I had a seller last year with three offers on the table by Sunday night. The top one was about eleven thousand dollars ahead of the next. She wanted to sign it that afternoon. We read all three through line by line instead, and she ended up taking the second one. The high offer had a long financing window, no appraisal gap language, and a closing date that landed two weeks before her next house was ready. The second offer was cleaner on all three counts, and it closed on time.
Price is the first number you look at and the easiest one to compare. It is also the number most likely to move between acceptance and closing. Everything else in the offer is what decides whether the price you accepted is the price you actually get. Here is the order I read them in.
How the buyer is paying
Cash, conventional financing, FHA, VA, a construction or renovation loan. Each one behaves differently once we are under contract. I want to see what is attached to the offer: a full preapproval from a lender who has looked at documents, not a one line prequalification from a website form. If there is a lender letter, I call the lender and ask how far along the file is. I am not the one qualifying the buyer and I do not give lending advice, but I can ask the lender what has been verified and how long their timeline runs, and that answer tells me a lot.
A long financing contingency is not automatically bad. It just means the offer is not firm for that whole stretch, and you need to know that going in.
The appraisal
If the buyer is financing, a lender will order an appraisal, and the appraiser works for the lender, not for either of us. The question I care about is what happens if the appraised value comes in under the contract price. Some offers say the buyer will bring money to cover a gap up to a stated amount. Some say nothing, which means the price can be reopened. Neither one is wrong, but a strong price with no gap language is a different offer than the same price with it.
Inspections
I look at the length of the inspection window and at how the offer handles defects. An inspection is a normal part of a sale and I never tell a seller to be nervous about one. What I read for is scope. A tight window with a clear process is easier to work through than a long one with broad language, because the long one keeps the deal unsettled for weeks while you are trying to plan a move.
What an inspector finds is the inspector’s report. If something comes up that touches structure, wiring, or a well or septic system, the answer comes from that trade or that professional, not from me guessing at it.
Dates
Closing date, occupancy, and whether the buyer needs possession the day of closing. This is where sellers get hurt most often, and it has nothing to do with money. If you are building, your closing needs to line up with the day your new house is actually ready, not the day the builder first put on the schedule. If you need a few days after closing to move, that has to be in the offer, not a handshake.
Earnest money
Earnest money is the buyer’s deposit held while we are under contract. A larger deposit is a signal of how serious the buyer is. It is not a penalty fund, and how it gets released if a deal falls apart follows the contract, so that is a question for your attorney rather than something I will promise you.
Contingent on something else
The big one is an offer that depends on the buyer selling their current home. Those deals close all the time. They just carry a second house’s worth of risk, and you want to know where that other house stands: is it listed, is it under contract, has it cleared inspection. An offer contingent on a home that has not been listed yet is a very different thing than one contingent on a home that closes in three weeks.
Putting them side by side
| What I read | What makes it stronger |
|---|---|
| Financing | Cash, or a documented preapproval with a short window |
| Appraisal | Clear language on what happens if value comes in low |
| Inspection | Defined window, defined process |
| Dates | Closing and occupancy that match your actual move |
| Earnest money | A deposit sized to the price |
| Other contingencies | None, or one that is already far along |
The best offer is the one most likely to close on the terms you need, on the date you need. Sometimes that is the highest number. Often it is the second highest.
How I use this with sellers
When offers come in, I lay them out in a grid like the one above and we talk through each row before anyone looks at the bottom line again. Then we decide whether to accept, counter, or ask for one specific change. A counter does not have to touch price. Plenty of times the fix is moving a date by five days or adding one sentence about the appraisal, and the buyer says yes without blinking.
If you are getting ready to list, or you already have an offer in hand and want a second set of eyes on the parts that are not the price, send it over and I will walk you through what each term actually does. If you are selling while a new build is in progress, that is worth a conversation early, because the dates are the hard part and they are easier to get right before the offer is written than after.
