You have become informed about the market, spoken to lenders and have your financing in place, and you are prepared to move quickly!

You have found the perfect property and you want to make an offer. What do we do?

Together, we will review comparable active, pending, and closed sales to determine an appropriate initial offer that does not alienate the Seller, yet allows you some room to negotiate. Stay patient, as there may be several back and forth counter-offers.

Earnest Money: It is customary in our market for the buyer to put down a deposit of $1000 or more at the time of offer to indicate their seriousness and good faith. Then, within 7 calendar days of the “effective date”, an additional deposit is made to bring the deposits up to 10% of the purchase price. These deposits are held in either an interest bearing or non-interest bearing escrow account, and any interest earned is disbursed to the buyer at closing.

All terms and conditions deserve consideration. It is important to evaluate the “bottom line” of paying a higher price with a later closing, versus a lower price with a quick closing. In a “hot” market, it is not likely that a new listing will come on the market priced below the recent active, pending and sold prices and we can not assume there will be price reductions.

You may want a real estate attorney to review the contract before you finalize the terms and conditions. Just remember, that until both the Buyer and Seller have initial and dated all the terms of the contract, we do not have “a deal”, and the Seller is free to accept another offer.