One of the most important things to do when buying a property, is setting yourself up to succeed in negotiations with the seller. The best way to do this is to set expectations between both yourself and the seller in your initial offer. The WORST thing you can do, is to present a clean offer (no significant terms that the seller needs to meet) and then completely blind side them days into the transaction. Yes, there are going to be things that have to be negotiated through the process, but you cannot offer on an investment property that is occupied, and then weeks into the transaction require that property to be delivered vacant.
For example, I was just involved with a multi-family property transaction where the buyer presented a clean offer, that my seller was happy with and decided to take it. With other offers on the table, we chose this offer due to the buyer’s terms set forth. Weeks into the transaction, the buyer started requesting things in order for him to proceed with the transaction. My seller was shocked and unhappy with the buyer’s request, as we never would have proceeded with this buyer if any of these terms were presented in the offering period.
As a buyer, this puts you in a poor position to negotiate on good terms. If you suddenly start changing terms that the seller was unaware would be an issue, you lose the ability to negotiate on things that the seller may have been willing to bend on in the beginning. Now, you have an angry seller that is going to fight you over every request or worse, decide that you are no longer the buyer for this property and look to go in another direction.
Even if you think some of the terms you are going to request seem over the top, at least the seller is going to be aware of things that may come up at another point of the transaction. Be completely upfront on your offer to purchase, I promise it will make your home buying experience much smoother.
