If you’re repping the seller and you get an offer, you need contact every interested potential buyer who walked though the house – unless that offer is exactly what you and your client dreamed of. If there’s anyone out there who wants to make an offer for a higher price, you have a very short amount of time to bring in it. Again, in the state of California, real estate offers have a 72-hour expiration date, so by law you have three days to accept or reject. (If you’re working with me, however, it’s 24 hours.) The clock has started.

Call other agents whose clients liked the house. See if they want to make an offer. If good agents hear they have an opportunity to make a buck, but are about to miss out, they’ll get moving. That’s human nature, and it’s our job to create these pressured moments that demand immediate action.

You’re at the table. You’re ready for battle. You’re ready to close. You’re a killer and you already know. This is what all the work was for. Just remember: If an offer is unacceptable, you turn it away, and if you don’t get another, it’s back to square one. That’s the business. You take it off the market, make any necessary updates based on all that buyer feedback, reshoot the visuals, and go through the process again.

Most people don’t have that luxury, though. House sales are based on new jobs and schools, expanding families, and settling estates.

When an offer arrives, analyze it like a seller does. How close is it to list? Is it within an acceptable range of comps? What are the terms? How big is the EMD or down payment? Does a faster closing schedule have value? When does the seller need to be out of the house? Is the DOM high? Or is the DOM low and more offers will be on their way?

The legend of first offers isn’t urban; it’s real. First offers often land right after the first open house, and they come quickly from a buyer who fell in love with the house. Most sellers feel that a first offer will be followed by bigger offers, but it could turn out to be best offer the seller gets. Take first offers very seriously and advise your client to as well.

I always tell my clients whether I think an offer is good or not, but I never advise them to “take it” or “don’t take it.” Let the final decision rest with them. It’s their money. People bid against themselves despite me telling them not to. Raise the EMD or down payment, collapse schedules, and negotiate furniture and appliance sales to the buyers. If the offer could be better and I’m not getting movement, I work the phones, provoking the fear of missing out (FOMO) in potential buyers and at the same time pulling the triggers of urgency and exclusivity – all this in the hope of starting my favorite real estate moment, the bidding war. God, I love bidding wars.

On the selling side, as I said in Part I, you can use triggers but it’s my experience if someone is going to offer on a house, they offer. That being said, we pull triggers all day long. Every salesperson does. There are tiny triggers: “I need to hear back from you by 2 p.m. if you want to see this house.” And there are huge ones: “This is the last house in the entire development and I have the first offer.”

All the triggers may work, but you often don’t know which ones. At the end of a long open, work, and close process, every trigger you use might inform the final deal. Here are a few that The Altman Brothers have used over the years with great success:

• Exclusivity or FOMO: Is this house one of a small number of its kind? Say, “This is the last house on this street to sell; it’s also the best. It backs up to a green zone and the developer used top-of-the-line materials to finish it out; yeah, this one is special for a special buyer.” In the Hollywood Hills, my exclusive might be, “Are you kidding me? Keanu, Leo, and Beckham live within a few blocks. You live here and you’re ground-zero rich AND hip.”
• Neighborhood of peers: For some buyers, their peers determine where they live or where they don’t live. Say you are an executive for Whirlpool in Cleveland. I’m your agent and I take you first to the neighborhood where many of your peers live. I find this out through experience or networking. You say, “Wow! I can golf with Jim down the hall on the weekends!” or you say, “Screw this! I don’t want to think of work on Sunday.” As we drive a neighborhood, I might say, “The main homeowners are doctors, lawyers, and the university dean,” giving a snapshot of education and income. Believe it or not, wealthy clients tend to be influenced the most by their peers. Other clients have different concerns, like money.
• Urgency: This trigger speaks directly to real estate time and the need to move fast. Price deductions are a perfect moment to create urgency when you call all your most interested parties and say, as if each one is the only one, “I wanted you to be the first to know. We’re dropping the price and it will not last. I want you and your client back up here.”
• Stack your showings: After the initial open house, take all interested buyers and, if possible, schedule them one after another for showings. You want them to bump into each other, creating a sense of desirability and competition. Nothing creates urgency like an offer. That urgency dies on the sidewalk if the seller isn’t ready.

In the next chapter, we’ll discuss multiple offers as well as counteroffers. But for now, get the offer, get on the phone, and get another offer! Get three more offers! Get five more! You’re “Hollywood”! That’s why you’re client hired you! Conquer the deal! You were made for this! You’re a winner! A warrior! Be ready to adjust, adapt, and overcome! Negotiate! Give to get! Please your client! Win the battle! Close!