Making An Offer

Making a home purchase offer can be both exhilarating and stressful at the same time. Rely on Ted Weaver’s experience and knowledge to make a successful home buying offer.

Making a home purchase offer

Once we’ve found your ideal house, it’s time to get started with the financial and contractual side of the purchase. Here’s a basic guide for how the process will work:

First, it is imperative that I have a solid understanding of your financial and timeline goals in advance of any offer drafted, these will help drive our negotiating strategy and the manner in which we write a home purchase offer. 

Generally speaking, there are three frameworks or “states of mind” from which home purchase offers are written:

1. The “I MUST have this house” mindset.  If you absolutely fall in love with a home and feel as though it’s clearly the home for you, then this obviously impacts how we negotiate.  Assuming the home is properly priced, this approach generally leads to a very strong initial offer to ensure you get it – though we may ask for other terms beneficial to you to offset the price.
2. The “I don’t really care if I get the house unless the seller will accept X.”  This is a “take it or leave it” approach and generally results in a fairly low offer relative to the list price.  If the seller rejects, then you simply move on to the next house.
3. The “I like the home and really want it but only for the right price.” This is the most common mindset for buyers.  I will provide you with my assessment regarding the fair market value and this will help drive our negotiations.  Based on the fair market value and your level of interest in the home, I will then need to know how much you are willing to pay – only you can make this decision; I will advise you regarding fair value.  Once I know your financial objectives, we will then structure our offer and negotiations around this.  Obviously we will try to get the home for the least amount possible but will not go above your stated ceiling.

Remember price is NOT the only important term in a home purchase offer.  Oftentimes other ancillary items can be just as important as the final price.  A few examples include closing costs, closing/possession date, personal property, home warranty, etc.

Keep in mind that a home purchase offer is a contractual commitment.  Once signed by all parties it is legally binding.

In the Des Moines market, it is customary for counter-offers to be negotiated “verbally” – meaning via phone, email, or even text message – in order to expedite the process.  Of course nothing verbal is binding and until final terms are in writing and signed by all parties nothing is legally binding.  Once final terms are agreed upon, all changes to the original contract must be written and initialed, and the final contract signed by all parties before anyone is bound to it. Thus, it is in your best interest that we do this quickly once final terms are agreed to.

On occasion, we may find ourselves in a multi-offer situation.  There are numerous ways to approach this and different strategies from which we can handle it.  Don’t distress, however, you will NOT get into a “bidding war”.  That rarely happens in our market and I will advise you appropriately on our best strategy to avoid it, if necessary.  

Once the home purchase offer is accepted, you will need to provide the earnest money (in essence a deposit) to the listing agent within about 48 hours.  And once the contract is in place, I will review with you “Next Steps” on how to proceed.