Thoughts About Counter Offers in Sacramento Real Estate

The question for a Sacramento listing agent when working with offer negotiations is often whether sellers should sign purchase offers coupled with counter offers or should sellers sign strictly the counter offers and deal with the rest if and when it comes to fruition? Part of this rests on the urgency of the matter and the situation at hand. For example, if the seller and I might believe the buyer will not accept the counter offer, then it seems sort of pointless to sign all of the other paperwork. Or, if the seller is in a rush and doesn’t have time to sign a bunch of documents, we might just deal with the one-page document in the heat of the moment.

You might read this and wonder why would a listing agent and her seller send a counter offer if they don’t believe the buyer will accept? Many reasons for this. First and foremost, it is almost never a good idea to ignore a purchase offer because it’s an attempt, even if it’s a feeble or ridiculous attempt, to buy a home. My policy is a counter offer is probably a wise idea. Because you never know.

People are freaky weird. I realize this but not everybody does. Every time you think you know exactly what a person will do you are probably proven wrong half the time. You can’t always predict future actions. People will respond however they want, and it could be very different under certain circumstances, and since you don’t possess first-hand information (unless you listen to this person snore at night and, even then, there is no guarantee), you can’t really know how somebody will react until you hand over the ammunition.

Second, the buyers might decide to counter back with different terms but same end result or they might counter with a completely opposite issue. Sending a counter offer shows the seller is willing to negotiate and work with the buyer to sell the home in some manner. It could even be a full-price counter offer, and that’s perfectly acceptable.

Sometimes, it’s a negotiating tactic to send the entire purchase contract signed by the seller, along with a counter offer signed by the seller. That signifies to the buyer that the seller is motivated to move forward and that the seller fully expects the buyer to accept the counter offer. I generally advise my sellers to sign all of the paperwork because it’s a more positive statement to send to the buyer. Especially since it’s a bit subliminal.