Make an Offer the Seller Won’t Refuse

It’s No Different in the Truckee Real Estate Market – There is Strategy to Making Your Offer Attractive…

Look at negotiating as a back and forth process and strive for a win-win scenario for everyone. You and the seller may have different ideas about what price the property should sell for. However, you’re united in a common goal of consummating a deal. The challenge is to resolve your differences through a process of give and take until you either reach your common goal, or decide to go your separate ways. Sometimes this will happen quickly and sometimes it’s a drawn out process that can take several days or even weeks. In our current Truckee real estate market, we are seeing as many as 5 and 6 counter offers pass between buyers and sellers before a deal is negotiated.

Buyers often think that if they start out offering too high initially, they’ll end up paying too much. Your initial offering price should be high enough to entice the seller into a dialogue. It’s a price to get the ball rolling. From there, you can move up in small increments. As your Truckee Realtors, we will help you determine the offering price that puts you at the best advantage throughout the negotiations.

When you make an offer and there’s no competition from other buyers, your initial offer price should leave you room to move up in price. But, it should not be so low that it’s insulting to the seller. Otherwise the seller might not respond at all. Working with both seller and buyers, we have been on both sides of the negotiating table with our clients and we know from experience that an offer that’s too low could give the seller the impression that you’re too far a part, you can’t afford more, so there’s no point in issuing a counter offer.

It’s important not to get so caught up in negotiating the price that you overlook other opportunities for building a good relationship with the seller. Good negotiations have a sense of fairness about them. During the process of your negotiation, we will collectively brainstorm all the possible ways that we can accommodate everyone. Keep in mind that a win-win scenario will have the best outcome.

Price, while important, is not the only thing that makes an offer appealing. Do the sellers need a quick close? Would they prefer a longer close because they have other obligations and can’t be moved out in 30 days? If so, the sellers might be willing to give up more on the price for a close of escrow that accommodates their particular needs.

If you are not planning to finance your purchase, an All Cash offer can be very appealing to a seller. Sometimes a seller will accept a lower price if they know the deal is not hinging on a loan contingency.

In the Truckee market, many homes are second homes and it might be worth asking if it would it be easier on the sellers if they don’t have to move all of their furnishings out of their home. Maybe you will want to negotiate and purchase some or all of the furnishings. This can be convenient for the seller and also for you.

Lastly, it always makes a seller feel confident when you are timely in making responses. Selling and buying can be stressful on both parties and being honest and upfront can go a long ways in making a deal come together.

We like to negotiate win-win transactions for our clients and we will give you different options for starting points and strategies that we think may be best for you and a particular purchase. Give Robbie and Karen a call today at (530) 412-0583 and we’ll help you get started.

We also encourage you to leave any questions and comments here. Thank you.