Today we’re kicking off our Hilton Head Island Real Estate Tuesday Q & A series! Today’s topic is the subject Low Ball Offers…
We had a client ask last week: “Do ALL buyers make low-ball offers these days?” The quick answer is NO, but most buyers are pretty sure they smell blood in the water, and they have heard at least one story each about how someone they know got a “steal” on real estate recently, so there is a greater inclination and comfort-level for buyers to approach a seller with an offer under the list price. Sure, some offers are WAY under list price, but then again, how inappropriate/appropriate that is depends much on what the list price SHOULD be. We always tell our seller clients “If we can justify the price to the buyer, we can justify the price to the buyer” – meaning, if the price is appropriate, attractive AND competitive, a buyer might TRY to make a low offer, but if they are truly interested in the property then we should be able to readily show the buyer the actual/real value of the property at (or reasonably close to) the asking price.
Do you have a question you’d like answered? Reply to this post with your question and it could be featured in an upcoming Tuesday Q & A!
I am curious to know about a seller’s asking price and how it compares to what Zillow shares as its “Zestimate”?? Sometimes I find that the asking price is $100k over what Zillow says…. in this case, it would be “low balling”….. Thank you for your reply!!
Zestimates are entirely number driven – there is no on-site evaluation or interpretation by a real person at all. Thus, Zillow fails to understand a properties position relative to the ocean or its view, etc.. For this reason, I discount Zillow almost entirely since in many cases the prices are very different from one another. The tried and true, best way to get an understanding of a property’s real value is to ask an experienced, on the ground Realtor.