Good Morning, folks! It's beautiful here in Chicago today! Hope it's nice where you are!
You men (and sons) - in case you've forgotten - Sunday, May 11th, is Mother's Day. Quick, head to Walgreen's and buy your card - or pay the consequences Sunday! (I'll be headed out there after I post this - you probably guessed that!)
I'd like to create a short scenario for you.
You sell one of your listings. Here comes the inspection. In this market, here in Chicago, and I am sure in your market as well, this inspection is sometimes followed by a laundry list of unreasonable repair requests, or demands for financial compensation in lieu of repairs.
Most often, these requests border on extortion, and are unfounded!
Well, what do you do?
Do you just negotiate with the unreasonable buyer? Or, do you quickly reactivate your listing, at your seller client's direction, and attempt to generate back-up offers?
I choose the reactivation strategy most often - our Team we feel we owe it to our listing clients not to negatively impact market time waiting for an unreasonable buyer to come around - especially in today's real estate market!
In other situations, the inspection is OK - but you get clues from the buyer's lender, when doing your due-dilligence after contract acceptance, that their Pre-Approval Letter may have a lot of strings attached, or the buyer is not completing their loan application on a timely basis.
Just had a situation like this one one of our Downtown Chicago Condos. After getting no satisfactory information on the loan status from the Buyer's Agent or lender - we reactivated the listing! Two days later, we got a CASH back-up offer, which my client subsequently accepted, after taking the necessary procedural and legal steps to terminate the first, potentially-financially-unqualified buyer.
However, I have found that many other agents around here don't do what we do! They simply wait around for the buyer to come to their senses - either drop or pare down their inspection demands, or properly complete their loan application process - and only then return the property to the market if the deal dies.
My concern here is that you are losing valuable market time by waiting for an unreasonable or not-forthcoming buyer to straighten up his act. And, legally and as a fiduciary, you owe it to your seller to do all you can to help them sell their property, on a timely basis, and with the best price and terms.
How do YOU handle potential back-up offer situations like these? Will you please share?
DEAN & DEAN'S TEAM CHICAGO
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Good thoughts, Dean. I like to require a second deposit after the inspection period, just to give my Seller an out if the Buyer is playing games. The Buyer often takes the attitude "So What! I'll ignore the contract, because how many offers could they have in this market?" Sometimes the Buyer is right, but as you point out, sometimes a better deal comes along. Nice to have a hole card in this game.
JimG