As real estate entrepreneurs, we must always be talking to sellers and making offers on properties. When you are out there doing this correctly, the majority of your offers will be rejected, laughed at, and debated by the seller.
After years of fine tuning my strategies for this, I’ve really broke it down into 4 easy and very duplicable steps that cut out the fluff and get straight to the point without being push
4 Easy Steps For Responding to Your Seller When They Tell You Your Offer is Too Low
When sellers question or reject the offers that I verbalize to them, this is the sequence of what I proceed to sa
1. “I base my offers off of what the recent home sales are around your home.”
I want to let them know right away that I’m not just some guy firing off some uninformed opinion of price. I want them to know that I’ve done plenty of research on the immediate area where the home is and carefully calculated the value.
I also offer to show them the actual addresses and sales prices in case they don’t believe me or show some kind of doubt. Again, you need to make it clear that your offers are based off of hard data, and not just your opinion. Once they can see with their own eyes, there is much less debate.
2. “Then I factor in the costs it will take for me to get your house into ‘retail ready’ condition”
I say this to them once we are in somewhat of an agreement on what the values are in the neighborhood. We go over the different expenses like installing a new furnace, new roof, new windows, new flooring, etc…
Once we go over the general updates and repairs that the house would need to match the “retail” house values of the area, I let them know a rough cost estimate for all of these updates.
I really don’t move on from here if we aren’t at a general agreement of what the house needs. If you aren’t, you’ll have to go back to step 1 and tell them that all of these “retail” houses had the updates you’ve discussed. Then you will convey to them that in order for you to be able to sell the house for it’s true value, you need to remodel and update this house according to the rest of the sales.
3. “My goal is to pay you the highest and best fair offer while leaving a small profit on the table for me”
Once you go through all of that, you want to divert them from thinking that you are going through this short little presentation to set them up for a lowball offer. You simply move their attention in another direction by making the statement above, and they will be slightly more open to your offer.
4. “Tell me why you still feel your house is worth more”
Once you’re done with that quick little chat, you can make this final statement. It simply puts your seller in the hot seat and forces them to think of something intelligent. Once you are done with the steps, it will be much harder for them to explain why it’s worth more.
These 4 steps have served me very well when dealing with sellers, but I have to let you know that there is no “be all, end all” scripts that will guarantee results. This is a great guide that will navigate you through these scenarios where the seller thinks your offer is too low. You will come across as respectful and very knowledgeable while sticking to your price.
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