Weapons in the Bidding War

Personal Letters, Beach Trips and Wine Are Nice, but Money Still Talks

Nadine and Andre Kearns sent the seller a letter about their family. (By Jessica Tefft -- Los Angeles Times)

When they bid for a house in Potomac in April, Nicole and Bryan Kustner did everything their real estate agents recommended.

They agreed to a contract clause that escalated their offer $140,000 above the $825,000 asking price. They threw in a big down payment and a large deposit. They wrote a "very nice letter" to separate themselves from the pack.

"We advise all our clients to do that," said agent Jason Volat.

"The thing that slam-dunked" the Kustners' offer over a dozen others, however, was another extra that's becoming more common: They let the sellers stay on in the house for two months, free, said Volat, who works with partner Melina Tsantis at Weichert Realtors in Cabin John.

Even as speculation builds up about how long the frenzy can last, the competition for housing has gotten so heated that buyers are routinely going to extreme lengths to grab the golden ring, or the golden Colonial, agents say.

The war has moved far beyond stripped-down contracts with few or no contingency clauses, where bidders waive almost anything that might hold up the deal, including home inspections and appraisals.

It's gone beyond gushy letters, where bidders declare they have fallen deeply in love with the properties or offer tug-at-the-heartstring snapshots of newlyweds, babies or dogs.

Some bidders have thrown in a case of wine, a two-week stay at a Cape Cod beach house, a seven-day cruise to the Bahamas and season tickets to the National Symphony Orchestra. But even these are often no longer enough, say agents.

The "bottom line now is just about the money," said Cheryl Hanks of W.C. & A.N. Miller Cos. in Chevy Chase.

Three times last year, Hanks allowed her clients to offer sellers a two-week stay at her Cape Cod beach house. "It didn't work," she said. Sellers are commanding such high bids and lucrative contract terms that they don't pay much heed to such gestures, she said.

Two weeks at the beach doesn't seem all that exotic a lure, she said. "Why, they could afford to stay the whole summer with the money they're getting for these houses."

The Bahamas cruise, said David Ridley, managing broker at Samson Realty in Chantilly, was a recent client's idea: "He'd heard it had worked in . . . San Francisco."