The highest offer is not automatically the best one. An offer is a package — price, what it depends on, how much is down, when it settles and how likely it is to reach settlement at all — and the parts interact.
The obvious one, and the right place to start. It is just not the place to stop.
An unconditional offer is worth real money against a conditional one. The common conditions are finance, a building and pest inspection, and the sale of the buyer's own property. Each is a date by which the contract can end, and the last one is the least certain of the three because it depends on a market rather than on a person.
Usually ten per cent, held in the agency's or the solicitor's trust account. A larger deposit signals commitment; a smaller one, or a request to pay it late, is worth understanding before you accept.
Settlement periods vary — thirty, sixty and ninety days are all common and the convention differs by state. If you are buying as well, an offer that settles when you need it to can be worth more to you than a higher one that does not.
See what each offer leaves you Run the offers against your mortgage and your selling costs, so you are comparing what you keep rather than what is on the front page. Estimate net proceeds
A slightly lower offer that settles is worth more than a higher one that falls over — and a contract that collapses puts the property back on the market with a history.
Ask your agent what they know about the buyer: whether finance is pre-approved and with whom, whether they have sold, whether they have inspected properly, how they behaved through the campaign. None of it is a guarantee and all of it is information.
A buyer who cannot move on price can often move on the settlement date, the deposit, the length of a finance clause or what stays with the house. Those are real value and they are frequently easier for the buyer to give.
Communities.com.au