When you’re trying to sell your home, you could end up with an offer the same day you list it for sale or a few days later. This quick home offer comes with plenty of pros and cons to consider. What should you do in this situation? How should you handle such a quick offer?
Pros of a Quick/Early Offer
It’s exciting to receive your first offer as you were probably hoping to sell your home as soon as possible. Sometimes, the first offer isn’t so exciting because the price they want to offer is lower than you were willing to accept. Other times, it comes in as a full price offer or above, especially in a seller’s market, but may come with some contingencies or other items you don’t like.
Responding to an early offer means you have the ability to get your feet wet with the negotiation process. If it’s a full price offer and everything is acceptable, you could have your home sold fast and the process could be over very soon. However, if there are contingencies or other things within the offer making you hesitate, there’s probably good reason for the hesitation.
As the seller, you’re in the driver’s seat in this situation. You get to choose to accept the offer, decline the offer or make a counter offer. Responding to the offer is important, but it doesn’t have to be done right away. You can wait to see if other offers will come in, which could lead to one of the biggest pros of getting a quick or early offer: a bidding war. However, waiting too long is not advisable either. You never know if another or better offer will come along. Responding in a reasonable amount of time to a good offer is important.
Cons of Responding to a Quick/Early Offer
While there are several pros to an early offer on your home for sale, there are also some serious cons to consider. If the buyer has been pre-qualified, it does offer some assurance they will be able to purchase, but having a pre-approved buyer is better. Pre-approved means an underwriting has already looked at and reviewed all of the buyer’s financials versus just collecting verbal information and issuing a pre-qualification letter. If the offer doesn’t have much assurance, it could make you hesitant to accept or even respond.
As a seller, you don’t want to mark you home as pending sale, go into the process of selling it and have the offer ripped away 10 days later because financing fell through or something else happened. This will just delay the process of getting your home sold.
However, another con of an early offer comes if you don’t respond to it. You may be waiting for other offers that don’t come when you could have had your home sold with the first offer. If it’s a full price offer, this becomes more difficult as if everything worked out, you’d be getting exactly what you asked for.
Getting a quick/early offer when you list your home for sale is great, but it could be not so great. If it’s a full price offer and you don’t accept it, you could be waiting for your home to sell for longer than you’d like. When considering waiting an extended amount of time before responding, consider the longer a homes is on the market, the less likely it is that you will get a full price offer. Of course, if you don’t have enough assurance with the offer, you may be smart to wait. The best thing you can do is discuss it with your real estate agent and let them help you make the right decision.
I would love to be part of your journey when the time is right for you. If you ever have a real estate question or need, or know someone who does, trust that you can turn to me 704-650-5707 | annagrangerhomes@gmail.com.
