[acebritty]

what do you make of this offer?

we put our house back on the market in april. had maybe 10 showings and a huge turnout for the realtor open house.

got an offer last week. our first ever. we listed at $329,000 then like 3 weeks ago reduced to $319.

the offer came in at $260. i felt a little insulted but our realtor said that their realtor said that they would go higher. we countered at $314, 000. 2 days later she came back with $270, we countered at $310 she came back again, 3 days later with $275,000. again, her realtor saying he knows she will pay more. 4 days ago we countered at $309,000 (after previously saying $310 would be the lowest we would go). my husband says we should just forget it, i like to play things out a bit more but this is getting tiring and i'm not sure if i should take this as a serious buyer.

i'm confused why her realtor keeps saying he knows she will come up and confused why she waits 2 - 3 days to counter offer. i'm concered if we did agree on a price she might be a 'trouble maker' and finds all sorts of things she wants fixing b4 a closing forcing us to reduce the price anyway.

thing is too, she bought a property a couple of streets over for $485,000 when the listed price was $499,000.

my realtor just keeps saying it's up to me. any insights appreciated. thanks

ps. haven't heard from the buyer since. could this mean she changed her mind? my realtor is out of town and i'm going nuts! oh and she also wanted to close on June 20th

[skytrekker]

Where is the property located?

[AmyBergquist]

Is the price the buyer is offering within the selling range recommended by your agent? Essentially, is your house fairly priced or overpriced?

If it's fairly priced and their offer is not within the range recommended by your agent (in which they should have used recent comps and analyzed your current "competition" on the market), the buyer is most likely fishing for a deal. They are messing with you. If your home is overpriced, based on the selling range recommended by your agent, you're not being messed with, you might just be unrealistic.

[Rich Lee]

It's a game of skill and/or a battle of wills. By you responding to the buyer's counter-offer, you are ultimately getting to their price.

I don't want to get involved in your negotiations. However, I caution my sellers with the following advice: 1) continue to look at comps each and every time you even think about responding to a counter-offer and 2) write down the absolute lowest price that you'd take and put it on your refrigerator. Why? Because if the property is still listed at $329,900 but counter-offers have it down to $299,900 with a 20,000 separation, why go to $289,900 (splitting the difference) if you have $299,900 as your lowest price. (For that matter, why not just lower it on the MLS to $310,000 to see what happens?)

Often, when responding to counter-offers from one buyer, the seller loses sight of the big picture.

[acebritty]

the property is located in the Brooklawn section of Bridgeport

[acebritty]

$310,000.00 was the lowest i was willing to go. i don't want to go any lower than the current $309.

i should add, we had listed last march at $379 and took it off at $340 as i was pregnant and didn't want to deal with showings. we had alot of repeat showings but no offers. so this year with the market being in decline we just started out at $329. our realtor said $319 was definately a great price. oddly when he did comps back in March it was actually higher than last year.

our realtor had said he told the other realtor we were not interested in anything unless it had a 3 in front of it, yet they keep coming back with these low offers.

when my realtor comes back in town i will ask him to do a more recent comp.

Thank You

[jdhall1]

Ask your agent. After a quick search, I found your home on the MLS.

[shwee]

Originally Posted by acebritty

what do you make of this offer?

we put our house back on the market in april. had maybe 10 showings and a huge turnout for the realtor open house.

got an offer last week. our first ever. we listed at $329,000 then like 3 weeks ago reduced to $319.

the offer came in at $260. i felt a little insulted but our realtor said that their realtor said that they would go higher. we countered at $314, 000. 2 days later she came back with $270, we countered at $310 she came back again, 3 days later with $275,000. again, her realtor saying he knows she will pay more. 4 days ago we countered at $309,000 (after previously saying $310 would be the lowest we would go). my husband says we should just forget it, i like to play things out a bit more but this is getting tiring and i'm not sure if i should take this as a serious buyer.

i'm confused why her realtor keeps saying he knows she will come up and confused why she waits 2 - 3 days to counter offer. i'm concered if we did agree on a price she might be a 'trouble maker' and finds all sorts of things she wants fixing b4 a closing forcing us to reduce the price anyway.

thing is too, she bought a property a couple of streets over for $485,000 when the listed price was $499,000.

my realtor just keeps saying it's up to me. any insights appreciated. thanks

ps. haven't heard from the buyer since. could this mean she changed her mind? my realtor is out of town and i'm going nuts! oh and she also wanted to close on June 20th

More troubling to me is the fact that the buyer's broker is telling your broker that his/her client is willing to pay more. This is a clear case of a broker neglecting his/her fiduciary responsibility to the client

[AmyBergquist]

Originally Posted by shwee

More troubling to me is the fact that the buyer's broker is telling your broker that his/her client is willing to pay more. This is a clear case of a broker neglecting his/her fiduciary responsibility to the client

Shwee- I disagree with this statement. I've had cases where my buyer specifically tells me to tell the seller's agent that they are willing to pay more, just to keep the negotiations going. We don't tell them how much more (the buyer always has a ceiling too), but it does keep stringing the seller along in some cases. Not my favorite tactic, but it can work.

[shwee]

Originally Posted by AmyBergquist

Shwee- I disagree with this statement. I've had cases where my buyer specifically tells me to tell the seller's agent that they are willing to pay more, just to keep the negotiations going. We don't tell them how much more (the buyer always has a ceiling too), but it does keep stringing the seller along in some cases. Not my favorite tactic, but it can work.

If the buyer's broker has been instructed by his/her client to do so, then that's a different story, although I don't quite understand why the buyer would want to qualify his/her offer with that message. All it does is minimize the value of the offer (to a point of worthlessness) to begin with. What seller would accept any offer that has been placed on the table if he/she has been told that the buyer is willing to pay more? I have been a (commercial) broker for ten years and have never been in a negotiation where that tactic has been employed.