Four Tips to Help You Make an Offer on a Home

Four Tips to Help You Make an Offer on a Home

Interest rates remain at historic lows.  Demand is higher and supply is tight.  The real estate market is hot.  But deciding to purchase a home is still one of the biggest financial decisions we will make in our lifetime.  We recently discussed how buyers can avoid buying a liability.  But in this post, we will provide four tips to intelligently make an offer on a home.

When you find a home that you want to buy, and that is within your budget, you want to make sure that your offer is both realistic and good enough to beat other potential buyers trying to buy the same property while also ensuring that you don’t overpay for the property.

Here are four tips that could help you accomplish that objective:

1. Research.  Before you submit an offer on that property, you should conduct as much research as possible about the subject property.  You should try and find out how long the property has been on the market.  Learn about the current market dynamics in that neighborhood in terms of supply and demand for other properties.  You should also check the physical condition of the property.  In sum, the more information you can obtain about the property and area, the better position you will be in to negotiate the sales contract.
2. Initial Offer.  Once you are ready to submit an offer, you should quickly and thoroughly prepare a proposed contract with all of your proposed terms and conditions.  It is not enough to simply agree on a sales price, but you should also consider when you want to close as well as ensuring that you will be receiving clear title at the time the transaction is complete.
3. Negotiate.  Remember, your initial offer is just that – a starting point.  Therefore, be prepared to receive a counteroffer from the seller.  The counteroffer may include many non-financial terms as well as a new proposed sales price.  Be prepared to go over both the proposed sales price, and other proposed terms.  Also be prepared for these negotiations to go several rounds with the seller.  Should you have any questions about the contract, please do not hesitate to contact one of our attorneys.
4. Home Inspection.  It is imperative that before you purchase the home, you schedule a thorough home inspection.  An inspection should focus on unsafe conditions or expensive repairs like structural integrity, plumbing, roof condition, electrical maintenance, termites, pests, and more.  Moreover, if you have any additional concerns, be sure to discuss them with your inspector so your inspector can inspect same.  Once the inspection is complete, your inspector will prepare a report and that report may serve as the basis to reopen negotiations with the seller.

Once you have completed this process, it will be time to complete your transaction and become a homeowner.  Here are seven tips to save money on closing costs.

Nonetheless, if you follow the above process you will no doubt help yourself get the best possible deal on your home purchase.