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I got an offer on a new listing this week.  We negotiated it to the exact number I told the seller to expect.  There was one thing that made me nervous about it though.  The buyer wrote on the contract that they wanted the master bathroom shower door replaced.  It worked and was not ugly.  You just had to lift up a little on the handle to open it.

Before I get to why that freaked me out a little, let me tell all the buyer’s out there that doing something like this is NEVER a good idea.  Sure, this buyer wanted a new shower door and for some reason didn’t like the existing one.  If the seller would have considered doing this, we would have just added the cost to the counter offer, effectively making the buyer pay for it anyway.  Then there is the issue of what the buyer is expecting it to look like.  The seller having to find out how much it would cost to install.  Those things take time and slow down negotiations.  In a fast moving, hot market like we have right now, the last thing a buyer should do is cause a delay in the seller responding to their offer.  It just gives too much time for another offer to come in.  So, this is never a good idea.  The buyer never benefits from it.  Don’t do this.  Period.

What writing this in the offer showed me was that these buyers expected way too much and would absolutely kill us on the home inspection.  Any time I have had a buyer for one of my listings write repairs or things like replacing flooring, repainting a specific room or anything like that, the buyers have been a nightmare to work with.  Most of the time the deal falls apart because they expect the seller to repair everything on the repair list.  If the roof or HVAC are older but functioning fine, they are the buyers that ask for brand new ones despite signing the seller disclosure that told them the ages.

In the end, this buyer sent us a clue about how they would be to work with…..and we said no thanks.