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“Are there any other offers on it yet?” Emily asked. “Or offers coming?”
“None yet. But I think there is another open house scheduled for tomorrow. They might cancel that if you present a compelling offer today,” Sophie said.
“I think we’ll head home and discuss this. We’ll call you shortly once we’ve decided on the offer amount.”
“Perfect. Once you do that, I’ll get the paperwork over to you for signatures.”
“And we’ll get our documents together that you’ll need for the co-op board to review,” Jim said. Most co-op boards required a number of documents including financial statements, even for an all-cash purchase. The potential buyers still had to provide bank statements showing that they had three to four times the monthly fees in their account for the next few years.
When Sophie walked into her apartment Tessa and Caroline were waiting eagerly for news. Sophie took a deep breath. She knew how desperately Tessa needed a buyer for her property. The clock was ticking, and she only had two weeks left and no serious interest yet. Sophie wasn’t looking forward to delivering the feedback.
“They liked both units,” she began. “They saw Tessa’s first and their feedback was really positive. But then they fell in love with Caroline’s. It seemed like a better fit for them with the colors and overall layout. They were going home to discuss and hopefully will be calling this afternoon to make an offer.”
Caroline looked thrilled but also sympathetic toward Tessa. “I’m sorry, Tessa,” she said. “Hopefully you’ll have someone good come to your open house tomorrow.”
Tessa stood from the chair at the island. Her disappointment was evident. “I’m not going to hold my breath on that. Everything right now is falling apart for me. I think I’m going to go for a run.” She was dressed for it, as if she’d been anticipating this news. She grabbed her phone. “I’ll catch up with you two later.”
As soon as the door closed behind her, the energy in the room changed and felt lighter.
“I wanted to scream but didn’t want to rub it in Tessa’s face. I really do hope she finds someone soon or she’s going to be miserable to live with,” Caroline said.
“I hope so too,” Sophie agreed. “Her listing is a gorgeous unit. It just felt more masculine color-wise. Yours is more their style and it’s the closest to the Met. It’s perfect, really.”
The call came twenty minutes later from Emily.
“We’re ready to make an offer. Jim wants to offer seventeen five, do you think they will take it?” She sounded nervous.
“Let’s find out. I’ll have Caroline run it by the seller.”
When she ended the call, Caroline already had her phone out and was looking up her client’s number. “Do you think they might take that? Or are they firm on eighteen?” Sophie asked.
“I don’t know that they’ll come down that much, but they might flex a little, hopefully.”
Sophie made herself a coffee while Caroline spoke to her client. She could only hear Caroline’s side of the conversation and held her breath for a moment when Caroline asked the question.
“We have an interested buyer, and they are putting an offer together. I should have the details shortly. They wanted to know if you are flexible at all on the price.”
Caroline was quiet and Sophie paced around the room, sipped her coffee and waited.
“They mentioned seventeen five.” There was a long silence as Caroline was silent and her seller was talking, quite loudly actually. But not loud enough that Sophie could make out the words. “Right, I agree, that is too much of a cut. Okay, I’ll let them know.” She ended the call and turned to Sophie. “He won’t come down that much. But we can tell your buyers that if they can come up to seventeen eight, that might get it done.”
Sophie was glad the seller was flexible, but she wished the seller would commit to a price.
“So does that mean they will still have you do an open house tomorrow?” It made Sophie nervous that someone else could swoop in who would make a full-asking-price offer.
Caroline nodded. “Yes. It’s still a new listing and sellers can be hesitant when an offer comes quickly but it’s not the asking price. They may want to hold off and see if there might be a better offer out there.”
“So, what should I advise my clients?” Sophie asked. Caroline knew how to handle negotiations like this.
“If it were my buyer, I would tell them that if they come up to the asking price, the seller will accept and cancel the open house. If they come up to seventeen eight it’s possible that they will still have the open house and another buyer could come from that or from another realtor. The seller will not take less than that.”
“Okay. Calling now.”
Sophie called Emily back and relayed the information exactly as Caroline told her. Emily was quiet for a long moment. “I don’t want to lose this place. Let me go talk to Jim and I’ll call you right back.”
It was more than an hour before Emily called back. Both Sophie and Caroline had been anxiously awaiting the call. Both wanted to go out and run errands, but neither wanted to leave until they knew what the offer would be. Sophie was surprised too, that Tessa wasn’t back yet from her run. She wasn’t usually gone this long.
The call finally came, and Emily sounded excited as she shared the offer details. “Jim and I want to offer the full asking price. We really think it’s the perfect place for us and we don’t want to risk losing it. We don’t want the open house to happen tomorrow.” Emily sounded nervous about the idea of someone walking in off the street and falling in love with it. It wasn’t likely, but it was possible, so Sophie was thrilled about the offer.
