If you’re selling your home in San Diego and you receive an offer from a potential buyer that is between 10% and 30% lower than your list price, you may feel irritated, to say the least. However, you need to avoid responding emotionally to this offer, as it may hinder your ability to look at it strategically. Here is what you can do to turn that lowball offer into a home run:
1. Don’t be insulted by a lowball offer. Keep in mind that this is only the starting point of the negotiation. It’s important to keep a cool head because it is possible to use an offer like this to your advantage in other ways.
2. Respond gracefully. Deals can fall apart when Realtors begin acting antagonistic toward one another. Grace can go a long way. Put yourself in the buyer’s shoes: if a seller launches a personal attack on you after making an offer, are you likely to come up on your price?
3. Write a strategic counteroffer. You can come down on your price a little bit, but feel free to include terms in your counteroffer that would be more advantageous to you as a seller.
4. Expect a counter to your counteroffer. Countering can feel like a chess game. In some cases, we’ll even counter the lowball offer with a number that we know the buyer will counter back while seeking another motivated, qualified buyer in the meantime. This allows us to leverage the lowball offer against new offers to get the two buyers to compete with each other.
5. Negotiate other terms. Sometimes terms are even more important than the price. If you’re having trouble settling on a price on the property, get creative with terms like the closing date, especially if you need to find a new home to purchase at this time.
If you have any questions about lowball offers or real estate in general, don’t hesitate to give me a call or send me an email. I would be happy to point you in the right direction.