Not my DD experience (assuming Seattle area). They’ve bid on several homes recently, and were still outbid by cash buyers. On one, they were the highest bidder, but 2nd in line had some connection with owner. They’re also looking at smaller homes so the competition may be worse in the lower price ranges.
One realtor told us (several years ago), that they are not allowed to “pre-sell” (i.e. sell before it officially goes on the market). Is that true? Another said they often find homes that they can sell “early”, so not quite sure which was explaining the situation correctly.
Our kids are looking outside of the city limits. In February, homes there were snapped up quickly with buyers’ frenzy. This seems to have subsided quite a bit in the area and the price range they are looking, but sure homes in the city under $1M still go fast despite mortgage rates jumping from 7 to 7.4% in two weeks.
As far as I know, there are no restrictions on off market sales of homes, bypassing MLS, so I’m surprised that the person told you so. To think of this, such a restriction would amount to a governmental “taking” of sorts by requiring that every sale must be MLS listed and open to multiple buyers. There might be some nuances that I’m unaware of.
I don’t know if that is such a deal, to get 20% over asking if you lower the asking price significantly in order to get a bidding war. I guess it depends upon whether that’s the norm in your area. When things were crazy around here, the realtor said to price it below the market price, because everyone would automatically assume it would be sold for much higher, and some wouldn’t even look because they thought it wouldn’t end up in their price range. We ended up only getting two offers, neither of which we liked, but the realtor found a way to move the needle.
But if your presale buyer is still interested, maybe they’ll give you an offer anyways.