Paul Waldowski, Re/Max One Realty
What is the meaning of a “Fair Deal” in real estate???
There is an old adage in real estate that says a fair deal is one where the seller thinks they could have gotten more money and the buyer feels they paid too much. In reality, our day to day real estate life is much, much more involved than who paid what or who accepted what.
The initial stage of our work as Listing Agents is to market the properties to as many capable and competent buyers that are out there at present. Our job is to promote our listings and get prospects in the front door.
Our job changes when we are presented with a purchase offer, many times with multiple offers on our listings. Here is where our years of experience factor in.
When presenting purchase offers, we initially ask ourselves two questions: if the seller says ‘yes’, can we get this deal to the settlement table? If the seller says ‘no’, can we replace this deal in price and terms?
We not only look at the offering prices, but we look closely at the buyers and our interpretation of their ability to buy and borrow. We insist on receiving a BFI (Buyer’s Financial Information) form completed and signed by the buyers. This gives us a written and signed witness of the buyers’ life status: where they work, their income, how long they have been at their job, how much liquid assets (cash) they have available, what their existing debt service is, whether they own another home, and whether this purchase is contingent or conditioned on the sale of another property?
We also insist on a ‘Pre-Approval’ letter from an accredited lending institution, where, of course, we reach out and find out how far along the approval process these clients may be; what their credit scores are, what are their front and back end ratios are to see if they can get an approval through their AU (Automated Underwriting)?
The bottom line is that ALL our deals get to a closing table because we do all the due diligence our clients would expect and share this knowledge on every transaction.
For dependable, knowledgeable, and professional real estate services, reach out to Paul at 215- 275-6741 and Meg Waldowski at 215-275-6940.
