Negotiating With Buyers.

Ok, so you’ve priced your home correctly and you’ve marketed well and now there are droves of buyers in your front yard waving offers in the air, Great!

As a seller I think that the best advice I can give you is that you need to have a thick skin.  When you put your home on the market you have to try and find a way to distance yourself from the property.  This seems to be the hardest thing for most sellers to do.  Most of the time, when you’re selling a home you’ve lived in it and taken great care to maintain it and create a nice living space for yourself and your family.  And now after all of that you have to try and be emotionless.  Try to remember not to take anything personally.

This attitude will come in handy in the event that you get one of those so-called lowball offers.  Just remember if and when these offers to come and they are not personal.  So many times sellers get upset with these types of offers for no reason.  The biggest mistake is to take it personally, get upset, and not write a counter offer.  When someone submits a lowball offer they’re not trying to insult you, they’re simply trying to get a deal.  The thing to remember here is that they are interested in your property.  If you don’t write a counteroffer you may never know how interested they actually are.

Real estate contracts can be tricky.  If you don’t completely understand everything that’s in that offer, be sure to seek the advice of a professional who can thoroughly explain that offer to you.  There are many aspects of a real estate contract which can have a great effect on your bottom line.  Something as simple as the type of financing that the buyers getting to purchase your property can make a difference of thousands of dollars of your profit.

Make sure you pay attention to what kind of inspections and the buyer is asking for and who they want to pay for them.

Watch for contingencies, is the buyers offer contingent upon them selling their house?  This is certainly not a deal breaker but definitely something to watch for.

Closing costs, is the buyer paying their fair share or are they asking you to pay all the closing costs?  It’s not uncommon for buyers to ask for assistance in closing costs from the seller.

Earnest money is not required to have valid contract.  I’ll say that again, earnest money is not required to have a valid contract.  However as a seller it is in your best interest to get the buyer to commit to as large an earnest money deposit as possible.  Earnest money can be used to judge the quality of the offer being presented.  The larger the earnest money deposit, the better the chance that the buyer will be able to complete the transaction.