Offer and Counteroffer: The Procedure for Offers When you’re dealing through an agent, offers and counteroffers are presented in written form. You make an offer and the agent, in consultation, writes it out on a sales agreement. Then the agent presents the offer to the other party and, presumably, argues your case for you. If … Read more
Offer and Counteroffer In the vast majority of real estate transactions, the buyers and sellers don’t negotiate with each other. Rather, each has an agent, and the negotiations are carried on through those agents. In this chapter we’ll see how to negotiate through offer and counteroffer when the agent is the intermediary. Negotiating through an … Read more
What Should You Look For in a Sales Agreement? At the onset it’s important to understand that the making of a real estate deal does not occur on the sales agreement document. It occurs in the understanding between buyer and seller. The sales agreement should only reflect that understanding. However, the document itself is important … Read more
Negotiating a Sales Agreement: Should You Go For a Better Price or Better Terms? Some agents think of the sales agreement as having two major parts. The first part is simply the price, the amount to be paid for the property. It occupies only a single line on the document. The second part, however, refers … Read more
Negotiating a Sales Agreement: The Deposit The deposit is a part of the negotiations since it indicates the depth of the buyer’s sincerity in making the deal. The buyer is presumably sincere, hence the correct term, earnest money deposit. However, there is no reason why a deal cannot be completed without a deposit. But a … Read more
Negotiating a Sales Agreement: The Financing Contingency As we saw in the opening example, negotiating strict time-limit contingencies on the buyer for obtaining needed financing should help protect the seller. These days sellers are always concerned (with some good reason) about buyers who talk a good deal, but later can’t come up with the money. … Read more
Negotiating a Sales Agreement: Dealing with Time Time can also be a deal point. In post 2, we saw why time was important as a negotiating tool. Now we’ll consider a specific application of time in the sales agreement: the date of occupancy. When—the exact date—the seller turns the home over to the buyer is … Read more
Negotiating a Sales Agreement: Other Contingencies I used to know a builder who always said, “1 don’t care what the sales agreement says, as long as there’s a ‘subject to’ in it.” He was, of course, referring to a contingency clause, a condition that said the sale was subject to the occurrence of some action … Read more
Negotiating a Sales Agreement: The Final Walk-Through Most sales agreements today provide for a final walk-through by the buyer, usually the day before the deal closes (when title transfers, the seller gets the money, and the buyer gets the house). The reason this walk-through came about, as have so many other things in real estate, … Read more
Negotiate the Commission: How Does the Commission Impact the Agent’s Role in Selling? What does an agent do for you? A good active real estate agent who makes a concerted effort to sell your property will do the following. Besides the obvious sales tools such as placing advertising in news papers, holding open houses, putting … Read more
