No one wants to feel like they’ve been taken advantage of in a housing transaction. These days, in most markets prices are rising and inventory is still tight, which means that tossing a lowball offer isn’t just bad form; it’s a sure-fire way to kill any hopes of getting a seller to accept your offer. But many buyers may not realize how much the market has recovered and their price expectations may not be rooted in reality. It’s our job to educate you and help guide you when it comes to determining what offer will get them a great deal, without totally turning off a seller.
We want to make a Lowball Offer – It’s a Buyer’s Market
Market Reality Check
Comps
You cannot Drag it out
We Don’t Want to Insult the Sellers
Market Reality Check
We have to banish any misconceptions about market temperature from the get go by explaining how homes in the area are actually selling. Instead of focusing on what’s currently on the market, we will you what has sold in the last few months and highlight the difference between the list price and the sale price. This should give you a good sense of market temperature and how much you should offer below or above the asking price.
Comps
We will sit down with our buyers and show them similar properties that are on the market now or that have sold in the past two months. By showing them how a home stacks up against like properties, we help them understand how factors like square footage, lot size, and age can affect the price. This data reinforces everything we show our buyers.
You cannot Drag it out
Most buyers are already fatigued from a few months of house hunting, we will not let you blow it with a lowball offer. Our responsibility is to help our buyers avoid wasting even more time and money by reminding them how long homes stay on the market and how much time we both invested in this process. Research shows that a typical home search takes 12 weeks, so if this happens, basically we are back to square one in finding them their new home.
We Don’t Want to Insult the Sellers
Most sellers have an emotional attachment to their homes. It’s a place where they’ve invested time and quite a bit of money making it their own. Maybe they’ve raised their family or celebrated major life events there. You get the idea: the value is sentimental as well as monetary. If you disregard this complex relationship with a lowball offer, you risk insulting the sellers and losing out on the home. Even if the you plan is to get a counter offer and settle somewhere in between, starting off with a too-low offer can be so off-putting to the sellers that they refuse to work with you at all. As a buyer you must put themselves in the sellers’ shoes: How would they feel if they got such an offer? We have to remind you that, when it comes to buying someone’s home, it’s not strictly business. There’s an emotional element, too. Reasonable buyers should understand this, and with our help, they should be equipped to make a fair initial offer.
Nick & Cindy Davis are available to assist you in finding your new home for you and your family. We are always just a click here or call to 813-300-7116 away. Let’s get started working together. You will never overpay if we represent you.
