Property offers – when to make the call

Is the first offer on your property necessarily the best offer?

There is no easy answer to this question and there are definite exceptions to this rule.

More often than not though, the first offer you receive on your property will end up being the best you will receive, so it certainly is something you should give serious consideration to.

But why is this the case?

If you ask any agent, he or she will tell you of the many times sellers have taken a lower offer after rejecting an initial higher offer.

Not too many agents will attest to the fact that they have sold a property for much higher than the lower offers they received earlier.

But to answer the question of why?

It is important to understand how buyers work, and how they look for a property.

Buyers generally start by searching the internet, essentially undergoing a mini research project to see what’s out there, and to get a general feel regarding prices, areas and value.

After a few weeks of doing so, they then become a bit more serious and will contact an agent and start physically looking at properties.

They are now test driving the market for real, asking agents many questions about prices and what has been sold for what as they garner more information on the area and the various nuances.

These are now serious buyers, well informed based on the intensive research they have done and they are ready to make an offer. The truth is, this type of buyer now knows more about the market than a seller, and might even be very close to knowing as much as the agent.

When you receive an offer, and especially if it’s in the first few days or week after a property has been placed on the market, the key is to talk to the agent about the buyer and their situation.

Find out how long they have been looking, how well they know the area and if they have made offers on anything before.

From the answers you will quickly know whether these buyers are indeed well-educated or not, and how seriously you should take their offer.

However, this is where the exception to the rule comes in. If they have just started looking, made an offer on the first property they saw and it feels low, then that is the first offer I might advise not to take.

We all know the dilemma. You receive an offer very early on that’s not the asking price, but not too far off. Do you stick, or do you twist for that little bit more?

If the buyer has been properly informed, then this should help you with your answer. Whichever you decide, bear in mind that time on the market erodes value, so the longer a property is listed for sale, the less interested buyers and agents become.

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