Buying a house in Frederick Part two

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In the first part of this mini series, I talked about the process that leads up to the making the offer. Well, now that offer is in the hands of the Seller’s agent and the seller. They will review the thoughtfully prepared and professionally presented offer. If they accept everything in the offer, they will sign off on all the pages that you did and it now becomes a contract. Wah..Lah!

Chances are they will make some changes. Now something to remember in negotiations…They have basically three answers to each of the items on the offer; YES, NO and I want to change this. The latter two, puts the ball back in your court. When the seller “Counters” the offer, they have rejected your offer. You now have the three choices; YES, NO or I want to change this. The latter two, you reject their offer. Duh…so Bob, why are you explaining this simple stuff to me? I just want to make it clear that once there is a change to offer from the other party…you are not obligated to proceed with offer. You can move on to the next home, but most likely you want this one.

So, what are some things that you could expect the seller to change? First and most popular is the price. They feel their house is worth more (or they need more for their next step) and you of course feel it’s worth less (basically, you want a “deal.”) They might want to change the closing/settlement date to suit their schedule. Sometimes the timeline of the inspection contingencies might need to be changed. Why would they want to do that? You see, the longer the contingency remains on the contract the longer they have to keep the house of the market waiting for you to decide if you are REALLY going to buy it. They might lose valuable time on the market. Until, the contingencies expire, the buyer has the ability to get out of the contract without any repercussions. You will lose any money that you paid for the inspections, but will not lose your “Earnest Money”

Once everyone is satisfied with what the other side has changed on the “Offer” it now becomes a “Ratified Contract” Day One starts tomorrow.

If you liked that post, then try these...

Open Houses for Labor Day Weekend on August 29th, 2007

Housing Market in Frederick MD on September 17th, 2007

Putting a Short Sale together - what's with all the paperwork on March 12th, 2008

Buying A House in Frederick MD What do you need to know? on June 19th, 2007

Affordable Housing Committee Assists Home Sales - $25,000 Awarded! on August 1st, 2007

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June 30, 2007 · Filed Under Buyer, frederick real estate

Comments

3 Responses to “Buying a house in Frederick Part two”

gotbob on July 23rd, 2007 3:36 am

Are you ready to buy? Comments and questions welcome.
Nasir Manzoor on October 24th, 2007 8:46 pm

What about Repo and short sales. As we are noticing plenty of those in this market. How does the process work for them and how low we should offer. If a repo as is bank is asking 479 what is a good offer?
gotbob on October 25th, 2007 1:35 am

Short sales and foreclosures are becoming popular. We are seeing more now in this area that we ever have…but it isn’t running ramped like in other metro areas.

How low a bank will go depends…I have heard as low as 20% less was accepted and I have heard that 5% was rejected. Need to have a discussion with the bank. They don’t want to hang on to a property for too long.

Thanks for stopping by…