I am "burning the midnight oil" as my mom used to say. Another of her favorite sayings is, "You're burning the candle at both ends." I guess working late hours must come naturally in my family! It's important to realize, however, that I wouldn't be working these late hours if there wasn't a lot of real estate work to do this late! It's most exciting to see the real estate market buzzing with buyers, offers and even multiple offers on the bargain-priced & foreclosure properties! What a busy day!
Why am I still here? After a very busy day, I got an offer on one of my homes for sale at approximately 7 p.m. It took until nearly 9 p.m. to give them all of the active listing and comparable sold information they needed to make an informed decision on what and how they wanted to counter the offer.
An important factor in making the decision on whether to counter is for the seller to decide how much they want to move forward with their lives and how much they want to maintain the value in their home. Only the seller can determine which is the most important to them in their lives right now.
The seller also needs to realize in a market like this that there are more houses for sale than buyers to buy them. If the seller counters the offer it's just like catching that big fish and cutting the line. The buyer doesn't have to swim back even to the same price they offered in the first place. The seller must decide if they want to risk losing the buyer with a counter offer. It's like deciding if you would buy your own home back for the price the buyer offers. Does that make sense? On the other hand, the seller wants to get all he can out of the home especially when many sellers are actually losing money on their homes.
What an important decision! I worked hard to answer every question and give them every detail until they were comfortable making their counter offer. I always recommend a counter or acceptance. There is no point to throw away a buyer in this market with a rejection. There's a good chance the buyers and sellers can go back and forth until they make a win-win situation for both if their real estate agents have reasonable negotiating skills.
It made me feel very good about the length of time that I spent going over all of the market data when the sellers told me how very grateful they were that I had given them the information they needed to be knowledgeable in this market. They said they were so happy they had listed with me. Even though we had gone over the list and sold information when they listed, and I had given them market updates, I believe it is important to give them a market overview again when an offer comes. The information needs to be up to the minute when considering an offer. Actually, if you are a buyer or seller, you should request market information from your real estate agent when presenting or receiving and offer.
By the time the offer was totally accepted by the seller, it was late tonight. I still had 2 offers to write for an investor on two of my short sale listings! Here I am finally blogging! It may be after midnight, but I feel my time has been well spent. It feels good inside to know you've done a good job for your clients, and that they really appreciate your experience, expertise, knowledge of the market and top service.
I'd love to hear any of your comments regarding the real estate market today! Please call Janet at 435-865-1019 or email naisbitt@infowest.com. Check out my website please at www.homesincedarcity.com.
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