Expert: Ray Beggs - 5/25/2007

Question
My mom passed away in Jan. My siblings and I are selling her home ourselves. We have a disagreement about a process in taking offers. Here is the scenario: We have 2 people who have looked at the house. Buyer A called for an appointed on Wed. to view the house on Sat. Buyer B called on Thurs. to view the house that evening. Buyer B viewed the house and made an offer before leaving the house. The offer was below the asking price, but he was willing to negotiate. Buyer B was told someone else would be viewing the house on Sat. and we would get back to him. Buyer A viewed the house on Sat. and made no offer; asked to view the house a second time on Tues.;made no offer but said would get back with an offer by Wed. night. No offer has been recieved and it is Fri. night.

Here is the disagreement the family is having. Should the house go to the person who first made the appointment to view the house if they come back with an offer for our asking price without us giving Client B an opportunity to make an offer? How many times do you give a client to make counter offers? My siblings say only once, maybe twice.

Answer
Hi Kerry,

Sorry to hear about your mothers passing. I'm going to be blunt. It doesn't matter who has seen the house first, it all comes down to who is a) offering the most and b) ready, willing and able to go to escrow and get the house sale closed. Many times on my listings, we get multiple offers and the offer that we end up taking is the buyer who is most able to buy the house and that is offering the most money.

I would suggest opening escrow with the best buyer and keeping the other one in a back-up offer position.

Best of luck,

Ray