Accepting an Offer on your Home for Sale: Price and Terms

Our goal is to make your home selling journey as easy as possible and allow you to net as much as possible; within that spirit we wanted to address accepting an offer on your home and what we consider to be the main components: price and terms.

Regardless of your asking price, price and terms & conditions -concessions- as a whole is what you need to consider when comparing offers. Sales price is the dollar amount -easy-, and terms are the extra, which we will discuss in the following paragraphs.

The offer may include items such as:

• seller to pay for home inspection/s
• seller to pay closing fees
• seller to pay moving costs
• seller to pay mortgage points
• and many, many iterations of the above. Particularly in this market, folks are getting very creative to make a deal happen.

Make sure you understand and compare those terms side by side, contract by contract when you have multiple offers to make sure that you accept the offer that is most convenient to you. These aren’t tricky nor unusual, but we haven’t seen them in a while since we’ve been in a seller’s market. As we transition to a buyer’s market, these concessions are making a come back.

Note: if the terms aren’t clear, feel confident to ask the seller’s agent to clarify/calculate/express in a different format so you clearly understand. You shouldn’t need an attorney at this point, but we always recommend you have one -particularly in the absence of a traditional agent.

Another aspect of selling your home and accepting offers, it’s to determine which type of loan it’s being used by the buyer.

The buyer may come to you with a Cash Offer, and cash is king. But also you are probably likely to see a lower than asking price offer when they pay cash. Why? Because a cash offer, it’s nearly 100% likely to close. And you can also close faster. Once the buyer get proof of funds, and the bank can confirm this, you’re closing. In this scenario there is little room for hiccups, so it is a lower risk transaction. Thus they usually expect to pay less.

More likely, you’ll see an FHA offer. This a type of loan where the home buyer puts down 3.5% to 4% down payment. In this case the lender is likely to have a long list of requirements. The most common we see are installing or enforcing guardrails on the stairs. Or maybe they’ll expect you to change some of the outlets or even the electric box in your house, if they are outdated. The FHA loan would require the home buyer to have a home that is as safe as possible in the way that they regard it, which means that you have to comply with such requirements to complete the transaction.

Similarly, if you have an offer from a buyer with a VA loan. These are the loans that are offered to veterans. I’m a U.S. Marine, and I used a VA loan earlier this year. Is a tremendous tool, it allowed me to buy a home without any down payment. Now I can use that money that I had saved for other activities. However, the VA loan, similar to the FHA, it’s going to have even a more restrictions. The goal is not to punish the seller, but to make the home of the buyer as safe as possible to ensure they can live in the home as long as possible.

In our particular experience this year, we heard about replacing some outlets and the electric box, replacing half a dozen roof tiles, and removing the rebar frames outside the windows -calling it a safety hazard.

It may seem complicated, but consider that the average family sells a home every 8 to 10 years, so you cannot be expected to have strong familiarity with the process -that’s what PadBlock is here for.

Think about it: you’re selling a home and you receive offers. Every offer is going to have two pieces: the (1)sales price and the (2)terms and conditions. On to the next step, you have to look at the details of each offer. Is it a cash offer? Is it an FHA offer or is it a VA offer? And what do each those mean to you as the home seller; and how much will you net from each offer?

Reach out to me or our team if you have any questions. We’d be happy to help.

Alberto Marinas

Founder @PadBlock.com