Losing the deal while bargaining with the seller happens more often than you think
Do you want to offer what the seller is asking, or do you want to offer more? Then again, depending on market conditions, you might want to offer less and see if the seller is willing to bargain.
Beyond that, though, you must decide if you want to protect yourself by making the sale dependent on, say, a satisfactory home inspection, an appraisal, or even your ability to secure a mortgage at a specified rate.
Maybe you want to make the deal contingent on the sale of your current house or your ability to break your lease. You also might want to include something about timing: the closing date or preferred movein date, for example. And you might consider asking the seller to pay at least a portion of your closing costs.
In real estate, everything is negotiable. Your agent should help you decide how to proceed with these and other decisions. But perhaps the most important consideration for buyers is how you think the seller will respond.
The seller could accept your offer as written – “the best of all considerations,” says Montana broker Kat Palmiotti of eXp Realty – or they could reject it without blinking an eye.
Most often, though, they will counter with an offer of their own -- maybe at a somewhat higher price than you offered, but changing nothing else. Or perhaps they’ll accept your price but change other elements. Even if they change everything, the good news is that by countering your offer, the seller is saying they are willing to bargain.
On the flip side, though, if there is too much back-andforth, the deal can get bogged down until it simply dissolves without any kind of resolution. Or, while you and the seller are trading proposals, another buyer can swoop in with a better offer and take the house out from under you.
Parrying with a seller is “part of the game people play” in real estate, says retired agent Carol Williams in Wenatchee, Washington. “But it’s not without risk.”
Some agents, like Doug Dawes of Keller Williams Realty in Topsfield, Massachusetts, believe that there can never be too many counteroffers. After all, another counter means there may still be some wiggle room.
Donald Payne of Vision Realty in Columbus, Ohio, tells his clients, “Never let a contract die unless it’s simply ridiculous.”
But negotiations sometimes go awry. One time, Anna Kruchten of the Phoenix Property Shoppe was up to six counteroffers when the seller became so frustrated that he started crossing out more items in the buyer’s latest offer than he had in previous ones. The buyer walked, and the “hardheaded” seller waited “quite some time” before he found another buyer.
Chuck Willman of Utah Homes in Alpine can top that, though. He has seen 14 counteroffers -- a battle that ended with just $1,500 separating the parties on a $1.1 million transaction and neither side willing to budge any further. The buyer and seller were both so angry, Willman recalls, that they wouldn’t even accept an agent’s offer to make up the difference out of his commission.
“It was probably for the better,” he says. “The two parties had such resentment that an accepted offer would have been just the first of many disagreements.”
Mike McCann, a Nebraska farmland broker, once worked with a buyer who insisted on countering “despite my warnings.” And sure enough, a stronger offer came in, and the buyer lost out. “That was an expensive lesson,” he says.
Some buyers sit on a counteroffer from the seller, whether to decide how to proceed or to put a little extra pressure on the seller. But in doing so, warns Amanda Davidson of eXp Realty in Alexandria, Virginia, they put themselves in jeopardy of losing the deal.
Losing the deal while bargaining with the seller happens more often than you might think.
“Time opens the opportunity for another buyer to tour the home and write an offer,” says Willman. “The odds of you being the only buyers ... interested in the home are low – nonexistent, in some markets.”
And it works the same way with sellers. “I often tell sellers not to sit on an offer, as a buyer might very well move on to another property,” says Nina Hollander of Coldwell Banker in Charlotte, North Carolina.
Buyers and sellers alike should rely on their agents’ expertise as they guide them through negotiations. And as you go through the process, keep your emotions in check. Remember, the house you are buying or selling is still essentially a product, and the goal is to come to an agreement that both sides can live with.
To protect yourself, though, make sure there is no confusion about what you are agreeing to. Read all the clauses in the contract carefully before you initial them. And if you’ve gone back and forth several times, consider rewriting the agreement into a brand-new, clean contract.
Lew Sichelman has been covering real estate for more than 50 years. Readers can contact him at lsichelman@aol.com.
We are all burdened with quirks, and one of mine — an admissible one, at least — is my predilection for visiting model homes and weekend open houses. I like to snoop around and study how people or designers put together living spaces. That curiosity, I believe, stems from my lack of decorating skills. I’m pretty much plain vanilla, with the odd splash of color.
I hadn’t indulged myself in a while, namely because my similarly inclined friend who came along on these adventures had lost interest in state-of-the-art kitchens. A bummer, as these expeditions aren’t as much fun alone.
But on a recent trip to visit a son and his family, I seized an unexpected opportunity and dragged The Hubby to the model center for a new home community. We were, by no means, the target market, as the advertising, which touted familyfriendly amenities, was directed at young couples with children.
No matter. We paraded from house to house, climbed stairs, opened kitchen cupboards, poked around master bedrooms, and spent most of the time exclaiming: Can you believe this? And we weren’t referring to the details we discovered. (The built-in spice rack!
His and hers sinks! Indoor laundry room!)
The houses were beautiful inside, yes, but what really struck us was their size. Except for a couple of the more modest townhomes, the single family abodes were ginormous. One model boasted five bedrooms, another a three-car garage, a third had spacious in-law quarters with its own entrance. Really, you could accommodate an entire fourth-grade class and have plenty of space left over. Or at least it seemed so to me.
I’m no stranger to large houses. I raised my five kids in one that needed an intercom to communicate from one end to another. No one used it. We shouted instead. Which goes to show that amenities aren’t as essential as we think they are. When my youngest left for college, we downsized to a singlefamily home about half the size. At the time, I thought it small. Where would I put all my stuff?
A dozen years later,
I’m convinced we should have opted for something more compact. We spend our time in the same four rooms. No one sits in the living room. No one eats in the dining room. Two bedrooms go unused except for guest visits.
It’s embarrassing, perhaps even shamefully unfair, if you consider the national housing shortage. And in case you think we live in luxury, let me quickly disabuse you of that notion. Our suburban neighborhood is solidly middle to upper middle class.
The Hubby and I grew up in houses half the size of our current home. We shared bedrooms with siblings. The use of the bathroom was on a firstcome, first-serve basis. A walk-in closet was unheard of. And no one I knew had a breakfast nook in addition to a dining room. Now we’ve come to expect certain conveniences.
Curious, I did some quick research about our housing habits. One real estate data website reported that the average individual living in a newly built home today enjoys 211% more living space than their counterpart in 1910. Ironically, the expansion comes at a time when family size is shrinking.
I’m not sure what to make of this. Having lived in both cramped and spacious quarters, I know there are benefits to each. It’s nice to have elbow room, nice, too, when there’s no need to draw dividing lines in the bedroom you share with your brother and sister. And walk-in closets, they’re the bomb, for sure!
In retrospect, however, there’s something to be said for forced encounters. You learn useful life lessons when you must negotiate who gets the top dresser drawer or when you broker longer shower privileges. It seems to me that it’s better to learn these valuable skills at home with people who love you than in the outside world that can be so cruel.
Ana Veciana-Suarez writes about family and social issues. Email her at avecianasuarez@gmail.com or visit her website anavecianasuarez.com. Follow @AnaVeciana.
This may be the year of hard-to-snag Beyoncé and Taylor Swift tickets, but next year’s hottest attraction is lining up to be a literal force of nature.
A total solar eclipse will occur April 8, 2024, and an arc of North America from Mexico’s Pacific Coast to Newfoundland, Canada, will be the prime viewing area.
In a total eclipse, the moon passes between the sun and Earth and blocks the face of the sun, darkening the daytime sky to look like dawn or dusk. There won’t be another total eclipse that can be viewed from most of the United States for 20 years.
“The daytime suddenly turns to a deep twilight and ... when totality begins, [it] looks like there’s a hole in the sky,” said Michael Zeiler, who runs GreatAmericanEclipse