You Just Made an Offer to Buy the Seller’s House
The seller may;
- Accept your offer
- Ignore your offer and not respond at all
- Reject your offer outright in writing
- Make a counter offer to your offer
Counter Offers
The original offer you made was likely over nine pages long. The counter offer is usually only one page long. Here is an old version of a Counter Offer form.
The seller’s counter offer will only change those things in your offer that the seller doesn’t agree to.
The sales price is the most common item the seller will attempt to change with a counter offer. The seller, for example, may accept everything in your offer except the price so the seller will make a counter offer which only increases the sales price.
If you accept that price and sign the seller’s counter offer, then the original multi-page offer plus the one-page counter offer together become the binding contract.
Counter Offer #2
If you don’t like the seller’s counter offer, you can make an additional counter offer of your own (Counter Offer #2) to make changes to the seller’s Counter Offer #1.
And so on with additional counter offers back and forth until an agreement is reached or it becomes clear an agreement cannot be reached and negotiations are abandoned.
If you end up with several counter offers, it can become VERY confusing. Take the time to make sure you understand what you are agreeing to!
Other Items in Counter Offers
Although just about anything can be seen in a counter offer, a few items are often seen;
- Change price
- Include or exclude items from the sale (“Wall-mounted TV in family room is not included in sale”)
- Change the close of escrow date
Call me with your questions.
NEXT TIP >> What happens if it ends up I can’t borrow the money to buy the house?
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