Accepting an offer on your property

You’ve listed your house for sale and have an offer - maybe multiple offers! You are ecstatic to move onto your next adventure and sell but you want to make sure you choose the highest, strongest offer while keeping your needs accounted for. While your listing agent will help guide this process, there are a few things to take into account:

• Request pre-approval documentation prior to accepting any offer. While not wise, buyers will submit home purchasing offers without being pre-approved for a loan. Ensure you receive pre-approval documentation with all submitted offers.

• Price - of course an offer over-asking is ideal and all sellers are thrilled to get a price higher than what they listed. You want to ensure that if you get an offer over-asking, the buyers have enough funds to cover any potential difference in appraisal. Remember, your agent is listing your house at the going rate of homes in your area taking into account market conditions. If the appraisal comes in lower than the offer price for purchase, the buyer needs to bring the difference to the table at closing.

• Buyer Contingencies - an offer waiving usual and customary contingencies is a homerun. If a buyer is willing to waive finance, home sale, and/or inspection contingencies, it is definitely one that should be at the top of your potential acceptance list.

• Seller Contingencies - Your agent will be adding your contingencies as part of this transaction so make sure you tell them everything that is necessary for you to complete the sale. Take into account your need to find suitable housing prior to closing, as well as anything in the house that you may want to keep that is real property. Real property is items that are fixed to the property and thus sell with the house by default unless otherwise contracted. Maybe the curtain rods in your living room came from a family home and have been handed down through the generations - you will need to ask your agent to specify in the agreement that these will not convey with the sale.

• Weigh sight unseen offers against seen offers. In a seller’s market, you will see buyers make an offer sight unseen as the market goes crazy the second a house comes onto the MLS. While a sight unseen offer may be $3,000 higher than an offer from a buyer who toured the house, the buyer will generally have a due diligence period to back out of the house which is more likely when the first time they’re seeing the property is on inspection and they decide it’s not their style. Then the process to find a buyer starts all over again.