I went to an open house with a buyer client this past Sunday. We were already out looking at two other listings. This one had an open house so I thought we’d hit it rather than schedule a time to see it before or afterwards.

We got there about 5 minutes early. The realtors were not there yet and there was a line of people waiting to get in.

Once the realtors opened the house, the first thing I asked was how many offers did they have. One of the two that were there said they had 10 offers and were expecting more.

I then asked if any of them were cash. One of the realtors said “We aren’t allowed to say whether or not we do.” That isn’t exactly true in general. It could be that the seller instructed them not to disclose that type of info. If that was the case, kudos to the seller’s realtor for saying this.

But more than likely, they just didn’t want to say.

Why would they not want to say?

Because if there were any cash offers, disclosing so would deter any buyer who would be financing the purchase from making offers. What these realtors want to do is get as many offers as they can, hoping to get one with a higher price or better terms than the cash offer, then go to the realtor with the cash buyer and say “If you can match these terms from the better offers, your buyer can have the house.” Nothing at all wrong with that. They are representing their client’s best interest in doing so. It is what I would do for my sellers as well.

These two realtors were a lot of fun. I enjoyed meeting them. They didn’t know I was a realtor at first, so my response was “Don’t worry about it, I’m a realtor too and I can read between the lines.”

So yes, they did have at least one cash offer.