Brought to you by Scott P. Rogers, Funkhouser Real Estate Group, 540-578-0102, scott@HarrisonburgHousingToday.com
Brought to you by Scott P. Rogers, Funkhouser Real Estate Group, 540-578-0102, scott@HarrisonburgHousingToday.com
Thursday, April 3, 2025
You excitedly make an offer on a new listing of interest and you think you've made a reasonably strong offer.
List Price = $300,000
Your Offer:
- $300,000 escalating $2K above others up to $325,000
- Contingent on financing 90% of the purchase price
- Contingent on a home inspection
- Contingent on the property appraising at/above the sales price
Seems like a strong offer, right? You're willing to pay $25,000 more than the seller is asking for their house!?!
But... the feedback you receive is only that... "the seller moved forward with another offer."
A lot of times - or even most of the time - you won't be able to find out much more than that.
We'll often have any number of questions:
- Was the winning buyer willing to go higher on price?
- Did the winning buyer have a larger downpayment?
- Did the winning buyer waive the inspection?
- Did the winning buyer waive the appraisal?
We can ask all of these questions, but oftentimes a seller does not care to share those details. After all, if the contract they entered doesn't work out, they don't want to have tipped their hand if they are seeking other offers again.
So, after your offer is not accepted, we usually won't have very helpful feedback about why it was not accepted. I'll find out everything I can, to help inform your decision making about future offers on other properties - but we will usually be in the dark as to the reason (or reasons) your offer was not accepted.
Once a house makes it to closing, we will at least be able to see the sales price -- and that may satisfy some of our curiosity -- but we won't know the other terms of the offer that chose the seller to accept that offer rather than your offer.
So, oftentimes, when your offer is not accepted, we won't know much and I'll be encouraging you to think about whether there will be contingencies you will be comfortable not including in your next offer.
