Aspiring first-time homebuyers earned a much-needed reprieve in February when mortgage rates dipped below 6 percent for the first time since 2022.
But many housing markets, including California, remain highly competitive, requiring that buyers get creative with their offers and financing options to have a realistic chance against wealthy competitors making cash offers.
When artist and architect Jessy Slim and her husband, Chris, unexpectedly found the perfect home — a home under $1 million with a gorgeous view, less than two hours from San Francisco — they realized they needed to offer above the asking price to compete with cash buyers and developers.
Rather than opt for a traditional home loan for the property in Fairfax, California, the couple used a two-step “delayed financing” program through their lender.
The couple received a short-term loan known as a “bridge” loan (step one) to make the cash offer, which they combined with a 5 percent down payment. Then, they refinanced that initial loan into a mortgage (step two) within a few weeks of closing. They also used three key strategies during the process to persuade the seller to accept their offer.
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Slim, who started her home search in 2025 and closed on the home March 2, shared the couple’s experience with The Independent. The interview below has been condensed and lightly edited for clarity.
Step 1: Discover my dream home
When I was looking for homes, I'd always just browsed Zillow and kept my boundary to Fairfax, California.
One day, I looked at Fairfax and found the house we eventually purchased. I looked at the listing and thought that it was too good to be true. It had an amazing view, looked like it was in okay shape, and there weren’t any immediate things I saw that made it unlivable.
So, my husband and I went to the open house. We both kind of fell in love with it right away. And we don't really usually do this, but we were like, “We have to tell our parents because we were going to need some money to help with the down payment.”
Even though I had already worked with an agent at TurboHome to help me look at other properties, we hadn't started a formal relationship with the agent.
Once we saw that home, we had two days to commit to an agent, get the documents, disclosures and everything else. We wanted to do everything we could because something felt different about this house. It felt like this was a space that had a lot of potential.
Step 2: Compare lenders and prequalify
I asked our real estate agent to suggest a few lenders to look at, and I think I had a list of six different choices. I called every single one, had a conversation, did the pre-qualification information session with them and went through everything.
One of the lenders was amazing - Dylan from NEO Home Loans. He answered every question right away. He was on top of it and was more than ready and available to help me finance the home.
Luckily, I had a really high credit score, which Dylan said gave me bragging rights because it was over 810. My husband had a high score, but it was lower than mine. (Editor’s note: Good credit scores make it easier to secure loans and get competitive interest rates.)
Step 3: Creative funding and offer
Fairfax is a beautiful little town in Marin County. It's a very competitive market because there just aren’t many homes available.
We went back and forth with the real estate agent to get a sense of who the seller was and what he was looking for. We knew that we weren't going to be the most competitive offer because of the competition we faced.
Because it was our first offer on a home, we didn’t think it would be accepted. So, I thought we should just ask as many people as possible - especially those who had recently bought a house - what their strategy was.
Almost everyone was like, if you really want it, you have to go for it and bid as high as you can. To me, that felt like a barrier because we were just not in that position; we knew that there was no way we were going to go, say, $100,000 over.
Initially we thought we’d have to go $50,000 or $60,000 over [asking price] to be even in the ballpark of a winning offer. We ended up on a number we felt was competitive and in a range we were comfortable with.
In addition to making a strategic offer, I also wrote a letter to the seller. I wanted to share our experience with the home, like when we looked at it for the first time. We wanted to express that we were people who really wanted to live there and really appreciated the house.
Also, we didn’t include many contingencies in our offer.*
I think those three things combined - the strategic offer, the letter, and not many contingencies - really made us compelling buyers.
(*Editor’s note: A contingency is a condition a homebuyer wants met before buying the home, such as an appraisal or inspection, according to the National Association of Realtors. Typically, fewer contingencies is more appealing to a seller because it makes the closing process faster.)
Step 4: Financing approval and closing
There were two steps to us financing our home. The first was going through approval for the bridge loan funding our cash offer and then going through approval for the refinance we used to pay off the first loan.
We had multiple hoops to go through and different fees to pay on each end. We did end up saving a ton of money because we were able to make a cash offer, which makes things easier for the seller. It wasn’t so bad. It's just a multi-process since it's not a straightforward loan.
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