Help for Buyer Agents



Thank you for your interest in homesale.plus, where buyers know exactly what’s needed to win and agents never write a contract unless their buyer’s offer is accepted. There are several things you need to know before submitting an offer on homesale.plus, as listed below. But before you get started, it will be helpful to take a quick tour of the homesale.plus offer process. You can watch a short video illustrating this process here.

 

  1. The first step is to create an account on homesale.plus. Account creation is free, easy and takes just a couple of minutes. It’s recommended that both you and your client create accounts. An Agent account has special privileges, one of which is the ability to link to a client’s account and easily manage offers on their behalf. There’s a short video tutorial on the account creation process here, on our Help page. There is also a video tutorial specifically for Agent account creation and for linking an Agent account to a client account. For this tutorial please click here.

 

  1. Once you and your client have created accounts, you/your client can register to participate in the sale. Registration requires a pre-approval letter - if your client will be financing the purchase - or a financial statement indicating availability of funds if your client intends to make a cash offer. It’s best to submit a letter or statement supporting the highest amount your client might offer. Otherwise, if your client decides to offer more than originally anticipated, you’ll find yourself scrambling to upload another document before the offer period ends. For a video tutorial on offer registration please click here. This tutorial also covers the offer-making process.

 

  1. homesale.plus sales are not auctions. They have many of the beneficial characteristics of an auction, such as transparency and maximal competition, but sellers retain the right to accept or reject any offer, regardless of price, and they may accept an offer at any time. For example, if there is a five day offer period a seller may decide to accept an offer submitted on day three – the seller can do this by sending notice to all buyers that the offer period will be ending earlier than originally scheduled, perhaps as soon as in a couple of hours. Because of this, it’s beneficial for buyers to submit offers early and often.

 

  1. The offer price is the net amount that will go to the seller. The commission will be added to the winning offer amount to create contract price and does not need to be paid as a separate closing cost.

 

  1. There are five standard offer parameters: Price, down payment amount (the amount that will not be financed, 100% in the case of a cash offer), whether an inspection contingency is required, days to close, and type of finance contingency (Conventional, FHA or VA - Cash if none). Other conditions must be submitted by comment. There is a buyer comment box in which buyers can add additional information, such as specifying an As-is inspection, removing an appraisal contingency from a finance contingency, requesting a seller subsidy or home sale contingency – anything beyond the five standard parameters. These comments will be visible to the seller and all buyers, as are comments made by the seller. This ensures total transparency - all buyers participate on a level playing field. Again, the video tutorial on registration and submitting offers can be found here, on our Help page.

 

  1. You’re going to love this: you only write a contract if your buyer is the winner. No more writing 50-page contracts just to be told your buyer’s offer was rejected. You and your buyer are in full control; if your buyer is willing and able to make the best offer, you’ll only write a contract once – when your buyer’s offer has been accepted.

 

To learn more about homesale.plus, please give us a call at 410.441.5443 or email us at info@homesale.plus. We look forward to your participation!