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.

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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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