True or False?? and "Bully Offers"

If an offer on a property is for full asking price, the Seller must accept it! TRUE OR FALSE??

The answer is FALSE!

A Buyer can offer any price they feel, and the Seller is not obligated to accept it, even if it is well over the asking price.

For some reason there is a misconception that a Seller must accept an offer on their property if it is full price.

This is where "BULLY OFFERS" are most common. I'll explain:

Real Life Example:

This happened to me several weeks ago on a house that I had listed for sale. The house was listed for $499,900 (which was below market value), and, as per the Sellers written instructions, I restricted the presentations of all offers until a further date. This is a strategy that normally generates multiple offers (bidding wars).

After the property was listed, I had about 50 showings in 3 days, and an Realtor called me and told me that his client wanted to put an offer in. They knew that offers were being restricted until a further date, but insisted to fax me an offer before that date anyways--this is a BULLY OFFER...(I have a legal duty to present that offer to my clients).

The offer was very good...the price $15,000 over the asking price, and the offer was firm (no conditions). When presenting this offer to my clients, I explained to them that I would not accept this offer regardless of its attractiveness, because I was confident that the day of offer presentations, we would get multiple offers, and the house would be sold for even higher than $15,000 over asking.

My clients respected my advise, and decided to wait until the offer presentation date. At that time we received 4 offers in total, and the house ended up selling for $35,000 over the asking price, with no conditions. My clients were very happy, and realized that by waiting they made the right decision.

In conclusion, all Sellers must remember that they DO NOT have an obligation to accept any offer, regardless of the price.

By decling the BULLY OFFER, my client managed to earn an extra $20,000!!!