Right, you’ve got your house on the market and someone has come along and offered to you. What is the best way to deal with that offer?
My first recommendation before you do anything at all is to obtain as much information about the offer and the potential buyer as is possible. Your agent should have this information. Five simple questions to ask are:
1. What’s the position of the buyer? Eg. Are they in a chain? If so, how long is the chain and how far has it progressed?
2. Are they obtaining a mortgage? If so, has it been approved?
3. How long have they been looking for a property?
4. Why are they interested in this property?
5. What is their desired time-scale for the move?
The more information you have, the better positioned you are to decide if the offer is right for you or not. When moving house, the perfect scenario occurring is rare and you could be waiting a long time if that’s what you’re after. There often has to be a compromise on something. Sometimes this is price, sometimes this is furniture, sometimes this is time-scale.
Ideally, we’d all like to sell at top money, buy a dirt cheap house in the best road and it all to happen in our perfect time-scale. I mean, firstly, what are the chances of the dream home coming up during the 3 weeks or so your buyer has given you to find a house to move to? And for you to negotiate the purchase at rock bottom money, whilst keeping your buyer happy at top money?
So let’s say the money is £1000 below what you had set as your bottom figure and it’s 100% their final offer. It’s been three months and you’ve had no other offers. Your dream home is still available. Do you:
A) Reject offer as it’s below your target price.
B) Go and negotiate on your dream home and hope to get it for £1,000 less than you thought you’d have to pay?
Moving house is swings and roundabouts. If it takes you another two months to sell, your interest payments on mortgage alone will quite likely be more than £1000 and your dream house might not be available.
So before saying no to the offer that doesn’t seem so great, spend an hour or so thinking about it. It might just work out perfectly for you. And if it really isn’t that great an offer? You’ve only lost an hour of your time.
