A great deal of work goes into getting your home listed for sale, yet one of the most difficult steps is figuring out the price you’re asking.
Although when you ultimately pick a price, you could still have offers come in that are under your asking price.
Sometimes the proper action is to accept that offer in a buyer’s market and go ahead with the sale of your home. It’s best to know how to counter the price submitted in the event that happens.
Recognizing how to prepare a counteroffer in the sale of your home may help you keep thousands of dollars.
Think about a Counteroffer
Wouldn’t it be ideal if you put your home up for sale for the price you feel it is worth and a buyer came along and quickly sent in a purchase offer for that price?
Unfortunately, in most cases, homeowners receive offers that are below the asking price. At these times, you can accept or reject the offer, or respond with a counteroffer with a higher price and/or different terms.
Set an Expiration Date on Your Counteroffer
To begin with, think about limiting the period of time your buyer has to accept your counter offer. In California’s competitive market, sellers usually give buyers 1 to 2 days. If they fail to respond, you entertain and consider the other buyer’s offers or terms that look attractive.
Think about Crediting the Buyer’s Closing Costs
An additional method to better your probability of having the buyer accept your counteroffer is by offering to pay some or all of their closing costs.
Buyers tend to be low on funds once they get closer to the closing date, which is a big reason that buyers ask the seller to pay the closing costs. Prior to the buyer asking, you can add closing cost credit within your counteroffer. For that matter, you may even raise the price you were asking. The buyer can pay for that through the home loan.
Counteroffer with Your List Price
After receiving a counteroffer, the majority of buyers normally respond to the seller with the list price. For one thing, many buyers just accept that offering below the list price is a foregone conclusion. Once they see you won’t change your price, they’ll understand you were not flexible when it comes to price and push them into offering your price.
In addition, a number of buyers are only looking for a bargain. They’ll send in various low-ball offers for multiple listings merely to see if a seller will accept it. If you counter with your list price and they’ll likely not be interested because they are not getting the deal they perceived as a discounted good price.
List Prices Are Strongest in a Seller’s Market
If you or your real estate agent had a comparative market analysis completed prior to listing your home, you understand the price your home will fetch in the neighborhood and should feel secure about the price you’re asking.
Don’t be overly concerned to counter with your original list price.
Having said that, your list price will ninety-nine times out of one hundred is supported better in a seller’s market. If you’re in a buyer’s market and their offer isn’t ridiculously low, it could be a good choice to accept it.
This is why it’s essential to pay for proven results to market your home. Regardless of the type of market you’re in, the more interest you generate, the more secure you’ll feel when you make a counteroffer.
Rejecting a Buyer’s Counteroffer
You should now understand you don’t need to accept or respond to any offer a buyer makes.
However, many buyers are not expecting a complete rejection of their offer. In summary, it’s puts the home buyer in an uncomfortable position of not knowing what the seller will accept.
You haven’t provided them with a counteroffer to accept or a baseline for the amount they could offer the second time around. This puts pressure on them because they know another buyer could offer the right amount at any moment.
