Housing

If you are a first buyer of a house in Ontario like me, maybe this writing will help you to be more prepared to succeed when you want to make your first offer to buy your desired house. If you are a conscious buyer you already did the first steps after deciding to buy a house: 1) Getting the money for the down payment and the pre-qualified mortgage, 2) Decided what you want for your house and what you do not (location, house, condo, apartment, # of bedrooms, # of rooms, # washrooms, appliances, etc), 3) hire a realtor and 4) you start reviewing listing houses and choosing which you want to view. But you are prepared for the concluding step, when you find the house that fits your needs, and you want to make an offer. I didn’t, so here I will share with you what I learned about how to make an offer and what it is the right price that you would pay with no regrets.

Making an offer is challenging and can be frustrating if you are not prepared and you don’t know what it means and how the process works. When you make an offer, you give a form written to the seller that contains the price that you are prepared to pay, your first deposit, your conditions, and the concluding date. This is crucial, you need to be careful with what you offer. First at all, you need to know that the listing price is nothing more than a number. The real price is determined by how much the buyers are willing to pay for that house and that number is uncertain because it is based on people's taste and economic capabilities. So, my advice for this part of the process is don’t struggle thinking about what others could offer. Just, thinking about your situation: the house meets your needs 100%, 90%, 80%...? What is your budget? Listen to your realtor advice, you hired she/he because you trust in her/his knowledge, so use it and make the best offer that you can.

Next, you must know that your offer is not going to be the only one at the table, other people have your same goal, and just one will win. This process is named “Bidding Wars” because the seller has more than one buyer making an offer for the same house. Just the seller knows how many offerings there are, who they are and how much they are willing to pay. The buyer is almost clueless during the ‘Bidding War’, the only knowledge that you can get is how many people give an offer and the frame time to give you feedback. If the seller has more than one offer close to each other, she or he will communicate with your realtor to give the opportunity to improve your offer before deciding. My advice is to be careful if you are in this situation, try to calm down and think carefully about what more you will offer, don’t offer something that after you will regret and jeopardize your economy. There will always be other options for you in the market, just you need to continue your searching and re-thinking about your desired house.

In Conclusion, if you are one who decided to buy a house, congratulations is a big decision. Now you have to watch your steps to make it right and save. Also, now you know that to buy a house you will need to make an offer. Your offer should say how much you are willing to pay for the house and your conditions until complete the payment. The price is uncertain because it depends on buyers' capabilities. Your offer will go through a bidding war process totally controlled by the seller and blind for the buyers. The best that you can do to succeed and not regret anything about your buying process is make your budget and stick to it, set-up clearly your goals (desired house), hire a realtor who you trust and follow her/his advice. If you don't win a bidding war, you should know that the market continues having other options for you, also you can re-think about your wish house.