Counter This! What Not to Do as a Seller in Today’s Market

Written by: rebecca and filed Under Buyers, Issaquah Highlands, Real Estate, Sellers |

There is so much hype about what is going on in our marketplace today. Is it up, is it down? Well so far this year with my clients I have experienced a balanced market with give and take on both sides. That being said, it baffles me that a seller in this market would not respond to an initial offer or that an agent would recommend to their seller to not counter an initial offer.

An offer is like a conversation. If a seller doesn’t respond to an offer, the conversation ends. In today’s market a seller should be prepared for an offer to come in under asking price. What they should not do is be insulted by an offer that is less than asking – no matter how much less it may be. It is better to counter a less than full price offer than to let it go unanswered. By responding it at least gives the buyer a chance to adjust their thinking and provides an opportunity for a transaction to come together and in this market that is an important opportunity to create. So far this year I have had multiple situations where the initial offer was low, but ultimately ended up at a fair price. This has been the case for both my buyers and my sellers. So for all you sellers out there (and buyers too), embrace the counter offer and keep the conversation going.

Comments

One Response to “Counter This! What Not to Do as a Seller in Today’s Market”

Walt on September 14th, 2009 4:51 am

For the seller, this is THEIR houses, and they are either emotionally invested or overextended financially, or both.

If emotionally invested they are insulted that the nicest house ever got what they see as a low-ball offer.

If overextended, maybe they just don’t think that someone who made that low of an opening offer would ever come up to where they need to be to come out of it clean.

I can’t explain the seller’s agent, though.

Thanks for the blog, I found it trying to figure out what “contingent” really meant in some online listings.

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