The Details
of Making an Offer on a Home
With financing in place, a great home located and
preparation for placing
an offer beginning, the often lengthy process of purchasing a new home
approaches its successful completion. The remaining steps are legally important
for protecting your own interests and ensuring that your dream home won’t become
a nightmare following your purchase. From contingencies for issues that present
themselves following an accepted offer to price negotiation, ensuring a
fundamentally sound offer on a piece of property is the best way to complete a
successful acquisition of a new home. So, what are the most important details
to keep in mind when drafting an offer on the perfect home for your needs? With
the help of an experienced real estate agent, you can submit an offer with full
confidence, knowing that you’re legally protected throughout the final
purchasing procedures, and by remembering to study the following details, your
offer will have a great chance of kicking off a successful end to your home
hunt.
With the help of your
real estate agent, performing a comparative market analysis (CMA) is a great
way to find an estimate of the fair market value of the property upon which
you’ve got your eye.
According to Front
Door, there isn’t a more reliable, widely used mathematical method of
estimating a property’s true value than a CMA. By distilling all of the most
important characteristics of your potential property, including bedrooms,
bathrooms and square footage, into quantifiable statistics, you’ll have a much
clearer indication of the true value of the property before submitting an
offer. Instead of focusing on asking price, use comparable properties that have
recently sold in the area to determine an offer. Luckily for inexperienced
buyers, real estate agents have access to all of the databases and records
needed to get incredibly accurate home value estimates while protecting tight
budgets.
Take a look at the
market in the area to have a better idea of market conditions. If you’re in a
buyer’s market, big savings could be available when making an offer.
Speaking of comparable properties, studying market
conditions before putting in an offer is essential to getting the best value
possible. In a seller’s market, you’re likely to find competition on great
properties. As a result contingencies and concessions may need to be eliminated
in order to make your offer more favorable. Conversely, buyer’s markets are
great to see when you’re making a home purchase. In this case, housing inventory
outweighs buyer interest, and you’re much more likely to have offers below list
price accepted without a bidding war. Ask your real estate agent how to shape
your offer to match market conditions, and you may find savings that you didn’t
know were possible.
Each seller is
different, so there is no ‘one-size fits all’ solution to creating a successful
offer. Depend on the experience of your real estate agent to make sure your
offer shines, and never attempt to make an offer alone.
According to Fox
News, gathering available information on the seller of your potential home
could be a great start to making a sweet offer. For example, if a property
recently held an estate sale, chances are high that a quick closing may be more
important than meeting list price. In any scenario, doing some detective work
on a property could help you guide your offer more precisely. Avoid insulting
homeowners with low-ball offers and excess criticism on a property to which
they may have sentimental attachment. Since sellers have no obligation to take
the lowest offer on the table, details are important to improving your chances.
Again, the experience of real estate agents is invaluable to getting the
property of your dreams.
Keep emotions out of
the negotiating process. If the seller has unrealistic expectations of the
value of their home, don’t hesitate to walk away from a deal instead of
overpaying for a piece of property.
After an exhausting home search, it can be difficult to
separate emotions from business when putting in an offer on a property. While
some negotiation is almost always necessary with initial offers, remember your
budgetary restrictions before purchasing a home. While it can be difficult to
commit to reentering the housing market after deciding on a property,
overpaying for a home is never a good idea. If the seller of the home refuses
to negotiate to fair market value, walk away, and depend on the expertise of
your real estate agent to find a more realistic option that won’t be a bad
investment for the future.
Peter J. is a writer whose interests include central Texas
real estate, studying the stars and couponing.
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