Five Ways to Decide on a Home Offer

Want to sell your home? Get a FREE home value report
Want to buy a home? Search all homes for sale

When a buyer puts an offer in on your home, it's important that you don't get too excited. It's wonderful that you're one step closer to selling, but the offer from the buyer may not be so wonderful. That's why today we'll be discussing five different ways that you can evaluate an offer on your home.

1. Make sure that the buyer is pre-approved. The last thing you want to see in an offer is a buyer that hasn't spoken with a lender and can't actually prove their ability to purchase your home. An offer without a letter of pre-approval is really no offer at all. 
2. Look for a good down payment. The more they can put down, the better the buyer is. Occasionally a buyer will not need to put any money down, but that doesn't mean they're not a good buyer. It just means that they're using a different loan program. 
3. Does the buyer have an existing home to sell? If they do, their offer might be contingent upon their home selling. I'm not a fan of contingent offers because it puts the buyer in control of the sale, and you don't want that happening as a seller. Try to avoid contingent offers if at all possible. 
4. It's always better to pick a buyer who can close more quickly. Most times a closing will be within 6-8 weeks, but I've seen buyers propose closing dates that are six months in advance! That is way too long to close on a home. 
5. Cash is king in today's marketplace. Sometimes cash buyers will pay less for a home, but it's nice to know that the money is there and there will not be any fuss with a lender. It makes the transaction easier, and sometimes this makes it worth taking a little less for your home.

If you need help going over an offer on your home, please don't hesitate to contact me. It's not as easy as just taking the highest offer, you have to think about the merits of each one individually and determine which one will benefit you most.

As always, refer to me as your real estate resource in Brainerd!

Four Mistakes that Will Ruin Your Sale

Want to sell your home? Get a FREE home value report
Want to buy a home? Search all homes for sale

When it comes time to sell your home, there are a lot of little things that can go wrong to kill a transaction. Today we are going to talk about the 4 most common mistakes that can screw up your home sale, and how you can avoid them.

1. Trying to sell your home FSBO: Over 60% of all real estate lawsuits stem from For Sale By Owner transactions. You usually get less money for your home sale, and you are much more likely to get in a lawsuit.
2. Mispricing your home: We see this happen time and time again. When you start pricing too high, the home becomes market worn. This means that as the days on the market go up, when it hits market value, the home will have been on the market for months. Buyers then start to have doubts about the home and wonder if there is something wrong with it because it’s been on the market so long. This also encourages buyers to make low-ball offers or skip over the home entirely.
3. Using lousy photos: Bad camera phone pictures, pictures with bad lighting. We’ve seen them all. On our team, we have a full-time professional photographer who is going to capture and present your home in its best light online. If buyers aren’t interested in your home after seeing photos of it, they will just move on to the next listing.
4. Ignoring the backyard: Typically, buyers decide in the first 30 seconds whether they like your home or not, so you’ve got to have great curb appeal. This means having the lawn cut and manicured, with any leaves picked up, to help you make a great first impression.

If you have any questions for us, don’t hesitate to reach out via phone or email. We are never too busy to help out!