AmyHoak

If you’re a home shopper in a market where bidding wars are common, it helps to have a strategy to ensure that your bid stands out from the competition.

You’ll want to do the basics: Make sure you have your financing in place, turning in all your loan paperwork before placing an offer, said Gibran Nicholas, Chairman of CMPS Institute, an organization that trains and certifies mortgage bankers and brokers. Better yet, if you have the means, you’ll really catch a buyer’s attention if you make an all-cash offer.

Also, write a financially competitive offer with as few contingencies as you’re comfortable with, said Ali Donoghue, a Chicago-based real-estate agent with Redfin. Some buyers are waiving financing contingencies or even home-inspection contingencies, if they’re the handy type—though many buyers would be smart to keep that home-inspection clause, she said.

And be flexible with your move-in date. Working with a seller who needs to move right away? Be prepared to close quickly so they can be on their way sooner. Does the seller need a month or two—or six—to move out? If you can be flexible and allow them to stay in their home for a while after closing (paying you rent, of course), they may choose your offer over all the rest.

But in some markets, you may have to be more creative than that to win the home you covet. If possible, find out the seller’s needs and wants, so you can customize your offer.

Below are some of the more unusual ways buyers can get the upper hand.

Write a love letter

It’s not all about the money. “In situations where you are selling your home, there’s an emotional component,” said Kathy Braddock, managing director of real-estate company William Raveis New York City. Sellers often like to feel good about the people who will eventually live in their home.

That’s why it’s often an effective strategy to attach a letter along with your offer, and maybe even a photo of your family, explaining why you want to live there.

One buyer wrote about how a child’s bedroom in the home—with markings on the wall that chronicled the kid’s growth in height—was something that she wanted to replicate as her own child grew up. It struck a chord with the seller, Braddock said.

Another buyer took the opportunity to show just how alike their families were, submitting photos of their daughter’s art, writing about their family’s chickens and their son’s love for basketball, said Leslie Piper, a San Francisco-based real-estate agent and Realtor.com’s consumer housing specialist. That also worked.

Increase the earnest money

Another way to show the seller you’re serious: Up the amount of earnest money you’re willing to deposit.

Earnest money is a good-faith deposit made by the buyers after the offer is accepted. (You get it back in time for closing, and it usually makes up a chunk of a buyer’s down payment.) And while it’s often between 1% and 3% of the purchase price, according to Redfin, boosting it even higher—maybe even up to 20%—will make an impression, said Mark Cenci, a broker with ERA Martin Real Estate in Southern Ohio.

“That will really make your offer different than someone else’s,” he said, especially “if you have a seller with a past of [prospective] buyers who had been wishy-washy.”