What to do if I get a lowball offer?

You’ve put your place on the market, had some showings…and one day, your agent calls to tell you you’ve got an offer. Exciting! But when you see the offer, that excitement fizzles: it’s WAY under your asking price. What you’ve got there is an aggressive buyer tactic called “lowballing.” 

So what do you do? 

If you’re like many people, you might reject it outright. And that’s certainly your prerogative. But even a very low offer can be negotiated: consider it a starting point in a longer conversation. Don’t be insulted by it (though that can be tough: selling your home can be pretty emotional). If you don’t have a better offer on the table, make a counteroffer. It can’t hurt, and ultimately, you really never know where it could go. 

And in a market like this, where there aren’t that many motivated buyers? Those buyers might just be trying to see how motivated you actually are. It’s your listing agent’s job to “feel out” the other side and see if the offer is a starting number or if it's their best and final, and to get a sense of how interested they are in the place. If they’re just throwing numbers around to see if something will stick, there may be room for negotiation. 

At the end of the day, sellers have three choices with any offer: accept, reject or counter.

Agents often encourage their seller clients to countersign to keep the momentum going because, don’t forget: agents aren’t mind readers. No matter how much digging your agent does, they really don’t know exactly what a buyer is thinking. They may absolutely love the place, but they’re trying to see how far you’ll move. And if you come back with a number slightly lower than theirs, it shows them you’re willing to work towards a compromise. Your counter move and how much you reduce it is also important, and your agent can help guide you here. 

Then, if they counter your counter, you’ll usually get a good indication of how serious they are. So it becomes a bit of a dance – a back-and-forth negotiation where you’re trying to figure each other out. The goal of buyer and seller agents is to bring both parties to a point where they can come to an agreement they’re both happy with. It’s about bringing people together – good agents do that well. 

In this current market, chances are we’ll see a lot more low offers, more negotiating and back and forth. More supply will come on the market as people coming up for mortgage renewal have to sell, and buyers will have even more to choose from. So make sure you have a STRONG agent on your side who knows how to negotiate and who will really fight for you! 

Marketing matters

Don’t forget: great marketing will go a long way in driving up the perceived value of your home. In this market, it’s important to put your best foot forward to get noticed. And that means putting in the effort for great staging and styling and great photos – anything you can do to amp up the appeal and get more eyes, more traffic (and more demand) on your listing!