Tuesday, March 07, 2006

If your property's been on the market 90 days, you're gonna get low offers.

OK. I don't want to be mean or anything, but sometimes it's difficult to be civil. This past weekend, I wrote an offer on a property for some really nice buyers of mine. The property, a renovation in an up-and-coming neighborhood in the District, had been on the market for nearly three months. The buyers' offer was roughly 10% below the listing price. I prepared the offer and delivered it to the listing agent, who presented it to the seller. Shortly afterwards, the listing agent called me to tell me that the seller was rejecting the offer without making a counteroffer. The seller was "disgusted," DISGUSTED by my clients' "low-ball" offer.

Help me out here.

Your property is on the market almost three months, and you're DISGUSTED by the FIRST offer you receive? Huh? OK, so it wasn't a full-price offer. It was an offer ... your FIRST offer in three months. C'mon. A buyer takes the time (three or four hours, minimum) to get preapproved for a loan, preview your property (twice), and craft and submit an offer in good faith. Make a counteroffer, for cryin' out loud. If it's not gonna work, it's not gonna work ... but at least you'll have closed the loop in a courteous, professional way.

Perhaps another three months will bring this seller in line with reality. Perhaps.

1 comment:

A Unique Alias said...

I guess that the next offer should go in for 25% less of the intial offer along with a yellow sticky-note that reads "Now this is low-ball."