While selling your home, you may be faced with a multiple offer situation. If so, that’s amazing! Although this can be overwhelming at times, receiving multiple offers is a great problem to have! When managing this situation as a seller, it’s important to feel empowered to make the best decision for your personal situation. Bōde’s industry expert, Co-Founder and VP of Enterprise Sales, Jeff Jackson, shares tips on how to best navigate receiving, comparing, and ultimately accepting one out of multiple offers as a seller.
There are several key things to keep in mind when faced with a multiple offer situation:
1. You, as the seller, are in control
When selling your own home, you are empowered to handle multiple offers however you best see fit.
One tactic is to choose to set an offer acceptance deadline. This is a strategy often used in hot markets when a home is expected to sell very quickly to ensure all buyers have the opportunity to submit their offer before the seller reviews and chooses which offer to accept. The intention of using this strategy is to get the seller the best offer by creating a scenario where all interested buyers will submit their best offer by the same deadline.
The information regarding the offer deadline is communicated in the listing details, but the seller can still choose to accept an offer at anytime before the set out deadline. If the home does not receive any offers the seller can remove the deadline and continue listing, however, they should be aware that buyers or agents may have seen their previous offer deadline and notice that the home is still listed. It’s also important to consider that a potential downside to this strategy is the risk of discouraging buyers who do not want to compete. Sellers should determine if this strategy is best for their home sale based on the pros and cons of using it, and the saleability of their home based on what else has sold in their area.
When reviewing offers it is important to note that not all offers are created equal, and how you compare these offers could differ based on your situation. Many sellers will gravitate towards the highest price offer, but there are other important considerations including:
Conditions – There are several potential buyer conditions to consider, including: financing, home inspection, and that the purchase is dependent on the sale of the buyer’s home. Evaluating which of these you are willing to accept in order to make the sale will be important.
Closing/Possession Date – the date that the sale actually closes and the date at which possession occurs may impact your decision to accept an offer. Sometimes quick sales are preferred, while other times you may need more time based on the date you can take possession of your new home (if applicable).
Flexibility – How much the buyer is willing to negotiate and work with you on both sale price and conditions may be a big factor in whether or not you will want to accept their offer.
Self-Represented Buyers – It can be appealing to receive an offer from a self-represented buyer. In these situations, a benefit is that you will not have to pay an agent’s commission on the buy side – which may or may not be meaningful to you depending on how much commission you are planning to offer. The advantage to the buyer is that they could purchase at a lower price and you can still save more money than in an agent-represented deal where there is a commission involved.
2. You can only accept ONE offer
Remember, once you have officially accepted an offer and have signed the paperwork you cannot accept another offer EVEN if a better or more appealing one comes along. You have legally agreed to sell your house to this buyer (pending all conditions are met) however, you may accept back-up offers so long as you follow proper procedure for this. We will discuss back-up offers in more detail below.
If you want to know more details about the process for a seller once an initial offer has come in you can see that here.
3. Throughly reviewing the offer contracts is important
Things to look for include what inclusions (or unattached goods) are mentioned (electronics/furniture), and/or attached goods that need to be removed. Also review the conditions, when conditions are to be removed and closing/possession dates. Our Docu-Sign contracts makes it easy to complete the offer acceptance process.
Learn more about what happens once you accept an offer here.
4. You are empowered to turn down offers
There is nothing that requires you, as a seller, to accept an offer you do not like. Keep in mind if a represented buyer brings an offer that is at full list with no conditions and either buyer or seller fails to close, some contracts stipulate that the commission would still be owed to the representing agent.
5. Back-up offers are great to consider
Having a back-up offer is a great strategy, especially when your initial offer has conditions that could result in the sale falling through. The most crucial part of any back-up offer is the inclusion of the seller’s condition “The acceptance of this offer is subject to the collapse of the already accepted offer collapsing“. This protects you as a seller from accidentally agreeing to sell your home to two people, while also ensures that you have plan B should your initial offer fall through. Sometimes back-up offers may actually be better than your original offer. Regardless of this, you are legally obligated to follow the order in which you accepted the offers.
After accepting an offer, you will need to let our team know. You can continue to show your home if you are working with a conditional offer situation in order to potentially secure back-up offers. In Alberta, our team will update your listing on MLS to be reflected as pending and your listing will still be visible on realtor.ca and all other listing platforms. Showing requests on pending listings are limited but if someone is very interested, they may still inquire! In BC, your listing will remain fully active on all listing platforms until firm sold.
So... How Do I use Bōde to manage my offers?
When you receive offers through the Bōde platform, you will be able to compare each offer.
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