4. You have found the perfect home and are now ready to make an offer. Your Realtor will give you comparable properties that have recently sold so you can compare the sold prices with the asking price on the home you want to buy. Your Realtor will also find out if there are any other offers coming in on the home. If there are no other offers in the wind than your Realtor can advise you on what you should offer. (We are using the assumption that your Billings Realtor is working for you as a Buyer’s Broker). If there are other offers coming in than you will need to make your best offer your first offer.

In the past multiple offers were extremely common. Since our market has slowed a bit and become more of a buyer’s market we haven’t seen as many multiple offers. However, recently there have been more multiple offers especially on properties in the most popular price range of $101,000 to $200,000. Once you have established what price you want to offer, your Realtor will prepare the paperwork and go over the terms and conditions with you. You will give your Realtor an earnest money check made out to the listing real estate company. Your Billings Realtor will then take the buy sell and any addendums you may be using, a copy of the earnest money check and your loan pre-approval to the listing agent. You may have your Realtor present your offer directly to the sellers, if the sellers are willing, or to the listing agent and the listing agent will present your offer to the sellers.

The sellers will generally do one of two things, accept your offer or make a counter offer. If the sellers give you a counter offer, your Realtor will counsel you on how to respond, helping you decide whether to make another counter offer or accept the seller’s counter offer. Your Realtor will negotiate for you and work back and forth until an offer is reached that is acceptable to all parties. If the seller takes your first offer than you can continue with the next step.