What You Need to Know About Selling Your Tel Aviv Apartment: Part 3
[Tweet ” Negotiating is a BIG part of the sales process “]
Getting an offer
Your real estate agent should keep you posted regularly on his marketing efforts, inquiries and most importantly on feedback from prospects during viewings. Don’t rush into conclusions if you haven’t received an offer after a couple of weeks.
Selling real estate takes time, and there’s a lot to do with timing, pricing, location and other features that can affect the length of time the sale can take. If time has passed by and your agent has not yield any results, then this will be a good time to reevaluate. A good 6-8 weeks should be a good indicator in evaluating both your agent’s efforts as well as matching your apartment to the reality of the market.
If your apartment is well marketed and properly priced, then an offer should come in after 6-8 weeks. How well your home is presented (hence – priced) sets the tone for the entire sale, and therefore it’s important to know ahead what you’re willing to settle for, so you can base decisions accordingly.
Pricing too high or too low can most certainly affect the sale, and know that there’s a lot to consider prior to naming your price, such as location, size, features, timing and trends. Your agent is much valuable at this stage, as he should be able to give you a realistic price evaluation on your apartment based on recent sales in your area. Your agent should also keep a close eye on similar listings in the area to keep your apartment competitive and at market value.
Given your real estate agent has kept you updated regularly, by this time you should have a solid picture on the impression your apartment has had over prospects, and come to more profound decisions in readjusting the price (if needed). Unless your apartment is in need of total remodeling, I always advice considering upgrading rather than lowering the price (more on that on another post). Making even the slightest changes to your apartment and really having it ready for a sale, can not only yield better results, but can also fasten the selling process.
Agents normally start off their marketing campaigns at the higher range of the price scale, simply to get a feel on how the market reacts. As it’s very common to negotiate, it is expected that your agent calculate carefully the range he has for negotiating. Of course you have a say in this and giving your agent your top and bottom limits, will help him determine a better price estimate for his marketing actions.
And this is where the most delicate part of the process comes in.
Sometimes, your first offer may be lower than expected, which can be disappointing and somewhat offending, no doubt. It often makes seller’s question their real estate agents on how well they’re doing their job, and even more so doubt the quality of their clientele. Understandably so, however it’s important NOT to take these thing to heart. It’s okay and very common and this has NO reflection on your real estate agent’s work and efforts, his clients or what the potential buyer thinks of your home. It’s just showing you that the buyer is interested, and testing your response. The ideal scenario will be for the buyer to put down an offer that is reasonable and as close to your closing price.
But what if that doesn’t happen? And you get a ridiculously low offer?
So here’s the thing. The way I see it? There are two ways to deal with this:
Either you accept it or you reject it.
If the offer is really low and far fetched from what you and your agent have discussed, then sometimes it’s just not worth the effort. Reject it politely and move on.
I do, however, think that you should discuss it with your agent in order to get a better understanding of why your agent even got such a low offer in the first place. From my own personal experience, if I get an offer that I know will be rejected by the seller, I just don’t pass the offer. As I know how delicate these situations are, I try to avoid such incidents all together. Which is why keeping an open communication with your agent is top priority and discussing different aspects and stages of the sale, especially your upper and lower limit for negotiating as early on as possible.
Negotiating the price is one of the preliminary stages of the negotiation phase. Generally, there are four main points to negotiating the terms of a sale: price, payments, date of entry and furnishings / appliances or any item that stays in the apartment.
Without coming to some sort of an agreement on the price, you can’t move on discussing the other points as price is really the entry point. If you’ve received an offer that is low but your agent feels that you can come to some sort of an understanding, then instead of overruling it, consider presenting a counter offer and let your agent negotiate on your behalf. As a rule, if both parties are showing mutual interests, then meeting halfway is the way to go.
Be flexible and realistic. Even if you’re in no rush to sell, take into account different aspects that might affect the market. Especially in a market like Tel Aviv, where it has been known to have its own pace and rules. The amount of time your home is on the market affects its value, and reducing the price every so often is a common mistake that you should avoid all together.