Hey Mike - Let's Write An Offer!

You've hunted high and low, you've seen the best with the worst, scary places, smelly places, gorgeous places and crazy expensive places; you can't remember most of them now as they have all melted together in your mind, but one sticks out and you're ready to buy it!

Congrats! ...Now what?

Now for the fun part, that's what!

Writing an offer and negotiating on properties is my favourite part. It's exciting, nerve wracking, and fun all at the same time. My number one goal is to provide the best service for my client and get them the best possible deal, so writing an offer and negotiating well on it are paramount.

All throughout Alberta, Realtors use the same standardized forms and documents. One of those is used to make offers. On an 'Offer To Purchase' form you will find everything necessary to get the process going; it'll have the details of the property you're interested in purchasing, the details of what is included and what is not, the dollar amount you're offering to purchase the property for, and very importantly, the conditions that you are adding to you offer.

Conditions are something I get asked a lot about, so let's start there.

Conditions are inserted to protect the buyer and make sure the property satisfies there needs. The most common conditions placed on offers are a home inspection condition and a financing condition.

Home Inspection: On an offer it is very common to put a condition that you as the buyer would like the home to be inspected by a certified home inspector. We usually put a period of two weeks in there so that we have a good amount of time to get the home inspection done, review the findings, address any defects that are found, come to agreements and hopefully proceed with the deal.

Financing: Again, very common to see is the offer being subject, or "conditional" to the buyer securing financing. Hopefully before you've met with a Realtor and looked at 50 homes to find you're perfect place, you've been able to chat with a mortgage broker who has been able to work with you and get you pre-approved for a certain dollar amount. Now, even though this has been done, it doesn't always mean you're off to the races.

This is why we put in a condition, again usually asking for two weeks, just to make sure everything is in place and lined up nicely. This is to ensure that the bank is good to provide you with a big chunk of money as a loan so you can by the property.

Now just because we said we need two weeks and the seller has agreed to give it to us doesn't mean we have to wait that long. If we're able to get the inspection done and have the thumbs up from our mortgage broker after 5 days, perfect! Let's pull the trigger and keep the process moving.

The reverse of that though is, "hey, we got the place inspected and we didn't foresee (blank) being an issue, we don't want to buy this house." No worries, conditions are awesome for just that reason, they protect the buyer and let you back out at any time throughout that two weeks. If that's the call, we sign one more paper saying that the conditions weren't satisfied, we get our deposit back in full, and the hunt for the perfect place continues.

Conditions are only one part of the fun of making offers.

In your offer you are going to say when you want to take possession, you get to choose how much of a deposit you're going to offer, and you also get to say what you want included; there's a hot tub in the backyard that's not included but you want it? Throw it in the offer and let's negotiate on it!

Keep in mind that in between all the fun stuff there's also a bunch of important legalese that you need to make sure you understand. It's your Realtor's job to explain it fully and make sure you know what you're signing. So don't be afraid to ask questions, this is a big decision and you wanna make sure you get it right.

Good luck and have fun!