Is it a bribe?

Short answer: it is usually not a bribe in the criminal sense, but if you are financing the purchase it can quietly become loan fraud, and that is the part nobody warns buyers about. Here is the mechanism. Your lender is underwriting a price. Every item of value that moves between you and the seller is supposed to be documented in the loan file and shown on the Closing Disclosure. Lenders call these interested party contributions, and Fannie Mae caps them: on a primary residence or second home, 3 percent of the price if your loan-to-value is above 90 percent, 6 percent if it is 75.01 to 90 percent, and 9 percent if it is 75 percent or less. Anything above the cap gets reclassified as a sales concession and is subtracted from the sales price for underwriting. A side agreement that never reaches the settlement statement is the exact pattern mortgage fraud investigators look for. Season tickets and a nice dinner are small, but "small and undisclosed" is still undisclosed, and you are the one signing the loan application. The second problem is fair housing. A personal gift invites the seller to pick a buyer on personal grounds instead of on terms. That is the precise soil discrimination claims grow in, which is why most real estate firms will not transmit anything outside the offer package. Related trap: buyer "love letters." Oregon actually tried to bar agents from passing them along under HB 2550 in 2022, a federal judge struck the law down on First Amendment grounds, and the state conceded. So they are legal again in Oregon. That does not make them smart, and plenty of firms still refuse to forward them. Now the good news. The things that genuinely separate an offer cost you nothing and are all contractual: - A fully underwritten credit approval, not a pre-qualification. Your loan officer runs the file through underwriting before you write. It reads almost like cash. - A shorter inspection contingency. Cutting it from 17 days to 7 or 10 is worth real money to a seller. - A shorter loan and appraisal contingency, or an appraisal gap clause with a stated cap, for example "buyer will cover up to $15,000 of any appraisal shortfall in cash." - Larger earnest money. A bigger deposit says you do not intend to walk. - The closing date the seller actually wants, plus a free or reduced rent-back so they are not moving twice. For a seller who has not found their next home, this beats any gift. - Verified proof of funds and a lender who will personally call the listing agent the day you write. - A clean, complete package. Every disclosure signed, no blanks, no missing initials. Listing agents notice. - Take on the seller's headaches: accept cosmetic items as-is, pay for the termite work, cover their moving cost as a documented credit that appears on the Closing Disclosure where it belongs. One 2026 update, since this question was posted in July 2024. Practice changes took effect on August 17, 2024, so buyer-agent compensation is no longer published on the MLS and is negotiated. If you are asking the seller to cover your agent's fee as a concession, that request is part of your offer and it affects your net to the seller. Know that number before you write, because it competes with everything above. I am a real estate professional, not an attorney or a lender, so run any specific concession structure past your loan officer before you sign. Zoltan Peresztegi here, working with buyers across Los Angeles and the South Bay, including the Palos Verdes Peninsula. If you are outside my area, message me and I will introduce you to a strong agent in your market who negotiates this way. Zoltan

It's not automatically considered a bribe, but I generally advise against offering gifts like concert tickets or dinners outside the purchase contract. They can create legal or ethical concerns and may complicate the transaction. So I wouldnt do that. A stronger way to make your offer stand out is with better terms—such as a competitive price, flexible closing date, fewer contingencies (when appropriate), or a larger earnest money deposit. Those factors usually carry much more weight with sellers.

I wouldn’t do that. It may not be a “bribe” in the criminal sense, but it can look messy, inappropriate, or even create disclosure and ethics issues. Keep your offer clean. If you want to stand out, improve the actual terms: stronger price, larger earnest money, shorter inspection period, flexible closing date, appraisal gap coverage, or letting the seller choose the closing timeline. A seller cares more about certainty than football tickets. Make the offer easier, cleaner, and safer for them, not gimmicky.

Who are you giving this to? Keith Jean-Pierre Managing Principal The Dapper Agents Operations In: NY, NJ, FL & CA

I have found that if there is a way to connect with a Seller, it is worth trying. I have had Buyers get creative and offer to pay moving costs up to a certain amount, offer a gift card to the restaurant on the corner where they likely have dined many times, and this did set those Buyers apart. But, some Sellers choose not to entertain these kind of things, like a love letter to the Seller, or even an escalation clause. I believe it is worth it if it is meaningful and is heartfelt in a connection... so tickets to a baseball game if they had baseball things all over the house might be appropriate, but if I were selling and that was offered, it would be awkward and weird as I have no interest in basement. So in my opinion, it's about making a connection. People often care about who is buying their home, where they have made memories and lived life. They often want to know it's going to good hands, or to Buyers that you have something in common with, a connection.

Most sellers aren’t looking for those kind of ‘extras’, they are looking for the offer that nets them the most. A creative offer with things like: paying seller taxes for the portion of the year; escalation clause (automatically puts your offer ahead of others by $1000 up to a max of $x); offer to pay some of seller closing costs… Depending on the home and your situation, there are always ways to make your offer stand out!

The real question is what can you offer a Seller that would be something that they want? Most instances its terms and price for the house they are selling. Submitting the cleanest (least contingencies) and best price you are able to offer and also working around their selling timeline can set yours ahead of other offers. Make sure that your agent is communication with the Sellers agent "prior" to making the offer and find out what is "important" to them and cater your offer around that the best you can.