I bought in Northern Virginia this year, and lost 3 or 4 offers to competitors that were 15-20% over asking. Standard was always no contingencies (no inspection, no financing, nothing) and settle as fast as the mortgage company could underwrite you. You had to really trust your mortgage broker and your agent to pull through. Probably saw 50 houses before getting lucky on an offer because our agent had a connection. It was a pretty awful experience and you were forced to make a terrifying decision very quickly. I still remember the surreal experiencing of clicking the DocuSign button that evening that would result in me being on the hook for multiple hundreds of thousands of dollars...