Sellers guide to negotiations and counter offers when selling a house and you have employed a Realtor®, established a listing price for your home, and put your house on the market.
Several Las Vegas home buyers have attended showings, and one or two have been highly complimentary about your home.
Sooner or later, you’ll get a buyer interested enough to make an offer. That is when you need aellers guide to negotiations and counter offers when selling a house.
Sellers Guide to Negotiations and Counter Offers When Selling a House
Sellers Guide to Negotiations and Counter Offers When Selling a House
The problem is, when the offer arrives on your agent’s desk, it’s not entirely what you were expecting.
Perhaps the price is too low, or the offer is so stuffed with contingencies you fear that you will never reach closing.
Is this the end of the road?
In most cases, it’s just the beginning of a successful transaction.
Negotiations and counter offers are a normal part of the home selling process.
Going back and forth, you can soon reach a happy deal.
Sellers guide to negotiations and counter offers when selling a house and here is how you get there.
Receiving an Offer On Your Home – Selling a House
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Before you can make a counteroffer, you need an offer.
A buyer makes this by filling out a standard residential purchase agreement document.
Don’t let the name confuse you.
The pre-printed “contract” is not legally binding until both parties agree to its terms and sign the contract in evidence of this fact.
Until you sign, the document is simply an offer. This is why it is essential to understand the seller’s guide to negotiations and counter offers when selling a house.
A buyer’s offer is their opening gambit.
Using the standard document, the buyer inserts all the terms they would like to include in the deal, such as:
- the price
- the down payment
- who pays closing costs
Any contingencies, such as a finance contingency if the buyer needs mortgage finance to proceed with the deal or a condition that the buyer sells their current home before they buy this one.
If you like the offer, you can accept it by signing the offer document.
At this point, the offer turns into a binding purchase agreement.
Neither you nor the buyer can back out of the deal unless the contract allows you to do this, for example, if the buyer’s home inspection throws up material repairs that the buyer is unwilling to take on.
In most cases, the original offer from the buyer is not acceptable.
You now have two choices: reject the offer outright or make adjustments to it.
This is known as making a counteroffer.
Making a Counter Offer
Like an offer, the seller’s counteroffer is made on a pre-printed document called, plainly, a counteroffer.
This is your opportunity to change any terms the buyer suggested and write in your own words.
For example, you might:
- raise the offer price
- request a higher earnest money deposit
- delete some of the personal property the buyer is asking you to sell with the home
- Bring forward the date by which the buyer has to satisfy acceptable contingencies, for example, by insisting the Las Vegas home buyer approves a home inspection within ten days of the offer being accepted.
You must sign the counteroffer and deliver it to the buyer or agent to be binding.
Once you do this:
- Legally, you have REJECTED the buyer’s original offer. Therefore, think carefully before filing a counteroffer, as it cancels the buyer’s initial request. You cannot later accept the original offer if you change your mind.
- Your counteroffer is a NEW OFFER. This puts the ball back in the buyer’s court.
- Counter offers continuously contain an expiration date, such as 5 pm on the third day after the request is signed. You can set the counteroffer to expire within one hour if you wish though it’s recommended that you give the buyer a reasonable amount of time to consider the terms you are proposing.
The counter offer expires if the Las Vegas home buyers do not respond by the expiration date.
You have now fallen out of negotiations with that particular buyer.
Those negotiations can only be reactivated by the buyer submitting a new offer.
What the buyer does next – Sellers Guide.
When he receives a counteroffer, the buyer has three choices:
- Accept the offer. The buyer does this by signing the counteroffer before expiration and delivering the signed request to you or your real estate agent.
- Reject the offer. The buyer can discard your counteroffer and take no further action. At this point, the deal is off the table and can only be reactivated by the buyer making a new offer.
- Counter the counteroffer. The buyer can make a second counteroffer, or even a third or a fourth until you reach a deal. Thankfully, multiple counter offers are rare. Most well-advised buyers and sellers go to an agreement after one or two rounds of negotiation.
When you should counter offer, and when you should not
Counter offers are where the rubber meets the road of the value you get from your real estate agents.
They handle offers and counter offers day in and day out and will have a good handle on whether a buyer’s offer is good enough.
Multiple factors come into play here.
You have a price expectation, and your real estate agent will do his best to meet that expectation.
If the offer is unreasonable, your real estate agent will invariably advise you to submit a counteroffer.
However, if you are selling your home in a buyer’s market, the buyer may have his pick of suitable homes in your area.
Sellers guide to negotiations and counteroffers when selling a house in making a counter offer, even one that seems reasonable, may drive the buyer towards the second home on his list, and you may end up with no deal.
Conversely, in a seller’s market with a shortage of suitable homes, the buyer may be prepared to hang in through two or three rounds of counter offers to secure their dream home.
You can probably afford to push for your perfect deal in this scenario.
The buyer’s motivation is the second factor your real estate agent will investigate.
If the offer is unacceptable and you need to counter, what type of counteroffer will best hit the buyer’s buttons?
A counteroffer that raises the price or keeps the price lower but reduces the closing costs paid by the seller?
The net dollar price of the two counteroffers may be the same, but the buyer may find one deal more palatable than the other.
Sellers guide to negotiations and counter offers when selling a house best advice is to listen to your Realtor® and tread lightly.
If you can live with most of the items on the offer, it’s probably better to take it.
After all, having a willing and able buyer under contract is worth far more than having a home sitting on the market waiting for the perfect offer.
Sellers guide to negotiations and counter offers when selling a house, so thinking of selling your home? First, let’s start a conversation, even if it’s early.
Re Max, real estate agents, have expert real estate agents across the nation happy to discuss your plans.
Feel free to use our 15-second Home Value Estimator and look at what your home may sell for today.
Call Bob & Diana with Ratliff Realty Group with RE/MAX Las Vegas!
Sellers Guide to Negotiations and Counter Offers When Selling a House
When buying or selling Las Vegas homes for sale.
Contact an experienced Realtor!
Bob and Diana
Robert Ratliff RE/MAX Reliance
702-508-8262
Sellers Guide to Negotiations and Counter Offers When Selling a House
