Your offer has been rejected, but why?

There are many reasons why an offer is declined.  The reasons for denial can be trivial, there are some that can be expected, and in some rare cases – illegal.

An offer declined for trivial reasons tend to show lack of motivation. There are many people (and poor agents) that will put a property on the market to “test the waters”.  As 30 year professionals of Incline Village, we highly recommend avoiding this wait-and-see attitude.  It is a sure way to: 1. dramatically increase the number of days until your home is sold; 2. reduce your profitability (more so if you are highly leveraged and need to sell); and 3. guarantee yourself to not receive the highest price in the shortest amount of time! (That is what our mission is!)

Discrimination in any form has no place in today’s society, however, its ugly presence is still alive.  Incline Village tends to be a more sophisticated environment with residents that come from all over the world, thus a generally caring and loving attitude for everyone.

You wrote a great offer and it was still rejected, and why?
We can identify three main reasons that “make sense” and can possibly be avoided.

1. The offer is not written correctly and does not meet the sellers needs.
Sellers have motivations for putting their home on the market.  As licensed agents, we have legal and moral responsibility to protect our clients by not disclosing issues that can harm a negotiation – (think nasty divorce).

On the flip side of that is knowing the hot buttons of the seller.  If the seller is concerned about moving in the winter, write the offer to reflect a longer escrow.  If the seller is concerned about a higher deposit to show the buyer is serious, up the deposit and include a pre-approval letter from the lender, if needed.

The point is to have an experienced agent that knows how to speak to the selling agent and to ascertain the information necessary to writing a relevant offer.

2. Your offer price is to low.
Everyone is looking to get the best price when buying and selling a home.  There are many different approaches to determining the price you are going to offer for a property.  If you were in Irvine, CA bidding on an apartment in a complex where there are 20 other, exactly the same, units, start tightening up the offer price, big time!

When you start buying real estate in market such as Incline Village, get your druthers about you and get serious.  Sellers here tend to be second home owners and/or individuals not forced to take whatever they can get.  These individuals can wait, and will.

Do not let the above think that we discourage you from negotiating the best price possible, at the best terms possible.  That is the reason you want an experienced and knowledgeable Realtor on your side.  The best part of the equation is that the seller pays the commission for the buying agent.

The point here is do your homework on home values and write a competitive offer.

3. The agent you selected is a not to your liking.
Sometimes you start to work with someone and half way through the process you don’t feel like they understand what you are looking for or haven’t been active listeners. When this happens it is your prerogative to find another agent. There are cases where buyers have actually tried to work with 4 different agents in town and they too  get a bad reputation. Agents talk and it is pretty easy to find out who is a serious buyer and who is writing offers that never get accepted and blame the agent. There are times when agents do let go of clients because they are unrealistic in writing offers. 

Take your time and interview a couple of agents before getting in to deep with the buying process.