Should you accept an offer right now, counter, or wait?
Wednesday, June 15, 2011 at 4:15PM
Judy in Seller Tips, Selling Your Home, negotiations

Your home is on the market, and although buyers have come through, and some of them have even placed offers on your home, those offers ended up going nowhere, and your home is still on the market.

So you reduce your listing price to obtain a new buyer, and then nothing.  Maybe you reduce it again, and then...... nothing. I have heard many tales from sellers who ended up reducing their home's asking price to a much lesser price than their first offer, and they just feel like they are giving their home away. How much do you have to reduce your home to sell it, when just a month ago, buyers were banging down the door to come in?

Now I am fully aware that some offers go nowhere, and some deals fall apart- (a lot more than they used to, it seems) but if you have an offer on the table, especially given these circumstances, don't wait to respond.

Have you ever heard the saying, "A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush"? When you receive an offer on your home, respond quickly or respond with a specific time that you will respond, and why, if your agent deems appropriate. That doesn't mean that you have to fire-sale your home. There is no rule on how much of a counter-offer that you must or should give, or when you should give it, for that matter. The important thing in negotiations is that you treat the other party in the manner in which you wish to be treated.

So go ahead, counter offer, make it just a representative gesture if you must, but do something! Otherwise, your home can  end up sitting on the market waiting for the next offer to come in.

Article originally appeared on Fairfield County CT Real Estate & Homes for Sale in Easton, Fairfield, Norwalk, Trumbull & Westport, Connecticut (http://www.thectrealtyblog.com/).
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