Lake Elsinore down to Temacular. Every little pocket has its own little niche and time frame. We can I just was showing a house down off Green River. It was on the market for three days and it sold for $60,000 over list price. So again, it just depends on the area. But then, yeah, a lot of houses they were overpriced, they are sitting on the market. We check the MLS daily, all we do is these arrows pointing down or price reductions. So, yeah, if we're focusing, if I'm showing buyers, those are the ones I say, hey, we should if if we can focus on these, we're gonna be able to negotiate for you and get you a better deal.

SPEAKER_01 3:12

Yeah, yeah. No, that's that's for sure. And and that's kind of what what I've been telling the clients is figuring out first what they're looking for. Yeah. Because if they have specifics like I absolutely need X, Y, and Z, that's gonna be a little bit harder. I mean, you might find those one houses in that specific niche that have what they want, that's been sitting to try to negotiate harder for them, get them the best deal possible. Um, and then there's the ones where it's that unicorn house where everyone's been looking for that. And guess what? You're not gonna have the leverage at that point.

SPEAKER_00 3:44

You have a community that rarely sells, and all of a sudden a single story whip like with a pool pops up, that's gonna sell very quickly because that's what everyone's been waiting for. So again, you just gotta educate your clients, steer them in the right direction and give them the best advice possible.

SPEAKER_01 4:00

Yeah. So so exactly. So I mean, going into that with with negotiating strategies, whether it's with that unicorn house or with its house that's been on some uh that's been sitting on the market, um how would a buyer be negotiating wrong or their agents negotiating wrong for them when it comes to a house that let's say has been sitting on the market for quite a while?

SPEAKER_00 4:20

That can kind of come down to a few things. I mean, the the the one of the easy things isn't it's not even negotiation tactic, it's just more of the agent and communication.

SPEAKER_01 4:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 4:29

I mean, I've had offers just show up where they didn't even call me, they didn't talk to me. I mean, and then you get the offer, it's written wrong. So there's that's just one part of you. I mean, it's not even the negotiation part yet. It's still at the beginning phase, but you want to make sure you work with but with an agent that's community to the other side. You know, do you have offers? What when what are your clients looking for? They might need to be out of state in 15, 20 days. Do you want a fast escrow? I mean, there's just other things that you need to ask before you just write up a random offer and shoot it over to them.

SPEAKER_01 5:00

Exactly. So, and and that that comes to experience, right, with the agent because you could have a buyer that says, No, I want to offer fifty thousand dollars less.

SPEAKER_00 5:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 5:08

And if the agent doesn't ask the questions, like, okay, why? Give me a reason why, just because you want to, or is there a strategic and there's a lot of buyers or an agents that do that.

SPEAKER_00 5:17

There's their client will tell them this is what I want to do, and they just say yes, they're them their yes man. But again, I mean it's like I'm not gonna tell my client no, I will not do that, but I advise them, I would advise you not to, and here's what I think you should do. But at the end of the day, I mean, they're the client, but I would try to steer them in the best direction to get them the house and the best deal.

SPEAKER_01 5:38

And I feel like we don't even come across those situations because we have those strategic conversations with the clients, like even before finding the right house. It's like, okay, where do you want to be payment-wise? What are you looking for? And then we could structure it back. Because a lot of agents I see, they'll always ask, okay, what's your what's your budget? Meaning asking, hey, what price point do you want? 600,000, 700,000, whatever the case is. But that's the wrong question. Yeah. Because we know how much it varies, especially in our areas, because you have taxes, you have HOA, you have high fire zones.

SPEAKER_00 6:07

That right there is going to take you from change it dramatically.

SPEAKER_01 6:10

Yeah, exactly. So it's either or it's talking about what is your monthly budget, not what your overall budget is and what's what your comfort level is. Right. And then you can go from there. Exactly. And that's and that's why I think a lot of agents and buyers don't have those conversations, whether it's with their own agents or their lender. It's just like, hey, let's see if it sticks just because I want a $50,000 discount. But they don't know what that truly means because if you if you structure it properly, you might be able to get a better deal with a $20,000 credit at full price versus a $50,000.

SPEAKER_00 6:41

That's something that buyers they don't understand that at first. That's something that we have to educate them. It does sound weird that you're paying more for the house, but you're getting $10,000, $20,000 back in credit. So then you can use that for a rate buy down. So then that helps your monthly payment, or that's just money in your pocket that you're saving for closing costs that you can use for repairs for the house.

SPEAKER_01 7:03

Well, so let's go back to what you're saying too um a little bit ago with the communication from other agents, and then also um how the loan is structured, right? So as a buyer's agent, or here, let's take it from the other side, right? So we're mainly listing agents for the most part. We do work with buyers. When you see an agent or an offer come over where the agent never texts or calls you, it's just like boom. And then doesn't even respond.

SPEAKER_00 7:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 7:32

I mean, and and you know, I mean, how much mail do we get and then junk mail? I mean, there are times that offers go to our junk mail.

SPEAKER_00 7:38

You don't see it or it goes to spam.

SPEAKER_01 7:39

And I and I'm trying to try to check my junk in the mornings or whatever, but it's not notifying me like a normal one. So first thing, communication, that's huge. And from a sell a listing agent perspective, that's something that I tell my sellers of why we shouldn't accept this offer or if there's multiple offers, like I let them know, like, hey, this agent just sucks at communication. They never let me know the offer was come in, they didn't call, they didn't ask, like they weren't proactive for their client. How's that gonna make me feel during the middle of the transaction?

SPEAKER_00 8:08

That kind of piggybacks again off on the lending side. Or yes, they said that they sent you a pre-approval letter, but did that lender call you? Did they discuss their clients? Do we know anything about them? I mean, yes, they're qualified, but is it gonna be a very difficult transaction? They're they're approved, but they're kind of barely approved type thing.

SPEAKER_01 8:28

Yeah. Or did they just over the phone do the application? Well, I make a hundred grand a year, I think my credit's 720. Right. And then it's like, oh, cool, yeah, based on that, you're approved.

SPEAKER_00 8:38

So that's everything that we have to take in in coordinates when we do write our offers. We want to include our lenders in that. We so they communicate. We want to call the agent. Yeah. And again, and find out what the sellers need. Every seller's, yes, they want them, they want the most money, but a lot of times there's other factors or wants that they need as well. Though we can change contingencies or change our close of escrow dates and things like that.

SPEAKER_01 8:59

That might matter, yeah, might matter more to a seller than the actual price.

SPEAKER_00 9:03

Exactly.

SPEAKER_01 9:04

So so run me through or I'll run you through right now. So my typical offer from when I'm representing a buyer. So even before I put anything in writing, once I know my clients are, hey, gung-ho, I like the house, let's work on it. Yep. Um, and typically I don't even have the pricing conversation with my own clients, my buyers, until I talk to the agent. Because I want to find out what do they really want, what's their motivation, what's their timing. And then I'll go back to my buyer and say, hey, this is a conversation I just had with the agent. This is uh the way I think we should best structure this deal.

SPEAKER_00 9:36

Yeah, I kind of just felt them out.

SPEAKER_01 9:37

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 9:37

So now we've had that communication. This is and it just makes your offer stand out more now. Because like I just had a conversation with Memo. Now I got their offer in hand, and it just makes you more top of the list, in my opinion.

SPEAKER_01 9:48

Yeah. And and even when I'm talking to those agents, I really I rarely bring up price at the beginning. I say, hey, what are your sellers looking for? Are that are they moving out of state? How quick do they need to move? Would a quick escrow be beneficial? Would a longer escrow be beneficial? Do they need time after the fact to move? And now you're kind of you're breaking down that wall with the other agent because typically agents will call and say, Hey, what's the what's the lowest price?

SPEAKER_00 10:13

You have, or how many offers do you have? You kind of want to break down that wall and feel like, hey, we're we're trying to work with you. What do you guys need? And we'll and we'll facilitate it and make it.

SPEAKER_01 10:22

It's supposed to be a win-win, right?

SPEAKER_00 10:23

That's a hard word to say. Facilitate.

SPEAKER_01 10:27

So yeah, so it's supposed to be a win-win. So you ask those questions, hey, they really need to be in in Arizona this day. They have an escrow closing. So I need a 21-day escrow. Cool. Now I know I could structure it. And at that point, now I could play around with the figures, right? Hey, I know they're a little bit more desperate because of timing. So I'm like, hey, we could ask for that credit, we could ask for the lower price because, hey, I'm giving you something. Now you give me something.

SPEAKER_00 10:52

Right. And then the same aspect, yes, they might be desperate. Yes, we know that we can probably leverage and get you a better deal with credit, but there is a fine line there. We can't just, in my opinion, go make super low and super credits because we don't want to make them mad right out the gate. We want to come to an agreement that works best for both parties.

SPEAKER_01 11:10

Yeah. And that goes back to the whole um strategy thing with your own buyer. It's like, okay, hey, this is what I think we could do. I know you want to be at this price point or monthly payment. So this is how we're going to structure it. And that's when you get the lender involved too, and you want to make sure you're running the proper taxes, you're getting at least a rough estimate on the insurance. Because if it's in a high fire zone, you know it's not going to be $1,200 a year. You know it's going to be $25,000, $3,000 a year.

SPEAKER_00 11:36

You think we've done this for quite quite a while. Like we know if they want to offer, like if $750 is their price point, we can say, well, let's offer $740, $7.45, knowing that they're going to counter us at that price. So now it kind of feels that both parties win. Our buyer was willing to pay that to begin with. Now the seller's happy because he thought we that we he got us up a little bit.

SPEAKER_01 11:56

Yeah, exactly. It's I mean, it's that cat and mouse game, right? It's it has to be a win-win, but doing it strategically is doing it the right way. Um and then the other strategic thing too, or going back to uh to the communication and buyer stuff, how annoying is it when you get an offer that comes in that's completely sloppy?

SPEAKER_00 12:15

Oh, yeah. The names aren't on it. There's stuff that not that's not filled out right. Um, so yeah, those go to the bottom of the pile typically, unless it's obviously you're only offering, we got to figure out and work with these people. But again, these are someone that we're gonna be talking to on a regular basis for 30 days until they get this closed. Yep. And if they're not doing it properly to begin with, how is it going to be? Because there's contingency time frames. Are they gonna be removing them? Are they gonna be doing things properly? So it's just there's a lot more to it.

SPEAKER_01 12:44

So yeah, and I I have a couple stories, and there's one in particular that I remember it's a pool woman Marietta. It was another uh the it was an agent that owned the property that was selling their own house. Never talked to them before. Um, and it was probably right before COVID or like 2018 or so when like the market was kind of picking back up. So they had like six or seven offers on there, and we came in aggressive, and we'll talk about kind of strategies in a second, but we came in aggressive, did everything, but I'm super OCD, like everything has to be perfect on my offer. Everything's written out, everything's filled out, like no blank lines, perfectly pretty offer. I send the offer in. We weren't even the highest offer. I think there might have been a cash offer or something like that, but we weren't the best offer. We were kind of right in the middle of the pack. Agent calls me, he's like, Hey, just want to let you know you had the cleanest offer I've ever seen in regards in those terms and like just cleanliness, yeah. Everything that they asked for. Because like on the MLS to say, Hey, send me the pre-approval, send me the credit score, the proof of funds, like everything all nice and neat, whatever. Because how many times do you get an offer where they're missing half the stuff too? Quite often. Um, so he calls me, he's like, Hey, you've been super communicative, communicative. Um lender called me, like we have all those things in place to give our buyers the best chance of getting a property. And guess what? We got the offer without being the highest one because it's structuring, even on the very bare minimum, having communication, having your lender communicate, having a cleanly written offer, following instructions.

SPEAKER_00 14:15

Step one, follow instructions.

SPEAKER_01 14:17

Yeah, I mean, how many times do we talk about it too? Even like for showings, like showing instructions.

SPEAKER_00 14:20

It says here's how to show it, and they're doing the complete opposite. It's like, really?

SPEAKER_01 14:24

Yeah, so so that is a good way to get an offer accepted, just right off the bat. Like, have communication. This goes to buyers and their agents. Like, make sure your agent's communicating, figure it out.

SPEAKER_00 14:35

It's working with the right agents because I get a lot of offers on my listings that I don't think their agent even tried to negotiate because I think they're possibly scared. They're they don't want to miss out on getting this deal because then again, they might not have sold anything for a while. So, I mean, I I've had some that have been on the market, you know, sitting like a little while because we went through the holidays and things did slow down. But I think a lot of times agents they're afraid to say, hey, well, let's offer this and ask for credits or do this. I've gotten here's a full price offer. I'm like, really? All right, let me know. It's like cool after three months on the market. Perfect, let's go.

SPEAKER_01 15:08

I did my job. Well, and it's it goes back to the whole mentality of those agents or probably those inexperienced agents that are coming through the COVID time and they never got an offer except that if they did anything other than that. So they're scared they're gonna just get told no, versus even trying to negotiate.

SPEAKER_00 15:24

An offer is an offer, it's just a starting point. Yeah, I mean, unless it's some crazy low ball ball offer, don't be scared to ask for something. If you don't ask, the answer is always no.

SPEAKER_01 15:32

Yeah. And and it goes back to what you said too, like, oh, hey, here's fifty thousand dollars with no communication or a fifty thousand dollar lower offer with no communication. It's like, yeah, I'm gonna pretty much ignore you because no.

SPEAKER_00 15:44

And have some like, did you even see the house? I don't, or who are you?

SPEAKER_01 15:48

But or you have the conversation. So, okay, let's take that whole $50,000 off thing, right? Because I've had those offers. Yeah, but if you make that phone call and be like, hey, I'm gonna be submitting you an offer at $50,000 lower, and there's two things. It's either gonna be my my clients only approved up to that much, or hey, he's just a difficult buyer. He wants me to do it. I'm just warning you.

SPEAKER_00 16:09

I don't want you to, I don't want it to come in your inbox and you're like, what the hell is this? So at least they know it's coming. Yeah, I mean, just send us a counter. I did try to talk some sense into them with you know lack of other words, but that's what they want to do. So at the end of the day, we are working with our clients. We can guide them as far as we want, but if they want to do something, then okay.

SPEAKER_01 16:26

But it at least opens up a line of communication and you have that person-to-person touch versus just uh offering an email or uh yeah, offer that you get emailed 50,000 lower with no communication, and guess what? I'm not gonna pick up the phone, I'm gonna email back. Sorry, too low for my clients, we're not gonna respond. If you guys want to come up, go ahead and do so.

SPEAKER_00 16:44

So, so for the buyers and the buyer's leverage, I mean, obviously, we don't have a crystal ball, we don't know what's gonna happen in the future. Where do you see the spring market coming up for for the for buyers? Are they better off saying, you know what, we better jump on this right now? Or again, like we can think we we've discussed this in the past as well, but it's like they they always wait for the perfect time.

SPEAKER_01 17:06

Yeah. So I would say right now it's it's probably better just to get on the ball. Like if you know you're gonna buy in spring, start doing it right now because springtime is the time that you start getting that influx of buyers that we're just waiting just to wait, not for any other reason. Like, hey, I want to get over the holidays, tax season, waiting for my taxes to be done. Yeah, so it's not no rhyme or reason for them doing it because they want to do it. It's just like, hey, this feels like a good time because of all those things. Yeah, um, so you're gonna get an influx just because of that. And then if the interest rates keep trending the way are they are and keep going down slightly, you still have those buyers that are waiting on the fence that are waiting for the rates to go down to five point, I mean, even five nine nine, five point seven five, whatever. It doesn't have to go drastic. As long as they don't see a six in front of it anymore. They're like, okay, cool, I'm ready.

SPEAKER_00 17:56

It's kind of a mindset situation, like thing. As long as that six and isn't there, it can be 5.95, but that changes the whole thing. Like, okay, that's not as bad.

SPEAKER_01 18:02

It's psychological. Yeah. So you have you have all those buyers that are just waiting. So you get that influx. Inventory is not picking up as quickly as it normally does, just because obviously people are sitting in really low interest rates, they're not moving out of state as much as they were during COVID and stuff like that. So you don't have a ton of inventory, and then you're gonna get this influx of buyers with either the rates coming down or just in general, right? And now you have competition.

SPEAKER_00 18:25

I did see that in the market because obviously going through the holidays, our inventory started to creep up considerably. And like, oh, this isn't good. But all of a sudden, now everyone, all the buyers are back out. And it's the last couple of weeks for myself, and I'm sure for sure for you, our our listings are getting multiple offers on some, on some. And then they're selling at the blue, the ones that have been sitting there. So I think we are seeing a trend where there's more buyers back out there.

SPEAKER_01 18:52

So yeah, it's it's it's gonna happen. Um, I always have the conversation when when we get the hey, should we wait till the rates come down? Is it a good time to buy? It's like if you're ready to buy and you're comfortable at the mortgage payment that you're getting quoted from a lender right now, it's always the best time to buy.

SPEAKER_00 19:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 19:08

Um, because I mean, real estate's a roller coaster. There's gonna be ups and downs. You're there's gonna be quote unquote crashes, which there's not gonna be a crash like there has been, but it's it's kind of up and downs, you know. So if you're ready now, just do it. We I'm sure both of us know people that have been waiting for 10 years.

SPEAKER_00 19:24

Yeah, I've I've had clients, I have one of my best friends that we're just waiting for the perfect time. It's like if you can get it and afford it now, now's the perfect time.

SPEAKER_01 19:32

Yeah, exactly. And and and it gives us that opportunity to get you into something with that leverage, getting you a good deal on the property, buying, buying down the interest rate, getting credits towards your closing sauce. You're not bringing in a ton of money um into the property.

SPEAKER_00 19:46

So I think again, at the end of the day, it just comes down to the agent that you hire. I mean, not everybody's the same, and I'm not saying that me and you are the best in the industry, but it but but but again, it comes down to knowing what you're doing, having a game plan and being strategic to get the best deal for your client.

SPEAKER_01 20:03

Yep. So so talking about that too, uh kind of quickly, um when we're structuring a deal and going back to the whole, is it better for price or is it better for credit? Right. What's the main reasoning? Like what's that conversation that you have with a buyer veering them one way or another?

SPEAKER_00 20:20

Veering one way or the other. Well, again, if you're at obviously if you want a ten thousand dollar price reduction, that's not gonna change your monthly payment hardly at all. Correct. I mean, obviously, not being a being being a lender, I don't have those exact figures, but it doesn't change it all that much. Yeah, it's minimum. In their in their head, they're thinking I'm saving ten thousand dollars. But at the end of the day, you're not. Yeah, but you can get the whole get the credit, and then there's multiple things that you can do with it that we discuss, either buy down your rate so it's cheaper, or again, that's ten thousand more dollars in your pocket that you can you're not paying in closing costs. Correct. And then when you move into the house, like, hey, I have this extra money, I can paint the house, I can put in flooring. So I think that's just a big benefit for them than price reduction.

SPEAKER_01 20:57

Yeah, again, it's just going back to structuring it properly because at the end of the day, buyers are looking at their monthly payment, not the price of the house. That really doesn't make a big um change in things. Cause yeah, that $10,000, it's whatever it is, $60, $70 a month, $100 a month, whatever the rates are at the time. But that $10,000 is actual cash in your pocket. Because if you don't have that $10,000, um that's your extra closing cost on top of your down payment. Exactly. Or it could buy down the rate. So you go from 6% to 5.5% for $10,000. Well, I mean, it's not exactly what it is, but it's it's around there. Um, but it gives you that opportunity to get the house at a cheaper monthly payment. So the last thing I kind of want to talk about too, and we we briefly spoke about it before going back to like the offer structure when you're when you're writing up that clean offer or actually this. We were talking about the leverage, right? If we found houses that were on the market for a long time that we could go and say, Hey, I want to I want a price reduction and I want a little bit of credit, you have a little bit of leverage at that point. Right. What if it's a house that's just fresh? On the market. It's the unicorn in the property. Multiple offers. You know it's getting a ton of activity. What's your strategy there for your buyer to get the house?

SPEAKER_00 22:08

On that aspect, I mean, I think kind of the leverage on that one obviously switches to the seller. Yep. I mean, so it's just going to kind of come down to then again communication with the um listing agent. I mean, some won't tell you what on what the offers are, some will. I mean, just kind of sit down with your client and say, okay, look, if you really love this house, they have multiple offers. What are you willing to go to? I mean, are you willing to lose it over $10,000? But it's not $10,000. We don't know. I mean, as a figure to me.

SPEAKER_01 22:36

Well, I didn't mean it like that. So you go I don't use that. I don't say, are you willing to lose it over $10,000? Right. I say, are you willing to lose it over $70 a month?

SPEAKER_00 22:45

Right. Yeah. You switch it to the payment wise. Correct. So again, it's just, but then if you really do love the house, I mean, let's put our best foot forward and do what we can.

SPEAKER_01 22:55

Yeah. Because you, yeah, you really don't have that leverage. And it really goes to that other agent, too, the listing agent, because you don't know what their experience is. They might just be saying, hey, let's take the best, the highest offer. And we've been through the situation. Like I just explained with that one pool home in Marietta that I had, it's not always the best offer that wins. Exactly. It's the one that has the best terms. And that's gonna close. That's gonna close. Because you could have a million dollar cash offer for a house at 700 grand, but if it doesn't close, it's nothing. It's fake money. Yeah. You know? So um, so that's that goes back to again, communication. So when when it's my listing and I'm having to deal with agents, that's what I do. It's right who communicated the best? Okay, you're you already have a star next to your name.

SPEAKER_00 23:38

What lender are you using? Are they communicating?

SPEAKER_01 23:40

And that's the other thing, too, with with buyers choosing their lender or other agents. I mean, all lenders are good. Like, I don't want I'm not trying to badmouth anyone, but you know, we come across lenders, it's like, how do you even have your license type of thing?

SPEAKER_00 23:53

Kind of like like like real estate agents. I mean, everyone can do the job, but some are better than others. I mean, that I think that can be a topic for in future shows. We'll have lenders on here that can go more in-depth and maybe explain it much more better than when you when you and I can.

SPEAKER_01 24:09

But yeah, so uh so structuring it is so that getting that offer. So it doesn't necessarily have to be price, but we want to put our best foot forward. Whatever you're comfortable with, we have to go the highest off the bat. Don't don't assume that you're gonna get a counter offer because a lot of times, even if there's multiple offers, they don't have to counter back everyone. Yeah, you might be at the bottom of the totem pool and the top two get counters or not any at all. So you want to have your best foot forward, you want to have that communication with the listing agent and try to get some information, say, hey, my clients love the house, blah, blah, blah. Like have that storyline. Um, try not to ask for credits because if there's multiple offers, it's not gonna happen. Um, and very clean offer too. Like you want to do, you want to cut down your contingencies because you have 17 days for all contingencies, but hey, seven days for inspection.

SPEAKER_00 24:57

Let's cut down appraisal. Let's cut down. I mean, maybe they're in a situation where they can uh waive the appraisal. I mean, there's multiple things that they can possibly possibly do.

SPEAKER_01 25:04

So it's it's being strategic and not just saying, okay, hey, here's the here's the highest price or whatever. If if you're not breaking down every section of that offer and doing it so it's beneficial to the seller and also being making sure you're gonna get the house, right? Um, that's the way to set it up, you know. So if you're in the market to buy right now and you want someone that has the strategy, that has the know-how, that has the experience, and also looks at it from a listing agent's perspective. Because I think that probably gets your best put foot forward because we know what to expect. Right. Um, so we could set you up the best way possible to whether it's getting that unicorn house that everyone wants or getting you the best deal for a property, getting you credits, getting you set up so it makes sense for you financially.

SPEAKER_00 25:52

And even if you're not ready to buy today, it's good to just give us a call so we can get a game plan set in place. So when you are ready, then we can go forward.

SPEAKER_01 26:01

Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Um, a lot of people always think like, hey, my credit's bad or I don't have enough money or whatever, but they're thinking in their own head that they're not able to do it. And I mean, they might know they might be correct, but we don't know for sure because credit karma is not always accurate. Yeah. So the best game plan is, hey, let's just have a call with my lender.

SPEAKER_00 26:18

Let's see the financials and say and then see what is the best route. There's not just a cookie cutter loan program. So see what fits you best for you and your family.

SPEAKER_01 26:28

Thank you guys for joining us. We'll see you next time.

SPEAKER_00 26:31

We'll see you next time.

SPEAKER_01 26:32

Peace.