Should You Set an Offer Review Date
As the seller, you have options on receiving, reviewing, and responding to offers to purchase your property. You can receive and review offers as they come in, knowing that they may come at any time and expire within 24 hours, or you can set a specific offer review date ahead of time. Simply put, the offer review date is a predetermined date and time that you intend to respond to any offers.
What are the benefits of an offer review date?
An offer review date provides a set amount of time for buyers to view the property, carefully consider their options, and craft a strong offer that they are comfortable with, reducing the risk of buyer’s remorse. Buyers who feel rushed to view a property and submit an offer may submit an offer on a property that they aren’t in love with or offers terms and amounts that they aren’t comfortable with, increasing the risk of remorse and termination. A carefully considered offer is a stronger offer.
The offer review date puts the receipt and review of offers in your control. Offers come with a wealth of information and terms to weigh and compare. With no offer review date in place, offers may arrive at any time and need to be reviewed and discussed at inopportune times. A predetermined offer review date offers the space and time to go through all the data and discuss the terms and conditions that best suit your needs. You, the seller, remain in control of your schedule and the offer review.
What if you get an offer that expires before the offer review date?
Even if you set an offer review date, you may receive an offer set to expire before the offer review date. It’s a tactic that buyers and agents rely on to try to get sellers to accept their offer before they are faced with competition from multiple buyers. As the seller, you have the opportunity to respond early or stick to the offer review and hope the buyers stick around. I recommend that sellers stick to their offer review date for the following reasons.
In this market, buyers are holding their offers until shortly before the review. Answering early means you may miss out on competitive offers.
In order to notify all interested parties, we need to contact every agent that showed the property, every agent that is scheduled to show the property, and change the remarks on the listing to show that offers will be reviewed before the original offer review date. This may result in a few more offers, but they may be rushed.
The offer review allows time for flakey buyers to walk away. Some buyers are using the shotgun approach and putting in offers on anything that might work. In this market, you want a buyer that wants your property…not just a buyer that wants A property.
Reviewing early, on an accelerated schedule, kills the original goal of calming some of the chaos and controlling the offer review period.
It provides time for serious buyers to improve their terms to position their offer in first place. A buyer that truly wants a property, will more than likely want the same property 2-3 days down the road.
A buyer that’s pushing a seller to respond before the published review date, may be a buyer that continues to push and control the process, creating a difficult transaction.
As the seller, you should have some control over the process. The choice is yours, but I almost always recommend that my clients stick to their predetermined offer review date. When reviewing offers and selecting an offer, it’s important to realize that you aren’t only picking your favorite offer. You’re actively rejecting other offers, and some of those offers may be fantastic. By rejecting them, you turn away potentially solid contracts, so it’s best to focus the offer selection on the strength of the offer, the security, and the probability of closing. Your best bet is to set a process prior to listing and stick to it.