Quit Making Tactical Errors In Your Real Estate Counter Offer

I was talking with an agent yesterday about a real estate counter offer he received, and he was scratching his head wondering what the home seller was thinking.

Now I've seen this sort of thing for more than 20 years in the Tallahassee real estate market, but I still lack the words to explain to an agent why somebody would make such a tactical blunder when selling a home.

If you are want to sell a home and get top dollar, you should really focus on the bottom line when you counter a real estate offer.

Bottom Line On The Real Estate Counter Offer

The issue we dealt with yesterday, and an issue I'm sure I will deal with for the rest of my career, is a seller who forgets to focus on the bottom line when making a real estate counter offer.

My agent (and our buyer) made an offer on a home. The offer included terms for the seller to pay extra closing costs on behalf of the buyer. Now I have no idea what the seller or the seller's real estate agent discussed, but I do know what came back as their real estate counter offer.

They removed the real estate closing costs being paid by the seller on behalf of the buyer.

Now I think I know what they were thinking ... Why the heck should I pay the buyer's closing costs?

Unfortunately, this ignorance was not stopped by his real estate agent (I assume the agent told him it was not the best way to handle the counter offer).

The buyer closing costs are needed for this buyer to qualify to buy the home, without the assistance, the buyer cannot (thus will not) buy this home.

The seller's real estate counter offer ensured that the home would fail to sell to this buyer. Instead of focusing on the bottom line (what you actually get after the home is sold and closed), the seller got caught up in the structure of the offer.

What should the seller have done?

Net Sheet For Real Estate Counter Offer

The seller should have looked at a net sheet, produced by his real estate agent, to see what his bottom line was going to be if he accepted the offer. This "net sheet" is simply the contract price and a list of all the monies that will be spent to close the home sale (including the mortgage satisfaction). The net, or bottom line, is what the seller will walk away with. And in my opinion, that should be the only thing the seller focuses on when deciding the financial aspect of the real estate counter offer.

In my experience, an unguided home seller focuses too strongly on what the buyer is doing instead of what the seller is getting. This seller appears to be doing just that.

If he felt he could get more money added to his bottom line, he should have made a real estate counter offer at a higher price, leaving the closing costs in place so that the buyer could still obtain financing.

This is not rocket science. Every Tallahassee real estate agent should know this and explain it to their sellers. But I suspect many don't, as I see tactical errors like this kill sales that easily could have taken place between a homeowner who wanted to sell, and a homebuyer who wanted to buy.

We'll still try to put this one back together, but without guidance, this seller might fail to sell to a buyer who could have gone the distance.

Don't be ignorant when you decide to sell a home. Hire the real estate company that will not let you make tactical errors and will focus on bringing you the best bottom line. And if you want to know more about executing a real estate counter offer, just drop me a note and we can schedule a time to review your specific situation and goals.

*Joe Manausa Real Estate is a brokerage company headquartered in Tallahassee, Florida. Its unique business model provides specialists to both home sellers and home buyers, and the results speak for themselves. JMRE has significantly more 5-star reviews on google than any other local competitor. Joe Manausa Real Estate is a leader in internet marketing and utilizes search engine optimization, email marketing, social media and data analytics to get their clients’ home sold faster and for more money than any other Tallahassee brokerage firm. For more information, visit www.manausa.com or call us at (850) 366-8917.