How Sellers Should Read an Offer

The most expensive mistake sellers make

Accepting the highest number. I've watched it for three decades from the lending side: a seller takes the biggest price, the buyer's financing wobbles, and five weeks later the house is back on market, stigmatized, with the strongest original buyers gone. The cost of a failed contract routinely exceeds the entire spread between the top two offers.

An offer is a price attached to a probability. My job as your listing agent is to price the probability, and that's a lending skill, not a sales skill.

What I check on every offer's financing

The pre-approval's pedigree: Is it from a real local lender or an out-of-state call center? Was income actually documented? I call every buyer's lender personally, and because I've sat in their chair since 1990, I know which answers are rehearsed and which are real.

Loan type vs. your property: FHA and VA carry property condition requirements; conventional with 5% down behaves differently from 20% down when the appraisal comes in light. Your house's age, condition, and price band make some offers structurally safer than others.

Appraisal-gap language: In a competitive bid, what happens if the appraisal misses? An offer $10k higher with no gap coverage can be weaker than one $5k lower with it.

Deposit sizes and dates: Earnest money that means something, option periods that don't leave you exposed, and closing dates a lender can actually hit.

What this means for your sale

When we list your home, every offer arrives with my written read on its close probability, in plain English, backed by a phone call to the buyer's lender. You choose with real information. That's the difference between marketing your home and actually managing your sale to the closing table.