Offer to Purchase
The process to sell your home can be complex. You’ve worked with your REALTOR®, prepared your home for showing and welcomed numerous interested parties into your home. This process can be unsettling and nerve-wracking until you receive your first offer, or in more formal terms, an Offer to Purchase.An Offer to Purchase includes the price the buyer is offering for the house and other terms like dates for milestones in the buying process. It also includes conditions like requests for things assumed to be bought along with the house (appliances, furniture, decorations in the yard etc.), satisfactory home inspection reports, acceptance of mortgage and so on.
What Happens Next?
Once you receive an offer, you can do one of the following, depending on whether the price and the conditions are acceptable to you:- Accept the offer
- Reject the offer
- Make a counter offer of your own, with new prices, dates, or other terms
What is Conditionally Sold?
Once both you and the buyer, agree on the cost and the terms, the house is considered conditionally sold. That means that all the set conditions must be met in the agreed-upon time to complete the sale.Common conditions are:
- Buyer’s financing being approved by the lender
- The home inspection report being to the buyer’s satisfaction
- Sale of buyer’s existing home
Closing Costs
After the offer is accepted and all the conditions are met, you must deal with the costs of closing the sale.
These costs include:
- Real estate commissions for the buyer’s and seller’s realtors
- Legal costs
- Mortgages and any relevant penalties
- Survey costs, if required
- Taxes, such as the capital gains tax, and adjustments for property taxes
- Adjustments for utilities
