You Received Multiple Offers, Now What?

In Frisco Texas multiple offers for homes under $500K have become much more common on properly represented homes. Two weeks ago a home I listed received several excellent offers. I sat down with my sellers and walked through each offer. There are certain things in a contract that may take on different priorities for my sellers than for me.

What's Important

I think it is important to ask questions and listen when you first win the listing. It is often a good time to review their goals before looking at all the offers to make sure they tell you their priorities. Rather than reliving one particular event, lets look at the many things that are negotiable in the promulgated Texas contract.

Negotiating a Contract

Variables

Without even looking at addendum including contingencies, there are more than 20 variables that are negotiable in a contract. The exact number may vary between contracts depending on how they are written but typically at least 20. Many people think of price and earnest money. While these are important understanding that the offer price and the actual net price being offered can be substantially different.  Determining which out of these 20 plus variables are important to your clients or if you are a FSBO to you can be challenging.

Once you have the contract, you see things like sale price, exclusions, earnest money, title company, title policy, financing, survey date and responsibility, objections, disclosure, service contract, option time and money, closing date, settlement charges, etc... As a seller's agent, understanding what is important to your client and presenting the offers in priority based on your client's needs can be challenging. This is where you have to be able to explain what is driving your recommendation as to one offer being stronger than another. To digress just a little bit, as a buyer's agent it is just as important to understand how to craft an offer that is stronger than the rest.

Quick Summary

This is not an instructional post on how to evaluate offers but from MY PERSPECTIVE, the focus has to be on how do I help my clients get their requirements met and make sure we close. If you don't close, you don't get anything. With that in mind, a quick summary of how I go about looking at offers includes: review the pre-approval letter and find out what financial institution  the buyer is using. This is very important. Of course cash really is king if they have proof of funds, but when working with a lender, financial institutions that keep everything under one roof such as underwriting, have a more powerful rating than a big bank. More money down is stronger than less. More option money is better than more earnest money. My preferred title and lenders are stronger than others. Everything the buyer selects that they pay for is better than my seller's paying.

When you are ready to buy a sell a home, contact me. If you decide to work with me, you will learn what my other clients know—Your Success is My Focus. If you are not looking in North Texas, don't be shy, contact me and I will help you find a great Realtor in your area who will work with you.