Advice Needed: Selling a House
 

Long story short I have had my house listed for a while and my wife and I got an offer on it today. We are about 20K apart on asking and offer. Do I counter offer? I have never dealt with any of this before and just want some opinions. It's an acreage that we have had listed about 4 months. We are moving to another acreage and don't HAVE to sell the place, as we have had several offers from people wanting to rent out listed place. Anyway give me your feedback. TIA

I think that classic negotiating tactics say that you should never be the person who says "okay". You always ask for something else and only stop when the other person says "okay".

That said, the world economy has collapsed and your offer may be the last real estate offer ever made on Planet Earth, at least until the intelligent apes take over.

My wife says that we should take the money and run, but my mind says that we need to counter offer. It really is a nice acreage and we are not asking for the moon. Thanks for the response.

You have to counter offer if you want to sell. The market is down and the buyer is giving you a low ball offer coming in at $20K below asking price, provided you are asking a fair price from a recent appraisal or comps. If you don't have to sell it, I would not accept an offer lower than what you are ok with. Certainly not $20K below your asking price(again, provided you have listed at today's value).

counter offer.

Give them a counter offer 20K more than your listing price

(warning - I'm not in sales or real estate. I've just seen a few movies)

Housing market sucks right now, probably the worst time to sell a house. You have to counter offer IMO

they're trying to steal it, screw that.

My first thought was, if you don't have to sell and can rent it out, then don't sell. That being said, you should definately counter.

Counter offer. The worst they can do is either say no or come back with their own counter offer. If you don't have to sell it.....then you hold all of the power.

20 years of negotiating.....counter....

You probably didn't even sleep at a Holiday Inn Express last night did you?

I'm a licensed Realtor in New Jersey FYI. (Just for a background of how i'm pulling this out my ass)

If you have a decent Realtor then you should have an idea of what your house should actually sell for. Based on similar listings sales etc.

I might counter offer with the same offer you had the house listed for. Have the Realtor say that its reasonably priced and priced to sell. And that you really weren't intent on dropping the price. The other Realtor will call bullshit but hopefully raise by 5-10k. Then i'd just settle and be happy you sold the house in this market hahaha.

Countering will also make them feel better. If you say okay, they'll spend the next thirty years thinking that they should've offered you less. So you're not doing it for you, you're doing it for the buyer.

Ditto on what has been said. Especially if you don't have to sell, this isn't the market to be selling. Hold out for what you are comfortable with, there is no reason to accept a low ball offer in this market if you don't need to.