How to Craft an Irresistible Portage Park Home Offer
At last! You’ve found a Portage Park home that pleases your eye and fits your budget. You’re ready to put your house-hunting days behind you and make a Portage Park home offer on what will be your home for the next 10-20 years . . . or forever! You definitely don’t want to let this one slip between your fingers.
So how do you craft a Portage Park home offer that the seller can’t refuse?
First, decide whether you will meet or exceed the listing price?
A seller can list their Portage Park home for any amount they want. That doesn’t mean the home is actually worth it’s list price. It just means the seller would like to have that much money padding their pocket.
Talk to your real estate agent about the value of the home in which you’re interested. Compare the home’s list price to the selling price of other similar homes, which have sold recently. Keep your seller’s wishes in mind, but move forward from your estimation of the home’s value.
Of course, there are other factors involved in the sale, which might influence you to offer more or less than your estimation of the home’s value. Do you know the seller to be highly motivated? Maybe there has been a nasty divorce, or the seller is trying to escape a foreclosure. If so, you can risk a lowball Portage Park home offer. Do you know that you have other buyers, who are interested in the home, to compete with? If so, you should probably offer more than the home’s value.
Prove that you’re good for your Portage Park home offer.
Either offer to pay in cash or include a letter of pre-approval for your mortgage. Avoid having a financial contingency on your offer. Sellers don’t want to twirl their thumbs while they wait for you to get approved for a mortgage.
Include a timeline in your offer.
Lengthy home sales can sink a home’s value, an ominous threat to both your seller and yourself, as the future owner of the home.
Let your seller know how long it’s going to take for you to close a deal on the Portage Park home. A seller will smile on an offer with a close date less than 30 days away. Remember to include other important dates as well, like the home appraisal, the home inspection, the final walk through, etc. You want to show your seller that your 30-day to close is realistic as well as enticing.
Narrow down your contingencies.
It’s normal for buyer and seller to haggle over a few details of the transaction. You might be insistent on having that 80s paneling, lurking in the upstairs bedrooms, replaced with drywall, while your seller is put off by the idea of investing money into a home right before moving out.
Only make requests that are really crucial to the value of the home. If the roof is unsound or the HVAC system is outdated, include contingencies. If you just don’t like how something looks, resolve to fix that yourself. The less work a seller has to do to close the deal, the sweeter that deal will seem.
Crafting a strong Portage Park home offer is the first step towards closing a deal on your new home. If your offer is uninspiring, you’ll be back to the streets, looking for another suitable house. If your offer pleases the seller, you’re well on your way to jangling a new set of keys on your keychain!