How a Seller Can Respond to an Offer

If the sellers are not pleased with your offer, they may turn it down outright or give a counteroffer.  So, let’s say that the sellers agree with all of the terms in your offer except for the price.  The sellers may send your offer back with your price marked out and suggest a higher price. 

Or, I will give a different scenario.  Let’s instead say that the sellers are pleased with your offer overall, but you asked for them to do too much – like asking for a long list of repairs to be made, making a lower offer on the price, and requesting that you sell the house you are living in now before buying the sellers’ house.  If the sellers don’t outright reject your offer, they may choose to only allow one of these requests in a counteroffer. 

If the sellers feel that you are going to be too demanding and too difficult to work with, they may turn down your offer.  So, when you make an offer on a home, try to be reasonable with your requests.  Your real estate agent will be able to talk with you and try to help get you what you want while also making a good offer in order to secure the house you want. 

Your agent can also see how long the house has been on the real estate market and find out if there have been any other offers made on the home.  So, if the house has been on the market for a while, you may be able to negotiate a lower asking price.  Depending on the market history (and some other factors, like the sellers’ expectations), you may be able to talk down the sellers three percent or so of the asking price.  And, as I mentioned earlier, your agent will be able to guide you through making an offer so that you can get the home you really want.