Taking the Insult out of an Insulting Offer

The first step toward taking the sting out of a low offer is assuring your client that the offer is financial, not personal. Most likely, the prospective buyer doesn’t know your seller or your seller’s family. The buyer may not even know the rationale behind the number presented, having relied on poor counsel, too much counsel, or an unskilled agent, in which case a well presented counteroffer is in order.

On the flip side, the seller’s house may be overpriced, either because the seller insisted on a high price or because the market environment changed between when the home was listed and when the offer arrived. If a home is radically overpriced, a fair offer can look insulting when it really isn’t. If your seller’s home is overpriced, you must shift the focus to the gap between the low offer and fair market value, not the difference between fair market value and the inflated listing price. This calculation alone is likely to remove tens of thousands of dollars of “insult.” If that doesn’t work, ask the cooperating agent to share the burden by explaining the rationale behind the offer.

A good agent won’t write an insulting offer which might be embarrassing to present, wasteful of their time and costly to their reputations.

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