09/21/2026
A bidding war in today's real estate market? Yes, they do still occur. And there are ways to encourage it. See below and contact me at Keller Williams Realty via 704-881-1921 to talk about your home selling plans ...
How to Start a Bidding War on Your House (and Handle Multiple Offers)
Chances are, you know someone who ended up in a bidding war for their dream home. They may have even spent thousands more than they had planned on, especially a few years back. Everyone selling their home wants to earn top dollar, but it’s worth pointing out that a bidding war isn’t about luck, as it’s often the result of a carefully executed strategy.
A few years ago, it wasn’t rare to see headlines about homes selling $100,000 - $150,000 over the listing price. If you’re looking to sell in the near future, you’re likely wondering how to start a bidding war on your house. The experts have shared that deliberate pricing, staging, marketing, and timing work together to generate multiple competing offers.
I will share strategies to produce multiple offers on your home so you can maximize your sale and achieve the best possible financial outcome.
Key Takeaways
A bidding war occurs when two or more interested buyers make competing offers on a home, often offering above the initial asking price
Whether you get a bidding war on your home depends on the market conditions, your asking price, and how your home is marketed
Bidding wars are more common in seller’s markets where there are more buyers than houses for sale
What Is a Bidding War in Real Estate?
A bidding war in real estate is a situation in which two or more buyers compete to purchase a property by raising their offers, often driving the final sale price above the original listing price.
A bidding war is more likely to happen in a seller’s market, where there are more buyers than houses for sale, or when a home is priced below market value to drive up competition.
Bidding wars favour sellers for the following main reasons:
Quicker sales – Create urgency by forcing prospective buyers to act promptly by making offers
Smoother transactions – Buyers remove conditions so that you don’t have to worry about dealing with appraisals, home inspections, and other buyer demands
Higher sale price – Offers are often above market value, helping you earn a higher return on your largest asset
4 Bidding War Strategies to Get Multiple Offers on Your Home
If you’re uncertain about how to start a bidding war on your house, the good news is that there are four strategies that can help you land multiple offers on your home.
1. The Strategic Underpricing Method
Someone who’s interested in getting multiple offers on their home should consider intentionally setting the price low to attract multiple motivated buyers, who increase their bids once competition starts. Pricing psychology plays a pivotal role in igniting a bidding war, as buyers are more likely to make offers on properties they feel are a good deal.
If you’re worried about selling your home for too little, the good news is that you can try the slow-market alternative, which involves pricing at or 5% below fair market value and considering offering seller concessions to spark competition.
2. Setting Offer Deadlines
Another technique for anyone wondering how to start a bidding war is to set an “offer review date” to force buyers to compete against the clock. If you use this method, you should consider sharing a clean disclosure package before the deadline to help buyers review the property faster and submit offers more quickly.
For example, if a Realtor requests that all prospective buyers submit their offers by 5pm on a Friday, which led to 12 offers, including one $20,000 over the listing price. Moreover, waiting until you have at least two offers before enforcing a deadline can also give you more negotiating power.
3. Professional Staging & High-Impact Marketing
It’s no secret that many homebuyers are searching for homes online, and a strong visual presentation can trigger emotional and non-rational behaviour, leading to a bidding war. An experienced Realtor will invest in staging, professional photography, virtual tours, and hyper-targeted social media ads before launch day. Realtors with a strong network may even build buzz on their social media channels in advance to increase your home’s visibility among potential buyers.
4. Creating Accessibility for Buyers
Another powerful strategy involves listing your property mid-week, around Wednesday or Thursday, and then hosting open houses over the weekend.
An experienced Realtor may schedule multiple viewings within a tight timeline to create a sense of urgency and ignite competition among buyers, while flexible showing access can also accommodate house-hunting schedules for other buyers. By limiting the viewing period to 48 to 72 hours before going over offers, you will likely motivate buyers to act promptly.
Weekend viewings are ideal, as they fit most schedules and compel potential buyers to make a decision. However, the most important dynamic is timing your home sale to a seasonal market peak to improve your chances of starting a bidding war, depending on local market conditions.
Seller’s Market vs. Buyer’s Market Bidding Wars
Even though it can be tempting to try to ignite a bidding war on your house, you have to be realistic about the market dynamics, since there’s a huge difference between a seller’s market and a buyer’s market when it comes to selling your home. A bidding war most often occurs in a seller’s market when housing stock is low, and demand is high. However, bidding war strategies can work in a buyer’s market as well.
Creating a Bidding War in a Seller’s Market
In a seller’s market, there is high buyer demand and low housing stock. In popular neighbourhoods, this often turns strong interest into multiple offers, creating an ideal environment for aggressive underpricing strategies.
Multiple-offer situations can occur every day, sometimes by design and sometimes multiple buyers just appear at the same time. It usually reflects the current market value. In today’s market, we see sellers try the process and fail because they don’t like the offers they receive or don’t receive any.
Understanding local market conditions with an experienced real estate agent helps sellers choose the right pricing strategy. Some bidding war strategies are designed specifically for strong seller’s market conditions and work well when demand clearly outpaces supply.
Avoiding the Underpricing Trap in a Buyer’s Market
A buyer’s market occurs when there are more houses on the market than buyers who want to purchase them, leaving buyers with plenty of choice. The biggest risk when trying to start a bidding war in a buyer’s market is that underpricing in a slow market can leave you stuck with a single low offer or give buyers the impression that something is wrong with the property.
The best strategy for starting a bidding war is to understand what is happening in the market, because bidding wars won’t always work out. Sometimes bidding war attempts fail as the market doesn’t support it or sellers have unrealistic expectations.
Before trying to start a bidding war in a buyer’s market, ask yourself the following questions:
Is my area desirable enough for a bidding war?
Am I at an entry-level price point?
What are the market dynamics like?
You need to undercut your list price to entice people to come through the door, but you should expect that you might not get what you’re looking for.
How to Handle a Bidding War as a Seller
While a bidding war can be exciting as a seller, it’s important that you handle it properly to ensure that you end up with the best-case scenario. You may think that choosing the highest offer price is all that matters, but there are other crucial factors you can’t ignore at this stage. The highest offer isn’t always the best one because you have to review the full picture, including the deposit, conditions, the closing date, and financing. A realtor's job is to understand what matters most to the seller, build real competition around that, and land on the offer with the strongest mix of price and certainty.
Evaluating Beyond the Purchase Price
Financing and Conditions
The first thing you want to consider is the financing situation of the buyer, whether it’s all-cash or financed, along with their mortgage pre-approval. A mortgage pre-approval letter helps show the buyer is pre-approved and financially ready, one of the clearest signs of a serious buyer and can make the buyer’s offer stronger in a bidding war. Ensuring that buyers are qualified and can close is more important than the higher price for many sellers in today’s market.
Since financing is a common contingency in Canadian housing transactions, it makes sense to consider other contingency options. Contingencies are conditional clauses in a home purchase agreement that allow the seller or buyer to withdraw if certain conditions aren’t met. Common conditions include financing, inspections, appraisals, or selling a current home before buying the next one.
As a seller, you may be interested in a straightforward transaction, which means going with the buyer with the fewest conditions. In addition, some buyers waive conditions to win a bidding war, but that increases their risk if financing falls through or an inspection reveals issues.
Escalation Clause
During a bidding war or in a competitive market, some buyers will add escalation clauses to their purchase agreements. This escalation clause is a statement that accompanies a base bid and sets out the terms for increasing the bid if another buyer makes a higher bid. For example, they may agree to beat other offers by a certain amount up to a cap. The escalation clause usually includes the maximum price the buyer is willing to offer.
Deposit
An earnest money deposit is simply considered a good-faith deposit in real estate that’s included with the offer to purchase a home. When you agree to sell your home to someone, you could ask them to pay a deposit, which a third party will hold in escrow until the transaction closes. A larger deposit can also make an offer more attractive because it signals serious intent. While these aren’t a legal requirement, they can be requested in a competitive market.
Closing Date
Lastly, you should consider the closing timeline to ensure the dates are flexible or in your favour. Consider whether you need to close right away or if you can wait several months.
3 Main Strategies for Responding to Multiple Offers
Once you receive multiple offers on your home, you have three main options to respond to them:
Accept the best offer outright – If one offer is leaps and bounds above the rest, and it has the strongest terms and certainty, you may accept the highest bid outright to maximize value for your home
Issue a “highest and best” call – You can ask the top contenders to submit their absolute final numbers by a set deadline, so that you have options to review
Counter one offer independently – You can also start negotiating terms with the strongest prospective buyer while keeping others on standby
Bottom Line
With strategic pricing, urgency-building, and attracting qualified buyers through staging and marketing, you have a good chance of creating a bidding war for your home. However, you can’t ignore the market dynamics. Therefore, you should work with a qualified real estate agent who will guide you throughout the process based on their expertise. With a strong negotiator on your side, the right market dynamics, and a strategically priced home, you can win in a competitive market and achieve the highest return on your property.
Starting a Bidding War FAQs
Can you start a bidding war in a buyer’s market?
Starting a bidding war in a buyer’s market is significantly harder, but still possible with aggressive pricing, flawless presentation, and rare or unique property features. In a balanced or buyer’s market, strategy matters even more than market conditions.
What is an escalation clause, and should I accept one?
An escalation clause is a buyer’s offer term stating they will beat any competing offer by a set increment (e.g., $2,000) up to a maximum cap. Sellers can accept them, but it requires verifying proof of the competing offer.
What happens if a bidding war drives the price higher than the home’s appraisal?
If the buyer is purchasing the home using a mortgage, the lender won’t fund past the appraised value. To handle this, sellers should look for offers with appraisal gap guarantees, where the buyer commits to paying the difference in cash.
Do I have to accept the highest offer in a bidding war?
No. As a seller, you are free to accept any offer based on the terms that matter most to you, whether that’s cash certainty, a fast closing date, or fewer conditions.
Contact me directly for all your real estate needs at 📲519-212-3965.🔗 Visit https://artdasilva.royallepage.ca
