What a thrill it is to finally find the house! After you put an offer on a home, however, the wait is stressful. Will you win the home, or will the seller reject it?
The truth is the seller is more likely to either accept it or accept it with conditions. This means you will receive a counteroffer.
After all, they want to sell their home, so, at least in this scenario, they’re willing to negotiate.
Then, there are those situations when a seller outright rejects an offer.
This can happen for a number of reasons:
- The seller accepted another offer.
- The seller is unwilling to entertain any of your requests, such as paying closing costs or paying for expensive repairs or upgrades.
- Your offer was far below what he or she will accept.
Those are just a few reasons an offer on a home might be rejected.
Still Want the Home?
If so, it’s time to come up with a strategy. Again, we’ll need to discuss your goals and find out precisely what it is about this house that made you want to submit an offer.
Other issues we’ll need to discuss include the following:
Don’t take the rejection personally
Buying a home is a business transaction, yet both the seller and the buyer often have emotional “stuff” going on in the background.
Some sellers are emotionally attached to the home, while others are strictly business. Falling into the trap of over-analyzing the possible reasons behind the rejection is crazy-making.
Naturally, we will speak with the seller’s agent to get an answer to your “why?” But you have options, so let’s move forward with one or more.
Can You Go Higher?
The most common reason an offer on a home is rejected is the price offered is lower than what the seller wants. The only move you can make to combat this is to sweeten the deal by offering more for the home, if at all possible. Resubmit the offer at a higher price.
The Terms May be Unacceptable
There are certain contingencies that many sellers find unacceptable. The most common of these is the home sale contingency – when you make the purchase contingent on selling your current home.
Depending on the market, many sellers will reject an offer because of this. It’s too big of a gamble, and they may have other offers that don’t contain this clause.
Your offer may be rejected if the closing date is unacceptable. Although not common, it does happen. Whether the seller needs to close sooner or later than your stated closing date, they may have another offer on a home that meets their goals.
If Nothing Seems to be Working
It’s easy to become discouraged when your offer on a home is rejected, especially if you become emotionally attached during the process.
Make a note of the home’s features that attracted you the most so that we can keep an eye out for similar homes as they come on the market.
Your dream home is obtainable, and it’s out there. I won’t stop until I find it for you.
There is what I call a “cool off” period is your offer on a home is rejected. Last year I had two customers who put in multiple offers on home and were rejected. After discuss what it may take to get an offer on a home accepted, we agreed to step away from the process for 30 days.
In each case, we let things cool off for over 60 days. That was enough time for the market to change and a variety of inventory came to market.
One customer put an offer on a home that was accepted right away, and my other customer took just two tried before their offer on a home worked.
Bottom line: patience. It does work.
