Listed Price vs Offer

Your only risk in waiting a few days and the open house is some big drama occuring in the economy. Otherwise, maybe you don't get the ask +17K from the open house, but it sounds like you'll get something near or above asking.

I've sold twice in the last three years, in MD and NC. MD was all cash, no contingencies. We accepted an over-ask offer, but for less than two others. Cash really is king! Similar in NC, 30% down, $7,500 due diligence, conventional mortgage. VA isn't as bad as people make out EXCEPT if comparables aren't plentiful.
 
I need splaining why any offer is over ask?
Unless I'm missing something, seems like the ask was simply poorly researched and the realtor is waay out of touch.
 
My last sell (2021) was a similar overall situation. My realtor would have happily let me back out and not sell, but I would have owed him the full commission. Fair, since he did his job of bringing an offer of over ask
 
Let'sgoflying! said:
I need splaining why any offer is over ask?
Unless I'm missing something, seems like the ask was simply poorly researched and the realtor is waay out of touch.
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In a word, competition. People know that if they bid asking on a good house, they are going to lose.
 
Let'sgoflying! said:
I need splaining why any offer is over ask?
Unless I'm missing something, seems like the ask was simply poorly researched and the realtor is waay out of touch.
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The realtors have more fun trying to generate some sort of feeding frenzy among desperately over-stretched buyers. It's disgusting and lazy and the new hotness in real estate.
 
jrcox19 said:
My last sell (2021) was a similar overall situation. My realtor would have happily let me back out and not sell, but I would have owed him the full commission. Fair, since he did his job of bringing an offer of over ask
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So you're saying that because an offer was made, that the realtor gets the commission even if the house ends up not selling at all during the period of the exclusive right to sell agreement?
 
Country Flier said:
Although not illegal in my state, my brother had a horror story in the same situation:

Got an offer on the first day of the listing for $10k over asking price, which he simply did not respond to, because he had an open house on the weekend. Got a second offer for more on the weekend and took it. Before closing, his realtor called and someone sued/filed an injunction to stop the sale, claiming racism...it was the person making the first offer. He didn't even know the race of the person who made the first offer! Tied the house up for about 18 months in court.
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That's the scenario I was thinking of. What was the outcome? Did the first offer prevail?
 
An offer to purchase a home is complex and you need to consider every part of it.

The actual purchase price is agreed upon much further along in the escrow.

I had a full price all cash offer, took my home off the market, made an all cash offer on a replacement property and then they reduced the offer by $15,000. I suspect they thought I could not back out.

I sold the house a second time and the people lost their job in the middle of the escrow as my purchase was getting more urgent.

I made another all cash offer on a replacement property and canceled the escrow on the first replacement property.

The third purchase worked, I purchased the replacement property and I am grateful to no longer live in that vortex.

I was amazed at the number of totally incompetent and or ethically challenged people in the real estate business.

Take the time to find a good realtor, a good finance person and a good insurance person. Any of them can screw up the deal.

Good luck!
 
luvflyin said:
Have house for sale. First offer came in. $17,000 more than the listed price. Do we have to accept it? Voices in my head from many years ago say yeah, you have to accept it. But it seems maybe that's wrong. What's the skinny on this. It's in Oregon.
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Is this the same house you were going to seller finance because rates are so high and the market is soft?:biggrin:
 
luvflyin said:
Last time I sold a house was in California about 15 years ago. This issue came up. What I remember is being told you have to accept an offer if it is at or over the list price. Supposedly to keep sellers from declining to sell based on demographics.
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If a seller was legally obligated to sell to a buyer offering asking price, why would anyone ever offer more than asking price?:idea:
 
Lindberg said:
If a seller was legally obligated to sell to a buyer offering asking price, why would anyone ever offer more than asking price?:idea:
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It's not obligated to sell at asking, but to accept an offer at or greater than asking. But it's looking like that's probably not law. Except that seeing as how we are a Common Law Nation, precedent could make it effectively so. See post #37 above. I wonder what the outcome of that suit was. Did the plaintiff win.
 
Lindberg said:
Is this the same house you were going to seller finance because rates are so high and the market is soft?:biggrin:
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Ah, you remember that. Yes. We've pretty much given up on that idea, although we may revisit it depending on how things go.
 
We sold our house in September. We had a realtor who did a pre sale, coming soon ad. The house went on the market, the stipulation was that we would make the decision on any offers one week after the house was listed. We got seven offers, all more than the listing price. The best was about 90 over asking price, but had contingencies that we did not want to deal with. So we accepted the second best offer, that had a mortgage contingency, but no inspection clause. It was for 85k over asking price. The deal closed without a hitch. The realtor took her 4 % and we were done.

The answer to your question is no, you don't have to accept the first offer.
 
luvflyin said:
So you're saying that because an offer was made, that the realtor gets the commission even if the house ends up not selling at all during the period of the exclusive right to sell agreement?
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That was in my contract with my realtor. And after review, it was in the contract for all 3 houses I've ever sold.
 
luvflyin said:
So you're saying that because an offer was made, that the realtor gets the commission even if the house ends up not selling at all during the period of the exclusive right to sell agreement?
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Nope, that's not the case unless you signed a really bad broker contract.
 
Considering the total value of the home, the relatively small $17k bump would not be enough to forgo the open house.
 
jrcox19 said:
That was in my contract with my realtor. And after review, it was in the contract for all 3 houses I've ever sold.
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That was in the boilerplate contracts with the realtors I used. I struck it and replaced it with a clause allowing me to terminate the realtor at any time with the stipulation that if I subsequently sold it to a buyer that the realtor had brought me I would owe the realtor the commission.

Contracts are negotiable. You don't have to accept a clause you don't like, and if the realtor is hungry enough to be aggressive about selling your house, the realtor will be hungry enough to be flexible on the contract.
 
Half Fast said:
That was in the boilerplate contracts with the realtors I used. I struck it and replaced it with a clause allowing me to terminate the realtor at any time with the stipulation that if I subsequently sold it to a buyer that the realtor had brought me I would owe the realtor the commission.

Contracts are negotiable. You don't have to accept a clause you don't like, and if the realtor is hungry enough to be aggressive about selling your house, the realtor will be hungry enough to be flexible on the contract.
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To late for us now. But we have him on record of agreeing with letting the offer expire. Let's say we don't get other offers and get the joint sold. Not likely, but lets what if. Do you think he would be able to enforce commission based on the offer he was complicit in letting expire?
 
Sundancer said:
Did he counter sue?
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Yes, but it was more of "case building" than a legitimate suit (blood from a turnip kinda reason why it wasn't legit).

luvflyin said:
That's the scenario I was thinking of. What was the outcome? Did the first offer prevail?
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No! Who is going to wait 18 months for a house to clear court? He ended up renting it out, then selling about 5 years later.
 
luvflyin said:
So you're saying that because an offer was made, that the realtor gets the commission even if the house ends up not selling at all during the period of the exclusive right to sell agreement?
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Have you read the contract you have with your realtor?
 
luvflyin said:
To late for us now. But we have him on record of agreeing with letting the offer expire. Let's say we don't get other offers and get the joint sold. Not likely, but lets what if. Do you think he would be able to enforce commission based on the offer he was complicit in letting expire?
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Beats me. If it come up (probably won't) ask a lawyer.
 
Vance Breese said:
I was amazed at the number of totally incompetent and or ethically challenged people in the real estate business.
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realtors make money by getting the house sold by any means. They represent themselves, not the buyer or the seller.
 
UngaWunga said:
realtors make money by getting the house sold by any means. They represent themselves, not the buyer or the seller.
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On the contrary, real-state agents are fiduciaries. That said, having known and used several, I am convinced that the majority of them couldn't spell "fiduciary duty," let alone define it. Not that there aren't also a lot of them who are ethical and good at what they do, but the barriers to entry are very low.
 
Lindberg said:
On the contrary, real-state agents are fiduciaries. That said, having known and used several, I am convinced that the majority of them couldn't spell "fiduciary duty," let alone define it. Not that there aren't also a lot of them who are ethical and good at what they do, but the barriers to entry are very low.
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There is a convenient "99% who make the 1% look bad" joke to be made here, but I think the lawyers would claim ownership and sue if I did. :D
 
schmookeeg said:
There is a convenient "99% who make the 1% look bad" joke to be made here, but I think the lawyers would claim ownership and sue if I did. :D
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That's definitely a lawyer joke. But probably applies here too.
 
luvflyin said:
Have house for sale. First offer came in. $17,000 more than the listed price. Do we have to accept it? Voices in my head from many years ago say yeah, you have to accept it. But it seems maybe that's wrong. What's the skinny on this. It's in Oregon.
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Late to the party, but typically, no. There may be some specific requirements in certain states.

A binding contract is formed by an offer and acceptance. In most states the listing is - and might even specifically say - an invitation to negotiate, an invitation to make an offer. That's why what they send you is their offer. You can accept it or not.

We had this situation. Received an offer much higher than out listing price. Then got a few more the same day. A surprising amount of interest. Our listing broker ended up calling all the interested parties, telling them to make their best offer by the end of the next day. We accepted what we felt was the best offer in terms of both amount and likelihood to close without problems.
 
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midlifeflyer said:
Late to the party, but typically, no. There may be some specific requirements in certain states.

A binding contract is formed by an offer and acceptance. In most states the listing is - and might even specifically say - an invitation to negotiate, an invitation to make an offer. That's why what they send you is their offer. You can accept it or not.

We had this situation. Received an offer much higher than out listing price. Then got a few more the same day. A surprising amount of interest. Our listing broker ended up calling all the interested parties, telling them to make their best offer by the end of the next day. We accepted what we felt was the best offer in terms of both amount and likelihood to close without problems.
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I don't even know what it would mean to be required to accept an offer at asking price. Even if you only got one offer. Price is only one term in what's usually a ten-page contract. Even here, where almost all residential sales use state-approved form contacts, the contract has dozens of blanks and possible attachments. And I've never bought it sold a home without making changes to the boilerplate.
 
Lindberg said:
I don't even know what it would mean to be required to accept an offer at asking price. Even if you only got one offer. Price is only one term in what's usually a ten-page contract. Even here, where almost all residential sales use state-approved form contacts, the contract has dozens of blanks and possible attachments. And I've never bought it sold a home without making changes to the boilerplate.
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At this point most states use form residential real estate contracts. In some states government-approved (in some cases that's to avid claims of unauthorized practice of law); in others they the Realtor® standard.
 
luvflyin said:
Here's the story. My mom's house. She's pretty much out of the picture, told my sister and I to take care of it. Agent came up with $699,000 as the asking price. Got the $716,000 offer the day after the listing went live on MLS. The offer expires 8 AM tommorrow. There is an open house this weekend. My sister wants to wait until after the open house. Seems like maybe not a bad idea. I told the agent to get an extension on the offer. He got back later and said he'd just let the offer expire.
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How did the open house go? Receive any more offers?
 
midlifeflyer said:
At this point most states use form residential real estate contracts. In some states government-approved (in some cases that's to avid claims of unauthorized practice of law); in others they the Realtor® standard.
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In Texas, real-estate agents, not all are Realtors, use forms approved by TREC, and they're only allowed to fill in the blanks and use approved addenda. But that doesn't apply to the owner himself or anyone represented in the transaction by an attorney. No one other than the real-estate agent is bound to use the form. And even strictly using the forms, there are many terms that must be agreed to, such as inspection periods, earnest money, financing, closing date, title company, etc.
 
luvflyin said:
Agent said good, 30 showed up Saturday and 24 Sunday. Offer deadline is in a couple hours, 5PM. He said once all offers are in he'll present them. Didn't say how many so far.
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It’s five o’clock somewhere…
 
Lindberg said:
In Texas, real-estate agents, not all are Realtors, use forms approved by TREC, and they're only allowed to fill in the blanks and use approved addenda. But that doesn't apply to the owner himself or anyone represented in the transaction by an attorney. No one other than the real-estate agent is bound to use the form. And even strictly using the forms, there are many terms that must be agreed to, such as inspection periods, earnest money, financing, closing date, title company, etc.
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All true (except of course for the approval coming from TREC) in most states, but not all.
 
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