 Hi, this is Michelle Getzinger from Berkshire Hathaway. I'm a realtor out of the Fox Chapel area, and I want to go over a couple of things that are happening right now in the marketplace. First off, there's a big demand for buying houses due to the backup from COVID being from the shutdown from COVID. Then on top of it, that was our spring market, which is the busiest time of the year for realtors to sell houses. That's when everybody's moving because they want to be in their house before the kids switch for their school district for next year. So that being said, a lot of the deals as they've been coming on have been in a multiple offer situation. It's been crazy. The house hits the market two to three days later, you're having a multiple offer situation. What does that mean? Well, that means there's not a whole lot of houses out there and there's a lot of people that are fighting to get one. And how do you win those multiple offer situations? All right, so let's talk about a multiple offer situation. You put in an offer, you've been told there's multiple offers on the table, and now you want to get your dream home, but you've got to beat everybody else out. So when you hear the term highest and best, what is happening, and let me tell you, based on a scenario that just recently happened with us, is we had a lot of action on a house. It was priced properly. We got 15 offers in. So it was within the two day period that it was listed. We said it was highest and best by Sunday at 2 PM or whatever, and we went through them. And how we had to distinguish between the offers gets pretty complicated. All right, so the first thing we did when we got our multiple offers is we started to divide them by the type of financing they had. So there's a couple different ways that the financing can be structured. The best one would be obviously cash. The second one would be a conventional loan. Reason being is they have less restrictions. Then the next one would be FHA and then VA having the highest restrictions lending-wise. Okay, so when you are told to bring the term highest and best to the table, that means you have a time limit where you're going to come in with your highest number and your best terms. So the least amount of contingencies attached to your offer that you're giving the seller. So you want it to be as clean as possible. If you can't avoid seller's assist, that would probably be a good time to do it. You can also waive things like inspections. I never encourage people to waive inspections or not get an inspection, but you can waive it and still get the home inspection. You just can't make the deal contingent on the inspection. You also have to let the other realtor know that you're doing that. But it would be for informational purposes only. Other tips for you when you're trying to win a highest and best situation. Number one, other than having the cleanest offer that you can bring to the table with the best type of mortgage that has the least amount of restrictions, is you might want to write a letter. Now I know people really think that's hokey, but it does. It goes a long way. It kind of separates you out and tells your story. There's 15 of them on the table. That seller might be able to connect with you. If you're a veteran and you write a letter and they have a family member that has served in the past, I've actually seen it happen where a seller takes a lower price amount or not as good a terms just because they're connected emotionally with that buyer. Another contingency that you can add on is you can add an escalation clause. That would be only if it's allowed, the other realtor has to approve it. It is when you put an offer in, hypothetically, like a full price offer, and then you're willing to go $10,000 above the asking price and you do it in an escalation clause. So what happens is we attach that to the sales contract and we get to beat the next bid on the table by $500 or $1,000 that goes up. So it's essentially like a bidding war and you get to click up an increments of $500. That being said, these market conditions won't last forever and thanks for watching and good luck with your multiple offer situation.