Home Selling Made Simple: Negotiating and Escrow
Depending on your market, asking price, time of year and other factors, it may take a while for an offer
to be presented on your home.Once an offer comes in, be prepared to negotiate. Don’t get upset or be tempted to automatically reject low offers – ask your listing agent if it makes sense to present a counteroffer. Sometimes counters can go back and forth several times.
Word of caution: over the years it has been experienced by myself and my agents that the more counters there are over 3 or 4, the more the likely the sale will not come together. This might be the best for you or it might not be. That decision will be in your and the buyers hands. Everything in life is negotiable.
If your house is priced appropriately for your market, you may receive multiple offers, especially in the lower priced homes.In this case, it may not be the best price that determines whose offer you decide to accept. In our current market there are many investors that are paying cash for homes which is attractive to sellers, all things being equal. We have had many sales this past year that the buyers have bid over list price and still not gotten their offer accepted. Many of these situations have been foreclosed properties, not seller occupied homes.
Once you’ve accepted an offer the buyer’s agent will open escrow, a title policy will be ordered, and the buyers earnest money will be deposited into the escrow account. The home inspection and appraisal will be ordered and things may move quickly from this point on. Your agent will guide you through this process.
The home inspection period normally begins immediately after acceptance of the contract and normally runs for 10 days per contract in Arizona. Just as with the showings, you will want to make other plans and be away from the house for the time of the inspection, which generally takes from 2 to 4 hours depending on the size of the home. The buyers and their agent will meet the inspector towards the end of the inspection. At that point the inspector will tour the home with the buyers and point out the good, bad, and hopefully not ugly items that are in need of repair or replacement. The buyers and their agent will decide which (if any) items they will ask the seller to repair or replace. Your agent will meet with you to discuss the buyers inspection requests and help you decide which items you will repair. This is negotiable – with a word of caution – if your home has been on the market for a lengthy period of time you might not have as much negotiating power with requested inspection items. After you deliver your answer back to the buyers, you normally (in AZ) have 5 days to respond. If all is agreeable you can now move on to the closing if there are no other contingencies still outstanding.
Once the contract is accepted, an appraiser will be assigned to your transaction. Be sure to have your home in top condition on the day of the appraisal. Due to new regulations,many appraisals (in AZ) coming in lower than the agreed-upon sale price these days. Don’t let this get you down – but do be prepared to head back to the negotiating table. It can be a sticky wicket in the sales process but knowing ahead that this could happen will pre-pave the way for you to be open to solutions, should this occur.
Once all contingencies are removed and the loan documents are delivered to the title company, the escrow officer will prepare the closing documents. Your agent as well as the buyers agent will go over the final settlement statement to be sure all is in good order and if not, the agent will request any necessary changes. The escrow agent will make an appointment for all parties to sign documents. Here in Phoenix, AZ, the buyer(s) and seller(s) sign at different times. Many people think this is the actual closing, but it is not. The documents must go back to the lender for final review and once that process is finalized, the escrow officer will be notified that the loan has funded and it’s a go to record. The escrow officer will then record the sale with the county and it is now official! The buyers will be given keys to the home and you have SOLD your home!
