Highest and Best Offers in Real Estate Sales

When thinking about highest and best offers in real estate sales, people might often think that means the highest offer in monetary terms. This, however is not always true, as the best offer may not be the highest monetary offer at all. There can be many considerations when a seller is choosing to accept an offer.

A sure-fire way to upset a seller is for a buyer to ask for a laundry list of items they want the seller to repair, such as writing an offer that requires a pest clearance on a property, meaning the repair to the wood damage and/or water damage, or other pest control issues. This definitely would make a seller think twice about this being the highest and best offer.

When a seller has lived in a home for many years, thinks everything was wonderful about their home. Then a buyer writes an offer and picks the house apart, this is likely to cause a seller to think twice about accepting their offer. What I often see when representing Sacramento real estate listings is a buyer’s agent writes an offer and submits a letter stating all the things they see wrong with the house. Then they defend this stating this is why they’re making a low-ball offer. This would definitely be something a seller would not consider as the highest and best offer in real estate sales.

A much more thoughtful approach would be to explain why the buyers can’t pay more based on their loan qualifications for their payment structure. Or they can’t pay more because they have children, which requires them to save for college. These are things that a seller could better understand why a buyer didn’t make an offer as high as the seller would have liked.

When an agent beats up the property in a cover letter, basically they tell a seller everything that’s wrong with their house, so that’s why they didn’t want to pay the market price. A seller is likely to not be very generous in their response. This alone could make a seller accept a different offer when they have other offers to choose from.

Many homeowners do not want flippers, (people who upgrade properties and resell them for a profit), buying their home.  A flipper may make the highest monetary offer but many sellers have a lot of memories in a home that they lived in. They may dislike a buyer whose plans are to not to live there. A seller often envisions a home that they’ve lived in and loved for a long time being owned by another family. They often care about who is buying the property.

When writing the highest and best offers in real estate sales, you want to have all the confidence in your agents’ abilities, so call the Weintraub & Wallace team today. One of our amazing exclusive buyer’s agents will represent you in your purchase!

— JaCi Wallace