How Reverse Offers Make Things Happen For Crawford Realty Clients

Here at Crawford Realty, we’ve always tried to build our business success (i.e.: selling YOUR home in the most efficient, flexible, and cost-effective way possible) on a lot of “Out of the Box” thinking. We don’t claim that all the good ideas are ours, but when we hear a good one, we try to incorporate it into a process that might help you sell your home faster. We think the idea of a REVERSE OFFER is pretty creative, and want to pass it on to you. We got this idea from our affiliate, Rhonda Duffy at Duffy Realty of Atlanta.

The idea of making something happen in this market (or any other) is an idea that sellers can really sink their teeth into and get their arms around. You know that we have always maintained that your listing agent won’t sell your house…YOU and YOUR HOUSE will sell your house! However, there may be an opportunity out there that we have all missed, even though it’s right there beneath our noses. One of my clients today told me that showing activity was up but still there was no offer. (Your Crawford agent has instructed buyers’ agents to call you directly to set showing appointments, so we don’t usually have a realistic idea of the level of showing activity you are getting.) I think there are a lot of fence-sitting tire kickers out there who are potential buyers but who are afraid to take action by making an offer for any number of reasons; they may be waiting for home prices and/or interest rates to fall even farther, they may have a house to sell, or they may be concerned about their own job security in light of the 24/7 gloom and doom that the media continues to spew. But there are serious lookers out there, too. All too often there may have been serious interest in a home but the interested party just never came forth with an offer, So we just assumed that that buyer must not have liked the home well enough to make an offer.

We are going to suggest something that is quite a different approach, and one that might create quite a stir in our Birmingham Real Estate Market. And we hope that, whether this works for them or not, our sellers will be grateful that we are their agent and at least we are trying to make something happen. We want all of our clients to be raving fans! So we call this a REVERSE OFFER. Here’s how it works: In a situation where a buyer has seen a house two times, let your Crawford agent know. We will call the buyer’s agent and ask if we are on their short list. When they say yes, we are on the short list but they don’t say that we are the top house, we ask what the objection is on the house. (One situation was that there was no heating and air in the basement.) We say okay and then ask; “Do you mind if we give your buyers an offer?”

This will throw the agent off quite a bit (we love that part,) but then they’ll say “okay” after thinking about it and asking us over and over if it is legal to do that. I promise you, that is going to be exactly what will happen, and it really makes you wonder why agents are so much in-the-box that they would think that something out-of-the-box would be illegal. (Of course it’s legal.)

Certainly there may be objections on the part of some buyers that cannot be overcome if a property is, in some un-alterable way, unsuitable for them. Anyway, we go to work now and call our seller to try to get an offer together based on our desire to overcome the objection and then we present the offer to the buyer through their agent. From there on the negotiation is the same as with any other offer.

Whereas the Reverse Offer will not work 100% of the time, our Atlanta affiliates are working the ones they write to a successful closing in about the same amount of time as when they get the more standard offer from the buyer to the seller. The most important thing now is that we, the sellers, are making something happen instead of sitting on our hands, and waiting for indecisive buyers to make an offer. How exciting is the idea of making the selling of your house a PROACTIVE event rather than a REACTIVE one!

As you know and–hopefully–appreciate, our business model has always been to get some aggressive marketing in place for you and then to remain sort of hands-off in the rest of the process, allowing you to control and drive the process, and letting you sell your house your way. However, if the idea of doing a REVERSE OFFER appeals to you, we will be glad to assist you in that. Please keep track of your showings, and if you get a prospect who has looked at your home at least twice, let us know. We will be happy to make contact with the buyer’s agent, discuss their objections, and manage the reverse offer process for you. Working together on this, we might be able to sell your home faster than you ever thought!

And, finally, here’s some lagniappe: we clearly anticipate that working reverse offers for our seller clients will become a permanent part of our a la carte menu of services. However, for the next few months, we will waive any a la carte fees to our clients who want to make use of our time to write and present reverse offers. We will work this process for you at no additional cost and no increase in our commission at closing. It’s FREE.

So, one more time, lets lead the pack, and forever change the way Real Estate is done in Birmingham. Hope you like the idea….