Verbal Offers! Are you kidding me?!

You bring up a good point about making sure your sellers allow you to NOT present verbal offers.

I'm going to start incorporating that into my listings ASAP.

I usually just call the seller and tell them we have a verbal... blah-blah-blah... here are the terms they've given so far... yatta-yatta-yatta... and the seller usually feels that this is not an offer worth responding to if the buyer couldn't take the time to put it in writting.

Sincerely,

Last week I had an agent call me with a verbal...basically, price only...and $18k below list.

So, I asked agent: "Sandy, is this offer in writing?"

"No...they're just too busy." she says.

"OK Sandy, I'm not discussing this with the sellers until I see it in writing."

However, I did email my sellers...told 'em the gist of the offer.

We really didn't care about Sandy's offer...but it did get the seller to go back to his first offer he received about a month ago. At the time, he thought it was too low. After Sandy's 'non-offer'...it seemed fine.

So, seller now has a contract on the townhouse...and is looking at move up properties.

Sandy, did me a favor. She'll never know, however.

Hi Erika

Great topic. Agents like this are professional timewasters, who wonder why they only do 4 or 5 deals a year, if that many. They also spend a lot of their and your time talking about all the deals they have "in process" and the big ones that just barely missed getting ratified. When I see one of those coming over the hill in my direction, I catch them mid-air & mid-breath, letting them knnow that while, I appreciate their interest, we really don't have anything to talk about until they have it in writing, along with a check and a lender pre-approval letter. 

What I tell my sellers and agents about "verbal offers" is ALL VERBAL OFFERS are BEST in WRITING :-)

Interesting topic; verbal offers have been few in my experience; but price seems to be the key factor when they occur.  I'm turning in a purchase offer today and although I never intended to call with a verbal, the offer price is low enough that I wanted to do just that.  However, this just tells me the letter/note I normally write to accompany my offers (when I can't present them in person) has to include WHY the offer is what it is, along with my usual introduction of my buyer to the seller.

Had an agent call me once and say her investor client wanted to make an offer on a multi-family house I had listed, he always requests verbals; he had not even been in the house, but drove by and knew the area. The offer was not super low, he did not want an inspection. I suggested she at least get him in for a quick look (made me nervous otherwise) and so he did fnally go see it. So we didn't have to have a verbal discussion, my seller and I.

How do you guys feel about verbal discussions once a written offer is in counter offer? There have been a couple of times when one issue or another has been bantered back and forth a few times verbally before it's in writing.  But obviously nothing is etched in stone until the pen hits the paper.

Erika,

Per the statue of frauds no contract involving real estate may be negotiated verbally. Its agents like this that make the discount brokers seem like a good buy. Its up to the rest of us to show the world that he is a minority.

And then there's some Relo companies.  They don't want to see ANYTHING until all parties have agreed to all terms in principal - verbally.  I asked my manager and he said not uncommon.

So, I prepared a MOU (Memorandum of Understanding) stating what my buyer was planning to offer, so at least Relo would have something in writing - even though they didn't want anything in writing.  How crazy is that?

In the past when I have recieved verbal offers, I thanks thank the agent, Hang up the phone wait an hour or so then call them back and say "The seller really wants to see it in writing before he will consider it.  That has worked well me on this type of deal.