Writing Real Estate Offers
Once you find the home you want to buy,
the next step is to write an offer – which is not as easy as it sounds. Your
offer is the first step toward negotiating a sales contract with the seller.
Since this is just the beginning of negotiations, you should put yourself in the
seller’s shoes and imagine his or her reaction to everything you include. Your
goal is to get what you want, and imagining the seller’s reactions will help you
attain that goal.
The offer is much more complicated than
simply coming up with a price and saying, "This is what I’ll pay." Because of
the huge dollar amounts involved, especially in today’s litigious society, both
you and the seller want to build in protections and contingencies to protect
your investment and limit your risk.
In an offer to purchase real estate, you
include not only the price you are willing to pay, but other details of the
purchase as well. This includes how you intend to finance the home, your down
payment, who pays what closing costs, what inspections are performed,
timetables, whether personal property is included in the purchase, terms of
cancellation, any repairs you want performed, which professional services will
be used, when you get physical possession of the property, and how to settle
disputes should they occur.
It is certainly more involved than buying
a car.
Buying a home is a major event for both
the buyer and seller. It will affect your finances more than any other previous
purchase or investment. The seller makes plans based on your offer that affect
his finances, too. However, it is more important than just money. In the
half-hour it takes to write an offer you are making decisions that affect how
you live for the next several years, if not the rest of your life. The seller is
going to review your offer carefully, because it also affects how he or she
lives the rest of their life.
That sounds dramatic. It sounds like a
cliché. Every real estate book or article you read says the same thing.
They all say it because it is true.
Mortgage Glossary4
