You’ve found the perfect home, now what?
Once you have found the house you want to buy, it is time to make an
offer. Your offer will be presented by your Houlihan & O’Malley Realtor®
to the seller’s Realtor.® Offers are often presented in writing, but
sometimes they are made verbally.
5. Make an offer and negotiate
An offer consists of four components:
1. The price you are willing to pay
2. Your preferred closing date
3. How you will finance the purchase, e.g.
what percentage of the purchase price
you will be borrowing
4. The contingencies of your offer
(most commonly inspections and
mortgage approval)
Financing the purchase:
If you plan to pay cash for the property, you
should be prepared to provide the seller’s
Realtor® with a “proof of funds.” In other
words, you will need to provide copies of
your bank or brokerage statements.
If you plan to borrow a portion of the purchase price from a bank, you will need to
provide a copy of your pre-approval from
your lender with the offer.
Accepted Offers:
When you and the seller have reached an
agreement on price and terms, it is called
an “accepted offer.” This is a non-binding
agreement that needs to be put into writing as soon as possible, i.e. a signed contract of sale. This is your “due-diligence”
period – the time between accepted offer
and a signed contract of sale.
Contracts are not subject to inspections, so
the next thing you should do is set-up all
the inspections that you would like to execute before you sign the contract of sale.
Typical inspections include:
• Home inspection
• Termite inspection
• Radon testing
As soon as you have achieved an accepted
offer, you need to provide your Houlihan
& O’Malley agent with your attorney’s information so that the seller’s attorney can
send your attorney the draft of the contract
of sale.
Once all the terms of the contract have
been negotiated, including any inspection
items, the contract is ready to be signed.
Typically you meet with your attorney to
sign the contract and provide a check for
the contract deposit, which is usually 10%
of the purchase price.
After the buyer signs the contract, the seller
signs, at which point you have a fully-executed Contract of Sale.
• Oil tank testing (if applicable)
Counter offers:
Usually, your initial offer will be met with a
counter offer. At this point you will find out,
if you haven’t already, the timing the seller
is looking for and the seller’s comfort level
with the financing contingency that is part
of your offer.
Successive counter-offers will be exchanged between you and the seller until a
mutually satisfactory agreement is reached
or the negotiations breakdown.
HOME BUYER’S GUIDE
www.HoulihanOmalley.com
914.337.7888
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