After about eight months of searching, our clients recently found a great home they felt they could call home for many years. They were mentally ready and eager to prepare an offer for purchase. Nothing out of the ordinary here.
The home had only been on the market three or four days but there were some aspects of the home that would require immediate work upon taking possession. (The most notable issue was the dilapidated roof/shingles.) The sellers were accepting offers anytime, and I was told we were the only game in town at the moment. Taking all of this information into consideration our clients decided to offer a healthy price, but one that was still well below list price and conditional on a home inspection.
Usually one of two things happen in a situation as described above. Either the listing agent and their sellers will be offended and tell you to go fly a kite (after all it has only been on the market a few days) OR the listing agent values any offer and is willing to try to work with you to make the offer more agreeable to their clients. Even if it seems the parties are far apart, they’re willing to try. Thankfully in our situation they chose the latter.
This is where it got interesting.
Negotiations were very slow. Both sides only seemed willing to budge small amounts, and consequently there were counter-offers going back and forth like a Michael Chang & Pete Sampras U.S. Open rally. At the end of the second day of negotiations it seemed both sides were growing tired of this battle, and that perhaps it would end in a stalemate.
So our clients and I decided it was best to take a final stand by making our best and final offer. I informed the listing agent and he agreed that was best. We went in with our best price of $625,000 (the numbers are skewed a bit for privacy reasons) and told them not a penny more. It was very late in the evening so we signed the irrevocable to expire the following morning.
The following day and only an hour before our offer expires (of course), I noticed an email in my inbox from the listing agent with a large PDF file attached. Sweet! They obviously accepted our offer right? Before I could open the document I got a call from the listing agent, who said, “Hey Anthony, thanks again for your offer. I just emailed you our clients’ sign-back offer. My sellers are very superstitious with numbers and so we’ve signed it back just one dollar higher for $625,001.”
I’m sorry, what?
Once I heard the word sign-back I assumed it put me in a quick temporary haze and that I must have misheard the rest of the conversation. I’m laughing in my head thinking there’s no way somebody would risk a deal worth this much money, over a dollar. Rather than having him keep ranting on, I just thanked him and decided to read the offer as that’s what really matters. And naturally the price was the first thing I looked at.
$625,001. IS THIS REAL LIFE!?
My amusement abruptly halted as now I had to inform our clients. Thankfully I had a feeling it might come to something silly like this (through conversations with the listing agent) and had told our clients there are some people out there that just NEED to have the final say.
Our clients laughed about it when I informed them (they were so great during the entire process) and they accepted the deal. No ego from them whatsoever. But the fact still remains that we could have walked away from the deal, as the ball was in our court again in terms of accepting the offer. And it could have happened over an egotistical move (superstition, my buttocks) and a loonie.
Three things could have happened when I informed my clients of the additional dollar required. I put it to a poll with my friends on Facebook to see what other people would do in this scenario. The three options given were:
A – Walk away from the deal in disgust and disbelief
B – Counter the offer for $625,000.50, adding only 50 cents
C – Accept the offer because it’s just one dollar
The responses were a mix of all three answers. Had my clients been keen on either option A or option B, there’s a good chance the deal would have died. And how silly (it’s a family blog) the listing agent and sellers would have looked had that been the case.
There’s just no way to rationalize that sign-back no matter how hard I try. But hey…that’s real estate in today’s market. Crazy things happen. Always expect the unexpected and don’t let ego affect your decision making (which can be easier said than done). And never, NEVER, underestimate the power of people to make every deal interesting!