I've been following your saga, and just yesterday wondered how you were doing! Congratulations!!

Deb Nicholls

IMHO,

The sharing of your process, opinions, the comments you received have all been one of the most positive contributing threads/discussions/information this site has had for consumers.

Thanks for sticking with it, sharing and always being the calm voice .

Congratulations, Patty. I hope the closing is smooth. On a side note, I am glad we have a successful FSBO on trulia, it is a great story.

Patty, Great job selling on your own. Cambridge seems to be in a market by itself. A friend of mine recently had similar success there as well. He used the buyer's attorney which saved him some additional money, but caused him some grief. I would recommend getting an attorney on your own. It shouldn't cost but a few hundred dollars or so. Good luck to closing and congrats.

Well, we were on the market for 58 days. That is still below average for our market which is now 74-88 days (depending who you ask). I have to say that we worked hard as FSBOs (had open houses every other week and some extra ones in between ) and were willing to show it any time during the week (even on a short notice). As some of you know, we even held a broker's open and offered buyer's agent 3.5%. We also dropped our price pretty aggressively.

The buyer was brought in by an agent as are 2 other buyers that suddenly were very interested. We actually had 2 offers come soon after we counteoffered - it is very interesting but the other 2 people (both with agents) were just waiting for someone to bid first. In the end, given that things go smoothly from now on, they missed out because they did not bid first. The buyer's agent was actually pretty smart, she gave a very quick deadline on the first offer, yes we counteroffered quite close to the asking price (basically a few K less ) but she felt that there will be competition if they continue conteroffering.

Congratulations on the contract Patty. Best wishes for everything up to, and including the closing to be smooth as silk.

I'm curious as to how long you were on the market, and how your buyer found you? Care to elaborate?

Thank you for all the responses. Yes, we decided to go the honorable way and since the buyer accepted the counteroffer, honor that. We are happy to be getting closer to the end - it was a LOT of work and I think I do appreciate how much work it takes to sell a house in a down market. But it was an incredible learning experience and in retrospect, I am glad we did it. Let's hope we can successfully end it at closing.

Dear Patty, Until the counter is signed by the buyer the property is still For Sale. The Seller can accept the higher offer now before the counter is signed. Sue

Patty
the only people advising you need to be familiar with the paperwork.

In all professional and legal dealings all must in be writing.

Just think, the money you're saving on commission will allow you to pay an attorney to protect your interests.

Best of luck to you!

Keith

Congrats on the sale!!!

If your first buyers accept your counter, you have a binding agreement with them and you can't accept the second offer. If you put in your counter offer that the buyer has a certain amount of time to accept, then you'll need to wait out that time. But as Scott suggests, be sure to contact a lawyer as I am not a lawyer and can not give legal advice.

Again, congrats!

--Tim

Congrats Patty, a hard earned struggle. As I recall your FSBO, you should have your attorney involved & review your options but if they counter your counter then you might be free to accept your other offer.

Check with your Realtor. If the first buyer accepts your offer, then there's a signed agreement--a signed sales contract. And, yes, contracts are binding.

If there was a time period in your counter and that time period expires, then so does your counter.

If you're confident about the second offer, you can withdraw your counter to the first buyer and then accept the second offer.

You can tell the first buyers that you've received a higher offer. However, the first buyers could agree to your counter at the price lower than the second anyhow. So, strategically (and check with your Realtor) it might be better for you to withdraw your counter, inform the first buyers of a higher second offer, and see if the first buyers will go up.

Hope that helps.