Drive thy business or it will drive thee.

- Benjamin Franklin (1706 – 1790)

CUSTOMER CONCERN: The good news is that your buyer likes the house and wants to put in an offer. The bad news is that they want to start with a low offer in hopes of leaving room to negotiate.

How do you respond?

RESPONSE: (NOTE: This response is intended to be used for private home sellers – it is not appropriate for short sales or bank owned properties) Buyers who start negotiating with a very low offering price, in the end, usually pay more for a property than a buyer who begins with a reasonable offer.

A low offer can anger the seller. An angry seller negotiates on emotion instead of reason. Once a seller is offended, they will usually be much firmer with their initial price. If you present to a seller a non-offensive, reasonable, first offer, he will be more likely to accept it.

Of course, this response assumes that the subject property is priced correctly to begin with.

Has anyone out there in activerain land had any experiences like this, or does anyone have a Customer Concern you’d like to see answered here in the future?

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