Offer: Why waste the paper?

When I am representing a seller and get a low offer I am not offended. I just read a post by one of the other consistent Sacramento bloggers, John L, and he was babbling about sellers thinking they are in the past and buyers making offers in the future. What he was saying is true; often sellers want to price their home for what their neighbor sold for last year even though prices have come down. Buyers on the other hand seem to want to add on another year’s worth of decline to their offers. Our job as Realtors is to find the ground in the middle where both parties can agree. Sounds easy right?

Here is my latest rant, we received a well prepared offer on one of my listings, okay, not that good especially in regards to pricing, the offer was $25,000 or 5.9 percent below the asking price we had just reduced to. Still the offer appeared to be in the realm of negotiating. The ones that are 90 percent or less of the asking price are almost impossible to find a middle ground. We countered back with reasonable drop to show a willingness to negotiate and asked for a response the next day. My first hint this was going to be “Twilight Zone” experience was the buyer’s agent who told me his buyer was not available until Tuesday because she works. Must be a tough place with no lunch breaks or time off for over 72 hours! We waited; they eventually countered back with no courtesy call from the agent and only came up a few thousand dollars.
Before we could respond I got a message from the agent saying his client wanted rescind her offer because she could not afford the higher amount.

This is a recurring rant about agents who don’t have any common sense or lack the ability to pick up the phone. Why waste time, emotions and paper on proposing deals that have no chance. Had the agent called me and said we looked at you house, my client loves it but can only afford so much I would have told him, don’t write the offer but I will call you if we get into a position where that price will work. Making a low offer with no room to negotiate is a waste of time. This is especially true when the house has just been reduced and relatively new on the market. This agent is not doing much more than sitting on his name!

Hang in there Ms. Seller! You have a beautiful home in a great neighborhood and the right buyer will come along.