Bryan Vogt: Welcome back everyone. You’re listening to Bryan Vogt with Ready, Set, Sold. I left you at the last segment with that dreaded lowball offer. Now, here’s the good news, especially when the market is going as strong as it is. It doesn’t happen. Now, just so you know, in all markets it rarely happens. I know people once the story gets out somebody has it happen to them, it’s like any bad news and people will talk about it and they fear it. You’re fearing something that doesn’t happen. The problem with it is, sometimes we will see sellers that are so fearful of a lowball offer that they will, on purpose, overprice their home in fear of getting that lowball offer. Well, the problem with that, as you can imagine, is not only do they not get any showings, but they get no offers. They get no sale.
The fear of something that rarely happens to begin with, but if it does, the question is how should it be handled and that’s what we’re going to talk about right now. How should you handle a lowball offer? Even though they very seldom come, it doesn’t mean that they never come. They do. It does happen. As a seller and as your agent, what should you be looking for? Well, first things first, if an offer comes in, we talked about the last segment, about getting it electronically. The selling agent is going to be seeing this offer before you do. They’re going to see what the offer is, they’re going to know what the price is, if it’s a lowball offer and it’s a verified lowball offer, there’s some things that they should be doing even before they send it to you or even talk to you possibly.
That’s calling the other agent up and asking them a question or asking a couple questions. Number one, how did your buyer come up with that price? Look, a buyer has a right to offer whatever they want, but a seller has an obligation … Or I shouldn’t say obligation, but has a right to ask, how’d you get there? If you’ve done the pricing, you’ve done your location, you’ve done the last three months, you feel like you’re really priced well and your agent feels the same way and all of a sudden you get something crazy, well, defend it. The good news is many times you can get the buyer to move their price up just by asking that question. How they come up with it?
Follow it up with show me. What’s been going on in this market? What is your buyer seeing that comes up with this price? Maybe they answer and it could be that’s just what they wanted to offer. Well, okay at least you know, have something to go with. Now the question is, you’ve got the lowball offer, maybe let’s say in this situation nothing’s going to change. Just so you know, those words there alone can raise offers up. I’ve seen it happen more than a few times. Just by making the buyer defend where they’re coming at with pricing. With that said, but now you have the lowball offer, now it’s sitting and now you and the seller are there.
I cannot stress this enough. You, as the seller, need to counter offer. Counter offer. I don’t care how low it is. Look, I get it. Really, I do. I get the fact and most agents do too. Look, it’s your house. It’s your pride and joy. Somebody has given this number and made you feel pretty bad. I get that. This is a business aspect of it too. The reason why the counter offer, you have everything to gain and nothing to lose. We’ve seen situations, doesn’t happen every day, so don’t get me wrong about this, but it does happen. I had a situation, house was $255,000 located in Swansea. Offer came in at $200,000. Buyer said that’s what I think, that’s what I want.
The seller responded back. They took a few thousand dollars off. It was well within what they wanted to be at. It came back and buyer took a $250,000 offer. $50,000 difference. I’ve seen $10,000, I’ve seen $20,000, $30,000. Those things can swing that fast just by doing the counter offer. Now, that does not mean that you’re going to get it every time. It happens on occasion. Remember, you’ve got nothing to lose. The people who counter offered and move in that direction are as happy as can be. Especially the one in Swansea. They got a $50,000 increase on that sale of their home from where the buyer was at. Again, you have nothing to lose.
The other part that I would say, be very careful if you’re the seller. Most sellers don’t do this, but don’t try to put a number on what you won’t accept. For example, I know a seller that the house was $250,000 and don’t even show me anything if it’s not at least $225,000-$230,000. I can’t remember exactly which one it was. Well, that’s all well and good, but again, it takes away the possibility of maybe getting an offer at $200 or $215 and that buyer be willing to jump up and meet your criteria. When you eliminate that completely and tell your agent that, guess what? You at least lose that possibility. It doesn’t happen every day, but when it happens it’s like magic.
With that being said, go get the book readysetsold.org, not .com. The next section we’ll be talking about negotiations. How your agent should negotiate.
Ready Set Sold with Bryan Vogt #09-03: What do we do about a low ball offer?
July 22, 2017