Once we have the purchase agreement written, we’ll send it over to the sellers for them to review our offer. This starts the process of negotiations where each side can ask to revise the terms.

So we’ve sent over the purchase agreement to the seller. If we are the only offer, that makes it simpler. The seller won’t be juggling between multiple different purchase agreements to figure out which one they want to work with. In the case of just one purchase agreement, the seller may want to counter some of the proposed terms. The usual items the seller counters include the price, the closing date, and maybe the inspection timeframe. Of course the seller can counter ANYTHING on the purchase agreement, but those are the most often countered terms.

With a counter offer, we could take their revisions verbally, or written on paper. Usually we go back and forth verbally until we reach some conclusion and then put all the changes on a counteroffer form and send that over.

Here’s an example of a negotiation:

Seller’s list price $599,900.

Buyer offers $580,000 with a 45 day closing period, and 10 days for inspection, with a mortgage of 20% down.

Seller counters at $590,000 and a 60 day close period.

Buyer counters at $588,000 and the seller accepts this counter.

Now we get signatures on the purchase agreement, and a counteroffer form, and the process continues forward to the closing date.