STL Home Buyer Journey
George Kindler
13 Years Of Real Estate Experience At Your Fingertips
Last updated October 21, 2026
Multiple offers are the best problem a seller can have, and the easiest one to waste. Here’s when they happen in St. Louis, how I work them without calling highest and best, and two of my listings where the details decided the outcome.
Keep every buyer in play until you choose. I rarely call for highest and best. With your consent, I take each offer to the next buyer, give everyone a short window, and then line the offers up by what they net you and how likely they are to close. Then you decide. How I run it ↓
Rarely. Highest and best asks every buyer for a final offer at once, and a buyer who knows where they stand can simply stand on theirs. I’ve found a hands-on approach works better: buyers compete against a real offer instead of a deadline. What highest and best actually does ↓
That’s your call, and I share it only with your consent. The real price and terms give the next buyer a number to beat; “we’re over asking” gives them a guess. On my Wintergreen listing, the sellers allowed only “over asking,” and the second buyer never wrote. The Wintergreen second buyer ↓
It can be. Every contingency is a place the price can reopen, so price each one against the dollar difference. On Wintergreen I treated $406,000 from a buyer whose agent promised no repair requests as about as strong as $410,000 with a negotiation still ahead. How I weighed it →
By net and by the odds it closes: price minus any seller-paid costs, then the buyer’s loan and lender, the inspection and appraisal terms, any home-sale contingency, the earnest money and the closing date. My job is to make sure you understand every term; the choice is yours. How I compare offers →
Sources: George Kindler’s listings at 13218 Wintergreen Estates Drive (2026) and 5021 Galena (2025) and his buyer sale at 921 San Luis Drive (2026); 2,865 St. Louis County MLS sales in 2026.
In the first few days, or rarely at all. In 2,865 St. Louis County sales in 2026, 78.7% of the homes that went under contract within 4 days sold above their original list price, against 31.4% at 8 to 14 days and 11.8% or less after 60 days. In my experience, multiple offers come the first weekend and rarely after that.
So the first evening matters. I launch listings on a Thursday, and when the first offer comes in I don’t accept it that night. I call and text the agents from earlier and upcoming showings, and ask the buyer’s agent for 24 to 48 hours. How I handle the first offer →
Take it to the next buyer. With the seller’s consent, I pitch each offer to the other interested buyers, so a buyer’s agent knows what it actually takes to win and the buyers who were going to write anyway write their best number. If a seller doesn’t consent, I don’t reveal a price.
It doesn’t always mean a higher price. At Galena, that conversation got a buyer to drop their appraisal rider and inspection notice. How one offer got better ↓
It’s more work than setting a deadline and waiting. But each buyer is deciding against something real, and I can keep talking with every one of them until you choose.
On 13218 Wintergreen Estates Drive in Fenton, listed at $399,900, we had a $406,000 offer when a second buyer was interested. Their agent asked me whether the offer was over asking. Before I answered, I asked my sellers whether I could reveal the price and terms. They said no, but that I could say it was over asking.
I did, and that buyer never wrote. The contract was only about $6,000 over asking. Those buyers most likely would have been in play if they had known the actual number. “Over asking” can sound like far more than it is. The full Wintergreen sale →
Every buyer is asked for a final offer by a deadline, and each decides alone without knowing the others’ numbers. Some go up. Others don’t have to: on 921 San Luis Drive in Fenton, my buyers kept the same offer they had written through a highest-and-best call, and the sellers accepted it. How my buyers stood on their offer →
That’s why I rarely call for it as a listing agent. A deadline gets every buyer’s answer at once; working the offers one buyer at a time keeps them competing.
On 5021 Galena in 2025, my sellers had four offers, one of them a lowball investor offer. Two were nearly identical conventional offers, $1,000 apart, and the lower one had come in first. The higher one had an escalation clause, an appraisal rider and the right to send an inspection notice.
I went back to the higher buyer’s agent: we were getting ready to accept virtually the same offer, their escalation only made theirs $1,000 better, and the other buyers were here first. They removed the appraisal rider and the inspection notice. Now it was the best offer on paper, netting my sellers more with less risk. We accepted it before the buyer’s pre-approval letter came in, and I told my sellers that was the risk.
When the appraisal later came in low, that missing rider is why it still closed at the contract price, $271,000. What happened with the appraisal →
When there aren’t really multiple offers
Negotiate with that buyer. Calling for highest and best when there’s only one buyer, or countering them over commission, are emotional roadblocks that can push away the one buyer you have, the same way a physical problem in the house can. Should I accept this offer? →
It’s an offer, but rarely real competition for a retail buyer. In my experience, wholesale cash offers land around 50% of market value, rarely more than 60 to 65 cents on the dollar. Compare it on net before you let it change your decision. What you give up with a cash offer →
This is one piece of the St. Louis home buying process. See how it all fits together:
📚 Complete St. Louis Buyer Guide →
Grew up in South St. Louis, lived in Dogtown for 6 years, now in South County. You'll find us at Wellspring on Lindbergh on Sundays. I'm not selling you a house — I'm showing you how to think about buying or selling a house.
Questions about what you are reading? I answer personally — no team, no handoff.