Reading an offer from the seller's side

An offer is more than a price. The figure is the line people repeat. The rest of the document is where a seller decides.

On London Sellers Realtor, read the deposit, the closing date, the inclusions, and the conditions before you answer the figure. If a clause is unclear, ask your lawyer, or the person who represents you once a written agreement is in place.

Read the deposit as a term

The deposit is money the buyer attaches to the offer so the offer is not only words. Read what the document says: how much it states, where the money will be held, and what happens if a condition is not met or the sale does not close.

A larger deposit is a term, not a moral fact. If the clause is silent, you do not yet know.

A closing date has to fit your life

The closing date is the day possession and the money are meant to change hands. Read it against your own calendar. Your mortgage payout has to be arranged for that day. Anyone else who lives in the house has to be able to leave.

A closing date that only works if every condition is waived at once is not a date you can count on. A job start, a school date, or a tenant's notice can make a date impossible. An offer that ignores them may need a change, or a refusal. Buying a different house is outside this guide.

Inclusions are terms, not courtesy

The offer will list what is included and what is excluded, or it will be silent, which is its own kind of list. Put that list beside the one you wrote before the offer arrived. Every difference is a term.

If your list says the washer leaves with you, and the offer includes it, that is a term to answer in the reply. Rented items should be excluded, or marked as rented, so you are not agreeing to convey equipment you do not own. A water heater on a contract, a security system, or a softener can all sit in that gap if you do not name them.

Do not rely on the photographs. The offer is the document. If they disagree, you have a conflict to resolve.

Inspection, financing, and whatever else is written

A condition is a term that must be met or waived before the sale is firm. Until then, you do not have a completed sale. You have an agreement that can still end. From the seller's side, a condition is a clock and a way out for the buyer. Read both before you accept the wait.

Inspection is one example. Read what the offer allows the buyer to do, by when, and what happens if the buyer is not satisfied. It is not a verdict on the house. It is a period in which the buyer may still step back, on the terms the offer writes. Financing is another example. It means the buyer still has to arrange the money. Read the deadline. From the seller's side, it is waiting, and a way for the deal to end if the money does not come together.

If the offer contains another condition, a sale of the buyer's own house, a lawyer's reading of a document, or a repair you are asked to finish, read that one the same way. Deadline. Obligation. What happens if it is not met.

Answer the whole page

You can accept the offer as written, refuse it, or reply with changes. Changing only the figure, and leaving a condition or a date you cannot live with, is an incomplete answer. Read the whole offer before you answer any line of it.

The work before the document arrives is preparing the house and a pricing method.