Another Low Offer!

It sure is getting hot these days. Summer weather is officially here. The temperature is rising daily as is seller's blood pressure. The current market sees many homes still available, but homes are selling. What gives? Well, from my experience, the homes that are selling are the properly priced homes, whether newly listed or reduced prices. The homes that were over-priced to give the seller negotiating room are sitting. These sellers are not seeing the traffic that the newly listed and competitively priced home are seeing. What's the lesson here? Listen to your realtor and price your home to be competitive with the surrounding listings. An over-priced home will not draw the attention that a competitively priced home does and will become stagnant after a few weeks. Additionally, there are more points to negotiate over than just price. Ask your Realtor what you may have that could be used or become a point of negotiations. A colleague recently had a property under contract and the buyers requested a handful of repairs well after the deadline specified in the home inspection addenda. Not wanting to lose the deal for sticking to the agreed contract, the sellers offered to leave a swingset that was currently in the rear yard. The buyers were excited when they heard this and decided to drop the requested repairs. The swingset may have had a value of $300, while the repairs would have costed $500-$700 and would have taken time and effort to have them done. Oh, by the way, the sellers never intended to take the swingset anyway! While price is a main point of interest for buyers, there are several other areas where a compromise can be made. Don't just think because someone makes an offer that is lower than your asking price that the offer is horrible. Take the time to weigh all of your options and maybe even ask the buyer's agent what the buyer's other needs are. Maybe there is something that is of value to the buyer that you wouldn't mind negotiating on.