How We won a Bidding War Without Being the Highest Bid! (and How You Can do the Same)

For so many of us first-time home buyers, this market has been absolutely brutal. Trying to buy a house today is like being on a moving train that’s going in one direction, and trying to hit a bullseye on top of another moving train going in the opposite direction. I don’t even think Steph Curry could hit that hail-Mary. The longer you stare, the further out of reach your goal becomes. Let me give you an example. We saw 3 houses on the same street in comparable condition sell for $1.05m, $1.2m, and $1.275m respectively within mere weeks of each other! Logic, as our wonderful agent so often reminded us, does not apply in this market. Desperation and low supply have driven sale prices to unprecedented highs and few of us have golden parachutes funded by the bank of mom and dad.

When we started this house hunting process in October we quickly learned that list price means absolutely nothing. It’s kind of like the phrase ‘SALE $9.99’ being in large print on the clothes rack sign and the words ‘from’ or ‘and up’ being in mouse-sized print right above the too good to be true price. Darn those sneaky, sneaky sales folks. Growing up, a million dollars used to mean something ya know? But now it might get you a cardboard box in an alley behind a McDonald’s, or a place where the police tape is part of the “character” of the property. Math was never my strength but I really was convinced a million dollars was supposed to mean more. I was tempted on several occasions to pick up a Starbucks application. Somehow though, despite all the chaos, we managed to find and purchase our forever home (Insert happy dance). We are still in shock, like, what in the wonderful Hallmark movie miracle life is this?! But it happened and below is how we filmed the video that secured our forever home I hope you find it useful.

Step 1. Read the Room

With the current climate of the GTA real estate market, bidding wars are the norm. Offer letters are a fairly common practice that is said to make a difference when placing a bid. We had been sending letters with every one of our offers in hopes of putting a face to the bid the sellers might gravitate to. This was, however, the first time we sent in a video. The reason we decided on doing this was because after we submitted our first offer, our agent told us that the sellers were only interested in working with offers that had letters accompanying them. This was the first time we’d heard this. They sent back all offers with letters to re-submit with our best and final. This was great because it was the furthest we’ve ever gotten in the home-buying process however, there was one major caveat: We had no more money. We had already offered our max budget hoping it would be enough so we didn’t have much room to move. That’s when my husband said maybe we approach this differently. The man understood the assignment! The convo went something like this:

Samuel: “Since they appreciate letters, how about we write another one just explaining why we aren’t able to come up much from our initial offer?”

Me: ”See babe, I knew I didn’t marry you just because you were a pretty face!”

But instead of a letter, I suggested a video because, as I always tell my clients, if a picture is worth a thousand words, just imagine how much more you can get across in a video? (And also the baby was fussing and it was easier to film than to write out a letter with her). You might not have the opportunity to do this and it might not be a good idea to just include a video right out of the gate but we felt it might be a good idea because we already knew the sellers appreciated knowing a bit more about us as buyers and thank God it worked out. But after losing out on too many houses to count, this was the very first time such an opportunity was presented, so be sure to read the room.

Step 2. Use what you have

This shouldn’t be treated as a complex movie production so please don’t get intimidated by the prospect of having to film yourselves. The great thing is that everyone’s phone today has a built-in camera that records decent audio and that’s exactly what we used. We didn’t write notes since I’m used to speaking on camera, however, if cameras make you nervous you might want to quickly jot down 1 or 2 main points. Remember to speak from the heart. Don't try to memorize because it may come off robotic and the essence of your personality will get lost. We also used a ring light because it was close by but the sun will just as easily serve as a wonderful light source. Then just find a relatively quiet spot and go for it!

Step 3. Be genuine

This video is not meant to try and convince the sellers to choose you (although I was holding back tears when explaining why we couldn’t offer more money, If you follow me on Tiktok or IG you’ll know why). The purpose of the video is to let them know a little bit more about who they might be giving their beloved home to. We simply re-introduced ourselves and explained why we love the house and why we offered what we did. Tell your story, speak from the heart and keep it concise. In all it was about 2 minutes long and I cannot reiterate how incredibly thankful we are that it resonated with the sellers.

It’s the wild west out there and I really hope these tips help in making your own house offer videos. Wishing you all the very best in your search for your new home.

Keep rising,

Rhoda