How to Win a Bidding War in Los Angeles - Tips for 2025

You might be early or you might be late in your home search, but you have finally found your dream home. The good news is that it is perfect. The bad news is that it has multiple competing offers. 

When this happens, many prospective buyers look for tips on how to gain an advantage in a bidding war. The California real estate market is super competitive right now, but there are a number of steps you can take to put yourself in the best position to win. 

Tips to win a bidding war in LA

• Understand how much you can afford
• Do your homework on the value of the home
• Increase your buying power with a commission rebate
• Sweeten the deal with non-financial terms
• Write a personal letter to the seller

Understand how much you can afford

It is important to do your research ahead of time before buying a home in LA so you fully understand how much home you can actually afford. But there are two ways failing to do your research can put you down the wrong path.

In the first direction, if you end up overextending yourself and reaching to buy a home it can end poorly. You end up with buyers' remorse and financial woes. 

In the opposite direction, many times buyers don’t realize that they can actually afford more than they previously thought. If you lose your dream home because you bid too low, this is a bad outcome as well. 

Doing the work ahead of time allows you to make sure you can make educated decisions on how much to offer. Working closely with your mortgage professional, accountant, financial advisor and real estate agent will save you a lot of headaches.

Do your homework on the value of the home

If you don’t understand the value of the home or the current state of the housing market,  it is difficult to make a smart offer. By looking at the data and comps in the area, you are able to make sure that you are assigning a fair value to the home.  

By working with a great real estate agent, they can provide you with a CMA or comparable market analysis for the property. This allows you to help discern the value of the home based on closed and active listings in the area. 

Many times value is below the listing price, but sometimes listing agents purposefully under price listings and the value is actually above the asking price. You may have found yourself in one of those situations because there are multiple offers. A good agent can help guide you through the best way to approach this. 

Increase your buying power with a commission rebate

In a competitive situation, every dollar counts. The difference between a winning offer and a losing offer can come down to thousands if not tens of thousand of dollars for LA buyers. 

If you can get money back on your purchase from your real estate broker, it gives you more dollars to play with to make your offer as competitive as possible, maximizing your chances of winning. For example, Prevu’s Smart Buyer Program gives buyers in Los Angeles up to 1% of their purchase price back in the form of a commission rebate when they buy a home. 

Prevu passes along two-thirds of the commission it receives when working with a buyer, subject to the market minimum. For example if you bought a $2 million property, you could save up to $20,000 working with Prevu. 

Thanks to its digital buying platform, Prevu pairs you with one of the company’s expert buyer’s agents. The ability to collaborate with your agent online saves you a ton of time and money.

Sweeten the deal with non-financial terms

When sellers evaluate offers for their home, price is a large factor, but not the only one. 

Especially with hot properties, there are sometimes concerns that the home price will be too high and won’t appraise. By removing contingencies like a mortgage or financing contingency, it removes that risk for the seller. 

Even better, if you have the ability to make an all cash offer and close quickly this massively de-risks the transaction for the seller. They no longer have to wait 45-60 days for the banks to do their due diligence. In addition, some buyers end up getting a primary mortgage after the fact. That way you can secure your dream home and still take advantage of low mortgage rates.

Another common contingency is a home inspection. Home inspections are extremely important, especially with older homes. They can uncover big problems that need to be addressed or monitored. Financially, they can also give the buyer ammunition to ask the seller for credits or renegotiate the sale price. 

Seasoned real estate agents will rarely recommend clients waive any contingencies unless they are fully confident in the decision. Removing contingencies can make your offer more attractive to the seller, but can also open you up to additional risks. 

Write a personal letter to the seller

If your offer is sitting in a pile of other offers, you need to find a way to differentiate yourself. Writing a personal offer letter humanizes you and increases your chances of your offer winning.

By explaining to the seller that this house is your dream home or that it reminds you of your childhood home can make the sellers feel better about you moving into "their" house. Buying and selling is very emotional, it can put sellers at ease that the new owners are good people given that the home still holds many memories for them. 

Interested in buying a home in Los Angeles? Browse listings and see how much you'll save with Prevu's commission rebate.

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Prevu Real Estate, Inc. is a licensed real estate broker in California, license number 02134758.