How Do We Write An Offer?

We aim to do everything we can to help set you up for success with any offer you make. As the saying goes, teamwork makes the dream work and we have found that when we work together as a team through this process, we are able to provide the best experience and outcomes. 

There are times when we will need to turn an offer around quickly to meet and offer deadline, and there are times when we will have a few days to work through the process. We are grateful for your patience and understanding that we will work to expedite the process to the best of our ability, but it’s important that we have enough time to ensure accuracy and completeness.

Complete Timeframe

An ideal timeframe for completing everything below is 3 business days (or more) but we can move more quickly than that depending on your availability and level of comfort, and what the situation calls for!

Communication

Our team will communicate primarily via email but we are always happy to set up a call. We appreciate your responsiveness throughout the process. Please see the note at the end for multiple offer situations/offer deadline timing. 

Step 1

Let us know that you are considering an offer

This is probably the most important step in the process - Communication is key! Even if you’re only MAYBE interested, please let us know. At any point in the process you may decide not to submit an offer - there’s no obligation. If we don’t know you’re considering an offer we can’t set you up for success.

Step 2

Gather Information and Present

We will gather more information about the status and find out if there is anything we should know. We will ask about the status of other offers, interested buyers, pricing guidance and if the seller has any specific requests or preferences. We will also send you a summary of comparable sales and an evaluation of the asking price.

Step 3

Review + Respond

Once we share with you the information that we gather please let us know your thoughts. It is helpful for us to know whether you are still considering an offer, have changed your mind, or whatever you are feeling at that time. Sharing your thoughts will help us to better help you!

Step 4

Updated Numbers (this may happen at the same time as step 2)

At this stage we will want to get an updated estimate from your lender to make sure there haven’t been any changes that would impact your numbers. The estimate will include the lenders up to date estimate of the monthly payment specific to the home and cash to close amount. We will also request a pre-approval letter from the lender, the amount of the pre-approval letter should be greater than or equal to the sales price - there’s really no harm in sharing that you’re qualified for more than the offer price!

This information will help you to finalize your offer price and inform us on any specific information we need to include in the financing terms.

Step 5 

Offer Terms

Once you know what price you would like to offer and what your financing terms will be, we will then work to prepare the other offer terms. We use an offer terms worksheet for this to keep the information organized and so that you know exactly what the offer will include. We can schedule a call or virtual to review and discuss the offer terms and answer any questions.

Step 6

Document Signing

Review and sign the offer documents. We will send the documents to you electronically for your review and signature in Docusign. It’s great if you are able to allocate an hour or so to read over everything and ask any questions. If you are someone who loves to read documents in great detail, please let us know in advance and we will send you a blank version whenever you would like.

Step 7 

Offer Submission

Once we have the signed offer documents we will prepare your offer package with a cover sheet and your pre-approval letter and submit it. We will confirm that your offer has been submitted and try to get an estimate of when we can expect a response.

Step 8

Awaiting Results

We completely understand that waiting is no fun! We’ll do everything we can to keep you updated on the status. It isn’t always possible for us to predict how long it will take to get a response or when it will come. If it is a negotiable offer situation we have some strategies for getting a response more quickly but other times it may be necessary to wait.

For Offer Deadlines and Multiple Offer Situations

When we have an offer deadline we’ll still work through all of the steps of the process but we will move as quickly as possible. It is in your best interest to let us know as soon as you possibly can when you plan to submit an offer - this gives YOU more time to make decisions and review documents. 

Typically offers are not considered if submitted after an offer deadline. We thank you for your understanding that we need signed and complete offer documents at least 1 hour before a deadline in order to ensure that the offer is submitted by the deadline.