In the Bay Area, home buyers are constantly competing with other buyers for their dream home.

So how can you make your offer stand out from the rest?

Hi, I'm Brendan Moran with Five Star Real Estate, and I'm going to give you three tips on how to make sure that your offer stands above the crowd when you're competing with other buyers for your dream home.

• Price

Number one, this is an easy one. Price. Make sure it's competitive when the market is going up. You might be tempted to kind of try and find out where the line is and then offer there, but the problem is if you lose out on that one, guess where the next one's going to be? That's right. So sometimes it makes sense to pay more than where the market is right now because if it's going up, it's only going to get more expensive.

• Deposit

Number two, put down a larger deposit. This is called the earnest money deposit, and it's your money upfront. It's your skin in the game that shows the seller that you're serious and it goes towards your final cost to close. If you can remove your contingencies, do it. That means a loan contingency, an inspection contingency. Just make sure you know that the home has been inspected in advance and make sure that you're fully approved, otherwise, you could risk losing your deposit. This is especially important if you don't have the money for a larger down payment, because if you can't compete with cash, you have to compete with terms and the terms are the inspection contingency, the loan contingency, and the close of escrow. If you can make it as short as possible or waive them entirely, all the better. And number three, let the seller know you're serious.

• Your Real Estate Agent

These days, the idea of a buyer letter doesn't really fly anymore because sellers don't look at them because they don't want the liability. But there are ways around that, and the one way is through your real estate agent, make sure that they are in constant contact with the listing agent to make sure how many other offers there are. What is the seller looking for? Is there something that's really important to them that maybe got overlooked that you can provide? Stuff like that. So it's important to work with a really good real estate agent, especially in a competitive environment.

To get started, just message us.