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elling a home can be very stressful, and in today’s market, that stress level can make you go into cardiac arrest if you aren’t careful. Dealing with the market conditions the way they are today is hard on any seller, whether you have equity or not.
What makes it even harder to sell a home, is the way you feel when you finally get an offer, and it’s so low you want to wring the potential buyers neck!
Hold on there, take a step back, and think really hard about the situation. How long have you been on the market? How much do you really need to get out of your home? Is this offer going to be the only offer you get? Are they just testing you, or are they shopping low balls all over the county?
If you don’t ask yourself these questions when you get a low offer, you either don’t have a good agent that has educated you, or you can’t fathom selling your home at a reasonable price. Most of the time, that low ball offer can be negotiated into a reasonable price for your home. Never reject an offer, you should always counter back. Even if the offer is off by a whopping $100,000 or more, you should counter back.
Countering a low ball offer gives you two things. First, you get to tell them to take their offer and stick it! Second, you get to see how serious they really are. They offer low, you counter at full price, or if you want to show them that you really are interested in selling the home, counter back at a price that is reasonable for you.
If they don’t come up on their offering price, then it may be a good time to reject the offer, but only after you have tested their willingness to play ball. Remember, a low offer is still an offer, and with the amount of inventory on the market these days, you should treat every offer very seriously. Happy Selling!
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{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }
Lisa,
You’re completely right. No one benefits by rejecting the offer right away. Commerce has always been done by method of bargaining and selling property isn’t any different.
Buyer and seller have different interests (their own), but there is often a common ground.
Great article. Many people are afraid of countering the offer because they’re afraid that the buyer will walk out.