Tips to Determine the Right Offer for Your Home

How do you determine the right offer for your home? What process should you use to choose between multiple offers on your home? As a seller, having to answer these two questions is a good sign because it means your listing agent’s marketing strategy is working and attracting buyer interest in your home for sale in North Carolina.

Each purchase offer you receive will be different and comes with its set of positives and negatives. You’ll want to review each offer carefully with your North Carolina real estate agent to determine specific strengths and weaknesses. Remember, all offers are negotiable, and it is your option to accept an offer, reject it, or to respond with a counteroffer. Let’s take a look at a few tips that will help determine the right offer for your home.

Getting Personal

Here’s a bit of advice to consider before you sit down to review offers with your listing agent: don’t take offers personally and don’t be offended by comments from buyers justifying lowball offers. Treat the sale of your home as a business transaction because allowing your emotions to interfere with your thinking and negotiating tactics is the perfect recipe for an unsuccessful sale.

Start with a Plan

Before you interview North Carolina listing agents, you should take the time to sit down and start thinking about what terms of sale are most important to you. Are you relocating and you need a fast sale to close on your new home? Is price the most important factor to you and your spouse? Do you want an offer that is free from a long list of buyer contingencies?

Once you hire an agent to list your home for sale, share your home selling goals with that agent. Ask for help in refining those goals when needed. This list will give you a foundation when reviewing offers and help you determine the right offer to counter or accept.

Earnest Money Amount

Sellers should discuss earnest money with their agents and ask for their agent’s opinion on an appropriate amount a potential buyer should offer as earnest money. Have this discussion before receiving offers on your home. If you receive two comparable offers and one has a larger, more appropriate, amount of earnest money, then you should give that offer more consideration as the buyer is showing more commitment to purchasing your North Carolina home.

Buyer Has Loan Pre-Approval

Have the buyers attached a pre-qualification or pre-approval letter showing they’ve already been approved for financing? Like the earnest money amount, a buyer who goes through the process to get approved for financing shows they are committed to buying a house. Most contracts between buyers and sellers are contingent on the ability of a buyer to obtain a loan. Without loan pre-approval, a pending sale could be derailed by a buyer not receiving financing.

Buyer’s Home Must Sell

Does one offer have a contingency that states the buyer’s home must sell for your pending sale to go through? Many things can happen to derail a pending sale, especially when another home sale is involved and you can’t control the process or head off issues. It may be in your best interest to decline any offer with this contingency even if the offer price is slightly higher than other offers.

Buyer Wants Seller Concessions

Are you willing to pay some of the costs, like closing costs, on behalf of the buyer? A buyer’s offer may request seller concessions because it may then allow buyers to put down a larger down payment and receive better loan terms. Being willing to bring money for seller concessions could help you sell your home faster and may save you money if those costs are less than your mortgage payments.

Obviously, these are not the only tips to determine the right offer for your home. Remember, it all goes back to your goals. Sometimes the convenience of a fast, contingency-free home sale trumps a higher-priced offer tilted heavily in the buyer’s favor. When deciding between multiple offers, take your time and review each offer, ask for advice from your listing agent, and make a decision based on what is right for you and your family.

Have more questions about choosing the right offer or any other questions about selling your home? Do not hesitate to contact us at Red Door Company. We would love the opportunity to sell your North Carolina home.