QUALIFYING BUYERS

You have to qualify your potential buyers.  You hopefully can do this before you let them into your house.  By qualifying them, you will know if they are lookie lews or really buyers.  You need to find out if these people can really buy your home or not.  You have to ask some very hard questions, because you are going to get into their personnel life.  Some of the questions you have to ask potential buyers are listed below for you.

  1. How long have you been looking for a home?
  2. Where do you work?
  3. How long have you worked there?
  4. Have you been pre-qualified with a mortgage company yet?
  5. If yes, which mortgage company?
  6. If no, when are you going to get pre-qualified?
  7. How much have you been qualified for?
  8. Which mortgage company are you using?
  9. If you like my home will you be ready to make an offer?

Asking these questions will not scare a real buyer off.  It will simply show them that you know what you are doing.  (REALTOR and Mortgage Lenders ask these questions every day.)

Contingencies
I could write a complete book on contingencies.  For now I will try to make it as simple as I can.  If the buyers say they want to buy your house and there is something that has to be done before they can, that is a contingency.  The best example is the buyers say they can't buy your home until they sell theirs.  No matter what the contingency is, don't be afraid to accept the offer with it.  You just have to know how to handle it.  When they put a contingency on buying your house, you simple say "I will accept your offer, however, I will continue to market my home for sale.  If I receive an offer equal or greater than your offer, you will be given written notice that I have accepted another offer.  You will have 72 hours from that notice to remove your contingency and go thru with the purchase of my home or withdraw your offer."  You also put that in writting.  As you can see from the example, contingencies are not that bad, you just have to know how to handle them.

Writing the contract.  Go to any office supply store and get a preprinted real estate contract and follow the instructions that come with it and you will have no problem with this step.  Office Max has a good contract and it's easy to fill out.  You might want to do a practice one just to see how if feels.