In Part 1 of the Las Vegas First Time Home Buyer Guide, I stressed the importance of shopping your financing options and getting approved for a
loan. Once buyers are qualified they are usually excited to go shopping but they need to make sure they are ready to buy before they waste any time looking around.
In Part 2, we explored when it would be a good time to go shopping for your first home.
In Part 3, we chatted a bit on how you should go about interviewing and hiring your Las Vegas Buyer’s Agent.
In Part 4, realistic time frames for purchasing a home in a distressed environment were set.
In Part 5, we discussed your home search & different types of transactions.
Now we get to move on to the “fun” stuff – you found a house that you like and you want to write an offer on it! This is the part where you get to spell out the price, terms, conditions and contingencies you would like. Notice I put “you would like” in italics. It doesn’t necessarily mean that the sellers will accept everything in your contract.
Here are some things you need to look at right now:
Price – What are you willing to pay? How much are you willing to put up for an earnest money deposit?
Terms & Conditions – When are you going to close? Are you financed or all cash? What type of financing? Do you need sellers to contribute to your closing costs?
Contingencies – Do you need to protect yourself with contingencies for financing, appraisals, home inspections, etc?
The contract should spell out everything regarding the terms of the sale including time frames that all contingencies must be met by.
This is also the time you write a check out for your earnest money deposit to be presented with the offer. Some sellers will not even consider the offer without the earnest money deposit check presented. It is customary in our market that the buyer’s agent holds on to the check until an executed contract comes together. Once the contract is executed, the earnest money deposit check must be deposited according to the terms & conditions of the contract.
It is hard to tell how a seller is going to react. Sometimes they will accept everything in your contract but MOST times they will send you a counter offer to consider. It all depends on what will the market will bear, if the sellers are reasonable and your offer is reasonable for current market conditions, negotiations via counter offer will continue until price, terms, conditions and contingencies are acceptable to all parties.
Sometimes negotiations are easy, sometimes they are difficult, sometimes they are impossible and you just must walk away because you aren’t getting anywhere.
This is also the part of a million “what ifs” comes along: What if they aren’t reasonable, what if the home inspection comes in bad, what if the appraisal comes in low, what if……..
I like my buyers to be prepared for the worst HOWEVER, we deal with the “what ifs” as they come along. Almost every “what if” scenario has a solution – it’s just a matter if everyone is reasonable enough to accept the solution! There is no such thing as a perfect or smooth transaction and as long as everyone remains calm and in problem solving mode, the “what ifs” will be dealt with much easier when they come along than reacting to something outside of our control!
NOW the pressing question is – how long will it take for the seller to respond to my offer? There is no concrete answer these days. Could be as quick as 24 hours or I have had some that have gone on for almost a month. It definitely depends on who the seller is, how accessible the seller’s listing agent is, how motivated the seller is and if multiple offers exist. In the mean time, we sit on the edge of our seats and let nature take it’s course!
RT @ReneeBLV: Part 6 First Time Home Buyer's Guide: Writing an Offer http://bit.ly/gjKYwK