How much time is the first offer giving you to respond? We only allow a seller less than 24 hours.

Contingencies. Inspections and who will do the repairs. Anything requested to fix up front (such as painting allowance).

Longer closing means more cost for you. I don't understand about the 100 down at closing. As a seller you will be getting all of your money, so how much they put down to their bank doesn't matter to you. Is the 20 in escrow now? $1,000 as good faith isn't much for that price.

How do you know so much about the buyers finances? Such as their salary (150 would not be all that great of a salary here for that priced home). They may be over extended in other areas. Is their financing all ready to go?

Just line them all up and compare all of the offers and good luck!

Gloria

The first guy has the $$ to make this happen. Good faith money is regional (ours was $100 (yes, hundred) on a $325K house). They are coming up to $20K for escrow, so that is about right.

The second people may be a bit iffy. As quitglo pointed out a $450K house on a $150K salary is not that great a ratio.

Eliminate contingent offers, look for the shortest close date (as long as that meets your needs), the least amount of repair work requested, no inspections. Cash offers really mean nothing to you, although it is one less step in the process (eliminating the mortgage company). However, many people seem to like them as they do eliminate the morgage company.

You do not need to respond to any or all of the offers. I'd wait as long as possible to respond to the offers you are not accepting. The offer you accept needs to clear attorney review. Once your accepted offer clears attorney review (but not before) I would respond to the other offers with a polite "we accepted another offer".

I've been a buyer recently, and some many not agree with what I just said, but this is business and you may want to wait to reject offers until your accepted offer is solid ... or as solid as it can be until close.

Congrats on the multiple offers after so many days on the market. When it rains it pours. :-)

How about a party! :) jk - good advice given above. maybe post more when you have them and know the particulars for sure.

Thanks for the advice!

The house is immaculate but does have weaknesses like many houses do. I just kept lowering the price every 6 weeks and finally matched a few lifestyles all at once. I priced slightly below the comps.

I suspect the other offers will be close in this buyer's market. Boopadaboo: I will keep updating. It is only for real when the check clears.

The next decision will be which attorney to use. The realtor has experience in these matters but may have an interest in who I select.

When receiving multiple offers, the highest is not always the best. That being said....
There are several things to consider. Money, date of closing, any home to sell or home to close contingencies, the amount to be financed (reason? it is easier to appraise a home that is 70% LTV than 95% LTV or Loan to Value).
You have time to wait to see all offers that come in but be careful, the best one might get away because they don't want to play the waiting game.

Regarding your attorney choice, if you feel uncomfortable with your agent's attorney choice, have him/her recommend 3 local real estate attorneys. Just like someone that has graduated medical school knows about orthopedics, they may not specialize in it. You don't need a litigator to close your transaction but you should choose one that is well versed in real estate transactions.

Interview the attorney via phone. Find out the fee for closing a sale. Be very careful about Title Insurance as well as many attorneys are agents of a title company and they will order your title in your behalf but you won't know about them getting paid for it until closing. Get their Title fee which is based on the sale price of your home.
The higher price of home pays a higher price on title insurance.

Some attorneys will quote a much lower fee to get your business and then stick it to you for abnormally high title insurance fees. Their legal work is a loss leader. So, here are the questions I would ask:
1. Do you attend all of your closings or will I be at the table with someone that I won't know?
2. Are you proficient at real estate transactions?
3. Have you done many in my subdivision/city/county/etc.
4. What are your fees to close my sale?
5. What will be the title insurance fees on a sale price of $450,500 (plug in a number).
6. I understand that I can order my own title. Do you have a problem with that?
(You can contact a local title insurance company to get quotes on insurance to use as a basis when talking to an attorney. You CAN order your own title. But find out the price vs. your attorney doing it).
7. If I'm using you for the closing of my sale and my purchase, what kind of discount can I expect.

Good luck!

Good advice elginagent.

All offers are in. All offers should not get rejected by the mortgage company, per my agent. We are now at "best and highest offer". Everything will be scrutinized. Tommorrow
morning all parties will get know whether it is "Deal or No deal". We are within the 24 hour "offer" period and will not exceed the time limit.

Oh BITE ME newjersey LOL. Just kidding - I'm very jealous - congrats!!!!!!!!!!! I'm so tired of coming in as "second favorite home".

Good luck and great job!

We received an offer yesterday. It's low and the closing date is not till June. The offer expires Wed evening. We were going to wait til then and counter. Now another couple has made it clear they are going to make an offer before Wed. We suspect it will be better than the first. What does one do under these circumstances? Do you simply go with the best offer or do you give the first party a chance to improve their offer? Or is that not permissible?

We'll talk to our attorney tomorrow, but I'm antsy now!!

What makes you think 150k for a 450k house is not that good ratio wise? He/she may put down 50% or so,who knows...One can't make generalizations about potential buyers without knowing their financial situation..My issue is why does he/she need a bridge loan,if their home is paid off? Why not tap the equity?..and why would you have your home paid off and no additional liquid assets on a 150k salary?

also, the guy w/$150K has NO MORTGAGE on his current home. He may put down 80%!

Our plan in upgrading had been to pay all but $100k, to keep our mortgage payments low enough for us.

Really depends on what kind of time frame the second offer (if it materializes) contains. I guess I would wait to see if the second offer comes in by Wed afternoon and if it does and is acceptable then I would counter to the first with something slightly better with a time frame for response well under the limit for the time frame to respond to the second. I would also have a counter of what would be acceptable to you ready for the first in the event the second offer does not materialize.

Two options I can see.

1) Take first offer NOW before the guy rethinks (are you crazy? House would be sold now if this was me! We are at 60 days and i dont know if I can stand one more day of this)
2) Tell second buyer to put in their offer today or you will take other offer. Then decide. This is a bird in the hand thing! Remember, promise of offer IS NOT AN OFFER!

Rubypearl has not said how many days they have been on the market and has also indicated that the first offer was unacceptable and they had already determined to counter regardless the lure of a possible better offer in the making. ou may be desperate, it doesn'ta ppear to me that Rubypearl is.

I think Rubypearl seems more concerned about ettiquite.

Thanks for input. We've been on the market 3 weeks. Heavy traffic, but this was first (and so far only) offer. Quite low & with a very long closing date. Not unacceptable, but not what we hoped for. We've countered with a response date that gives second party time to get their offer in. They now say they will do so on Sun. We'll see

I know that a promise of an offer isn't an offer and I am definitely a "bird in the hand" person. I guess my question was about how one does the dance--ethically and legally--of dealing with more than one offer at the same time. Our atty has helped answer this--in our state you can negotiate with as many parties as you like up until you have a valid contract with one of them. The idea unnerves me, but happily DH is really into this negotiating thing.

Since no one is really looking at this posting (I goofed by adding onto an old post when I meant to start a new one)I am going to use it to get this out of my system: we sold our house! we sold our house! There was even a little bidding war (which we found enormously stressful). And now we get to be slobs again. Towels on the floor! Dishes in the sink! Toilet seats raised! Yay, yay, yay.

Congrats Ruby! How far did the bidding go back and forth and what was the final criteria you chose in deciding which offer to take?

Newjseybt-

Before you freek out & rush with taking the offers, let me tell you that the market has picked up BIG TIME in the NE.

It's looking like the tide is turning into a SELLERS market! The homes that are coming on the market are priced higher than last year.
People started buying right after the first week of New Years. Yes, bidding wars are starting...
I'm hearing the same in many parts of the US.

Re: multiple offers-take the one that is the best for your wallet & your psyche (the least headache). Let them all know you've got multiple offers coming in & watch the PRICE GO UP & the contingencies removed!!!
Play one against another to get the best deal out of it, contingency-wise & money-wise. Good luck.

Am I the only one confused by this thread? The original post was in April of last year. NewJerseybt has sold his house already.

It's my fault the thread's so confusing. I was researching "multiple offers" and then, when I went to ask my own question, I goofed and posted to the old thread. Now people are responding to OP and not reading through to find my goof.

The bidding war was really only a short skirmish. We ask 495K. Couple No. 1 offers 450K. Against DH's better judgment--we have nice home across from a lake and DH thinks we should get close to asking--we counter 475K bc I keep hearing first offer is often best offer, buyer's mkt, etc etc. Then, as if to prove DH right, Couple No. 2 shows up like the cavalry, falls in love with house, promises "very attractive offer" but it's evening now and they're leaving town next morning and feel they can't write it up for a few days. That's when I post here.

I read responses, chant "bird in hand, bird in hand" to DH. He hands me big glass of wine, tells me we are withdrawing 475K offer before Couple No. 1 accepts it. Couple No. 1 comes back next day with new offer of 490K and super tight response deadline. We tell Couple No. 2's agent what's going on. From airport on their way home Couple No. 2 calls, says they'll beat it. Couple No. 2 lands, drives directly from airport to our house, their agent meets them. While we huddle in br, they sit in our dining rm, write up cash offer of 496K, only contingency is structural inspection. Meanwhile Couple No. 1's agent is calling, asking what's going on. Finally, we call him back, say we're taking the 496K. He says Couple No. 1 might beat that; we say no thanks--we're content and find the back and forth draining. A better businessperson would have kept going, I suppose, but we'd gotten what we wanted and didn't want to tempt the fates any more than we already had.

Now we're holding our breath till inspection is over with.

Good for you Rubypearl. You did extremely well. You and your husband make a good team, unwittingly or not. Were the first buyers given a reason for why you recinded the counter to have come back with such a better offer?

And the fact that you did not give in to greed and prolong the proceedings should make for good Karma. :)

And yes, the thread was a little confusing but I always look at the date a thread was first posted and also read all the reponses to make sure I am not just repeating what someone else wrote so I saw where the mistake was made.

Thanks for sticking with me, Dianemargaret. We told the first buyers' agent the truth--that a better offer had come in and we were content and didn't want to continue the process. He understood and asked us to call immediately if the deal fell through. Which we would do. One downside to fsbo and flat listing is you tend to meet the buyers and come to care about them as people, rather than dollar signs.

And yes, Karma is important to me. :) I like that my posting goof has led to my having this "secret" thread to post my good news. I'm afraid if I get too cocky about this deal, it will come falling down like a house of cards.