What to Do When You Receive a Lowball Offer


If someone writes you a lowball offer for your home, how should you handle it? Today I’ll give you my advice.

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I know that getting a lowball offer for your home feels painful, frustrating, discouraging, and even offensive. I also know all the terrible—yet justifiable—things that you’d like me to pass onto the buyer who wrote you such a low and insulting offer. It’s very common for both sellers and their listing agents to get so wrapped up in their righteous indignation after receiving a lowball offer that they refuse all communication from the offender.

However, the only winner here is ego-gratification, which has a monetary value of precisely zero. Today, I’ll give you a few suggestions for how to respond to lowball offers other than letting your anger get the best of you.

I primarily encourage you to always be gracious and to respond with a counteroffer. The fact that someone liked your home enough to take the time to write an official offer on it is already a promising start. There might be various reasons why some buyers choose to send a low offer. Some simply want to test your willingness to negotiate—some sellers have been known to accept discounted offers for strictly personal reasons. 

Other buyers might send a low offer because they feel that your home is overpriced; if you’ve recently upgraded your home, the buyer might send a lower offer because they think the asking price was meant to compensate for the costs of those projects. 
There might be various reasons why some buyers choose to send a low offer.
But guess what? It’s not their job to know the value of your home. Most buyers don’t sit and study the market like we agents do when we appraise a for-sale home. It’s our job as agents and sellers to educate buyers on home values. After all, negotiation is how selling a home works, and to tell you the truth, negotiating an offer is the most fun we have in our workday as Realtors.

If you are looking for a strong negotiator on your side as you sell your home, or if you have any real estate questions, feel free to reach out to me. Let’s talk.

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