Putting up homes for sale offers no guarantees that you will find a buyer and the deal will go through, but it can look promising when your real estate agent calls you and tells you he or she has received an offer for your house. When this happens, you will get to look it over, and you should carefully scrutinize it so you fully understand what it entails, and you will have the opportunity to reject it, accept it, or counter it. If the offer is not exactly as good as what you hoped for, you could always counter it, and here are three principles to keep in mind if you're wondering if you should write a counter offer.
Accept the offer if it is close to your original terms
The first principle to use when making the decision whether to counter the offer or not is how fair the offer is. If someone makes an offer that is very close to the terms you have set forth, it is usually good just to accept the offer exactly how it is. By doing this, you can be certain that the deal will go through, as long as the inspections pass and so forth, and you will have a great chance of closing on the sale.
Split the difference in price
A second principle to keep in mind if you decide to counter the offer is splitting the difference. For example, if someone offers you $250,000 for your house, you should consider countering with $260,000 if the house was listed at $270,000. This would split the $20,000 difference in half, and this would be fair. You would receive only $10,000 less than what you wanted, and the buyer would still be getting $10,000 off the deal.
Give them something for each request
The other important principle to keep in mind is giving the buyer something for each request. In other words, if the buyer has five requests in the offer and you decide to counter it, make sure you are still giving the buyer five different things. For example, if one of the things the buyer asked for was for you to refinish the back deck on the house, and if you do not want to do this, you could offer $500 off the price of the home to help the buyer pay for this work.
When countering an offer, you are taking a risk, but there is a good chance the buyer might accept it if the counter offer is fair. To learn more about writing a good counter offer, talk to a real estate agent in your area.
Share10 May 2017
I have never been one of those people who loves to shop, which is probably one of the reasons I had such a difficult time choosing a house. I wanted to find the perfect little place for my family to grow up, but that was easier said than done. I knew that I wanted to work with a professional who could really grasp my vision and put me in a place that I would love, so I started focusing on finding the right professional. After a brief search, I was able to find a team of real estate brokers that I knew would do a great job. This blog is all about choosing the best real estate agent for your personality.
