Multiple offers on house for sale

hi folks,

i've never sold a house before. I put my house on the market
for what realtor said it should be priced at. His price is
reasonable based on similar houses which have sold nearby
this year. after one day there are 2 offers, both at or above
the asking price, and another interested party. what should
I do, in terms of possibly asking for more in case the price
was too low, but without risk of offending or turning off
the bidders? Thks,

Jim

Re: Multiple offers on house for sale

> what should I do, in terms of possibly asking for more in case the price
> was too low, but without risk of offending or turning off
> the bidders? Thks,
>
> Jim

Hi Jim:

The first thing I said to myself when I read your post is "Wow, he got an
offer higher than list. Folks here in the Detroit area consider themselves
fortunate if they just get an offer!"

Since you already have a couple of offers in hand with at least one above
the list price, you're best bet is to successively give each prospective
buyer or agent a chance to see the highest offer and give them an
opportunity for offer improvement. When the last offer stands unchallenged
and there are no new offers received from other buyers, you can be assured
that you have probably gotten as much as the market will bear.

Congratulations on your soon-to-be sale!

All Success
Keith L. Karolyi
K2 Property Services Inc.
734 771 8784

Re: Multiple offers on house for sale

wrote:
> i've never sold a house before. I put my house on the market
> for what realtor said it should be priced at. His price is
> reasonable based on similar houses which have sold nearby
> this year. after one day there are 2 offers, both at or above
> the asking price, and another interested party. what should
> I do, in terms of possibly asking for more in case the price
> was too low, but without risk of offending or turning off
> the bidders? Thks,

Ask your realtor's advice - that's why they earn the big bucks.

Multiple offers within one day clearly indicates you are in a seller's
market or underpriced - do not worry about "offending" buyers. Be
respectful and diplomatic of course, but you (or rather your realtor)
should indicate to the interested parties that you have multiple offers
and ask if any are interested in increasing their offers. If you were
underpriced in the pricing, this tactic should allow the offers to rise
closer to the house's real market value. Your agent should also signal to
bidders that you are open to accepting back-up offers in case the winning
bidder backs out later. Saves having to re-open bidding from scratch.

We had multiple offers when we sold our home and our agents provided
excellent advice during that period. We also had multiple offers within a
couple days of placing our house on the market, but fortunately our
agents had adopted a policy for handling that wonderful "problem" before
the house was placed on the market.

The policy was to tell prospects that we would take offers for the first
week but would not make any decisions on which to accept till after the
end of the first week.

At the end of that week we (or rather our agents) had quite a pile of
offers, and they went through them and abstracted the offer terms,
including such things as:

Offer price.
Mortgage amount and down payment amount.
Any other special conditions.
Any suspicious problems with the written offer (indicating possibly
deliberate contractual "mis-steps" in filling out the offer boilerplate.
Our agents were sticklers for contract details.)

Since we were selling in a sellers market, all the offers were above the
ask price with few or no conditions. The highest offer was from a buyer
who could buy with 50% cash and 50% mortgage - and it was 6% above the
next highest offer. There were a cluster of offers 6% under the highest
offer, but two of them were from buyers who needed no mortgage (all
cash). Our agents advised us to go with the all-cash offers because it
makes for a smoother and faster close when a bank is not involved.

The two cash bidders were told that there had been multiple offers and
that we had narrowed the field to two and were asked if either wished to
raise their bid. Both raised.

As it happened, the person we finally accepted the offer from backed out.
Reason: simple cold feet. She felt she had over-extended herself by
getting caught up in a bidding war. Fortunately for us the other cash
bidder left their offer on the table as a back-up offer. We accepted it
and that finally closed. In any case, we actually still had two more
bidders who had back-up offers in place. Such things happen in places
where inventory is low and the area is considered desirable.

Re: Multiple offers on house for sale

"Jim Logajan" <> wrote in message
news:
> Multiple offers within one day clearly indicates you are in a seller's
> market or underpriced - do not worry about "offending" buyers. Be
> respectful and diplomatic of course, but you (or rather your realtor)
> should indicate to the interested parties that you have multiple offers
> and ask if any are interested in increasing their offers. If you were
> underpriced in the pricing, this tactic should allow the offers to rise
> closer to the house's real market value. Your agent should also signal to
> bidders that you are open to accepting back-up offers in case the winning
> bidder backs out later. Saves having to re-open bidding from scratch.
>
> We had multiple offers when we sold our home and our agents provided
> excellent advice during that period. We also had multiple offers within a
> couple days of placing our house on the market, but fortunately our
> agents had adopted a policy for handling that wonderful "problem" before
> the house was placed on the market.
>
> The policy was to tell prospects that we would take offers for the first
> week but would not make any decisions on which to accept till after the
> end of the first week.
>
> At the end of that week we (or rather our agents) had quite a pile of
> offers, and they went through them and abstracted the offer terms,
> including such things as:
>
> Offer price.
> Mortgage amount and down payment amount.
> Any other special conditions.
> Any suspicious problems with the written offer (indicating possibly
> deliberate contractual "mis-steps" in filling out the offer boilerplate.
> Our agents were sticklers for contract details.)
>
> Since we were selling in a sellers market, all the offers were above the
> ask price with few or no conditions. The highest offer was from a buyer
> who could buy with 50% cash and 50% mortgage - and it was 6% above the
> next highest offer. There were a cluster of offers 6% under the highest
> offer, but two of them were from buyers who needed no mortgage (all
> cash). Our agents advised us to go with the all-cash offers because it
> makes for a smoother and faster close when a bank is not involved.
>
> The two cash bidders were told that there had been multiple offers and
> that we had narrowed the field to two and were asked if either wished to
> raise their bid. Both raised.
>
> As it happened, the person we finally accepted the offer from backed out.
> Reason: simple cold feet. She felt she had over-extended herself by
> getting caught up in a bidding war. Fortunately for us the other cash
> bidder left their offer on the table as a back-up offer. We accepted it
> and that finally closed. In any case, we actually still had two more
> bidders who had back-up offers in place. Such things happen in places
> where inventory is low and the area is considered desirable.

That is an interesting story. Sometimes I get the idea that all concerned
would save time and energy if the whole process could be handled like an
auction, with everybody in the same room shouting out their bids at the same
time. Or maybe as the internet develops, it can all be done on Ebay or some
similar online service.

Re: Multiple offers on house for sale

On Mon, 10 Oct 2005 06:23:14 -0000, Jim Logajan <>
wrote:

>As it happened, the person we finally accepted the offer from backed out.
>Reason: simple cold feet. She felt she had over-extended herself by
>getting caught up in a bidding war.
Hopefully you got a decent deposit from that offer that you were able
to keep because she backed out of the deal.