Making YOUR Offer The Most Attractive It Can Be
Here are some tips for making your offer on your potential new home as attractive to the seller it can be:
1) Get a pre-approval from the mortgage company that the LISTING agent uses most.
This will allow the listing agent, who will be presenting your offer to the seller, to be comfortable with your financing arrangements.
2) Narrow your contingency periods to ten (10) days maximum. Not business days either. Make sure you can clear your schedule to do all your inspections on a timely basis. Nothing sours a seller like “15 business days” to do a home inspection.
3) If you are flexible in the dates you can settle, give the seller the option to pick the settlement date. You can write a contract that gives the seller the right to choose your settlement date within a specific period of time, like “ from 30 to 90 days from execution of the contract”..seller to decide.
4) If the seller is buying another home, and doing so locally, consider allowing his or her title company to do your title work. Most title rates are standard, and you (generally speaking) will not incur more costs by having your title work done by a company you or your realtor chooses.
5) Write a nice note to the seller, to be presented with your offer telling him or her why you love their home, and why you want to buy their home. If it evokes a special emotion out of you, let the seller know. Every seller wants their home to be “loved”….let them know you love their home!
These tips may give you an edge in a competitive offer situation, or may just save you a couple of dollars when it comes time to negotiate with the seller! Good Luck, and know that the dollar amount you are offering is NOT the only factor your seller may consider when looking at your offer!
Mark Wade
www.CenterCityCondos.com
Prudential Fox and Roach REALTORS®
530 Walnut St., Philadelphia, PA 19106
hey – good idea about the letter to the seller. Kinda sounds hokey, but my friends did it when they bought their place and it made the seller feel really good about leaving a home filled with pride in good hands.
Comment by mitch — December 15, 2006 @ 10:49 amI like the idea of giving the seller an open ended settlement date- Could be used in lieu of a higher price. Especially if seller is buying new constuction, and he is not sure of when he can vacate.
Comment by M.P. — December 16, 2006 @ 10:04 pmI totally agree about writing a note to the seller. When I bought my last house, as it turned out, the seller was the one who did most of the rehab work. He could not have been more flattered and my husband and I had gotten the house….in a multiple offer situation to boot!!
Comment by phyllis — December 17, 2006 @ 4:16 pmI keep hearing its a buyer’s market. Is that true? How low is too low to make an offer?
Comment by Steve — February 12, 2007 @ 8:59 amI live in 2219 Delancey now. The heating is outrageously expensive and non functional to boot. You would have to figure in a new system for heating and ac on our unit anyway.
Comment by Ruth Feldman — April 29, 2007 @ 6:20 pmIt seems that the market for the first half of 2007 here in Center City was pretty good, but it looks like a lot of asking prices are dropping…anyone else notice?
Comment by Steven E. — June 21, 2007 @ 8:06 pm