Negotiating the Sale

“You’ve received an offer on your house!”

Those are the words you’ve been waiting to hear, and finally… An offer! Your excitement comes to a screeching halt, however, when you hear the next words… the amount offered. It’s much lower than you expected. Should you even waste your time with a counter?

Before you decide to completely reject the offer, make a careful evaluation. How does your home compare to the others in your area? Is it priced similarly, or is it higher than them? Is your area a Buyer’s Market or a Seller’s Market? Most would say they’re in a “Buyer’s Market”. Besides that, it’s easy for our emotions to get involved. After all, this is your house. You’ve spent a lot of time here. You’ve put work into it. Perhaps you’ve raised your children in it. And you’ve made many good memories here. But in order to get your house sold, you’ll have to take your emotional attachment out of the picture. So, then, all that considered, do you have reasonable expectations for a sale price?

Now, that doesn’t mean you have to accept unreasonably low offers. Many buyers out there “test the waters” to see how great of a “deal” they can get. So try not to be offended if you receive something that you feel is just too low, especially if there really aren’t too many buyers in the market. Rather, consider a reasonable counter offer. You’ll know by what the Buyer responds with whether he is a serious buyer, or just a buyer looking for something ridiculously cheap.

At any rate, sometimes the Buyer may just be going his lowest, and is willing to go up from there. Hopefully that is the case. But if not, and if offers are hard to come by, you may want to consider lowering your asking price. Remember, Sellers don’t usually get as much as they’d like for their property, and Buyers usually pay more than they’d like to pay. If you lower your price into a new price bracket (for example from $215,000 down to $199,900), you may attract a whole new area of Buyers you hadn’t yet reached. This could prove very helpful in finding the right Buyer for your home!

If you’re trying to sell your home, check out FreeRealtyOnilne.com and list for free! Maybe it will aid you in finding the right buyer so you can “negotiate a sale”!

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