Making Your Affordable Home Offer
Making an Offer
After planning, preparing and searching, you have found a home that you want to make an offer on. This is where your Real Estate agent really steps up to plate and puts their experience and skills to work. It can be very exciting but also an emotional experience. Especially if it is a home that you fell in love and really want.
Your Real Estate agent will help you keep your emotions balanced between the realities of the market and your expectations. You don’t want to bid too low where you might lose the property but you also don’t necessarily want to go in with top dollar that you are willing to pay.
It is good if you already a pre-approval for your mortgage and know exactly how much you can afford. This way there is one less subject you need to put on your offer and you are less likely to be put in a bidding war situation that could put you over your price point.
Balancing Your Emotions
You will feel better prepared & in control if you have done your research, received a pre-approval for your mortgage & have looked at a good variety of homes with your real estate agent. You might fall in love with a house that you desperately want, but you have to keep in mind that there are likely others like it or better out there. Don’t make it thebe all, end all of homes. Try to balance your emotions and remember to be cautious when it comes to negotiating, your real estate agent will be there to help you along the way.Bidding Wars
There is more than just price when it comes to making an offer. You also have inclusions, which cover exactly what will be included in the deal (i.e. appliances), subjects (i.e. subject to a home inspection) and other conditions like the closing date. You will want the best combination that will suit your needs, as does the seller.Most of the time, sellers have emotional attachments to their home, even though they have decided to sell. This is where human relations play a factor, and you have to keep in mind that if you put in a low offer that the seller finds insultingly low, there might be nothing that you can do about it. It is your Real Estate Agents job and the selling realtor, to navigate though these issue for both parties.
The MLS (Multiple Listing Service), is one of the most important tools that your real estate agent can use to gather comparables to help you make a reasonable offer. They can generate a CMA that will list recent sales activity of similar properties in the same area. It will give you important information such as the original listing price, adjusted asking prices, actual selling prices & number of days on the market.
This information combined with the details of the home will help you make an informed decision on an offer that is suitable and could help you avoid entering into a bidding war.
