More and more sellers are running into this situation in Arizona b/c of the dramatic increase in recent activity. When you have multiple offers as a seller, you need to decide if you want to accept one offer, reject all of the offers, counter 1 offer, or counter all of the offers together at once. The first 3 scenarios are self explanatory.

In order to submit multiple counter offers, the first thing you want to do is to disclose to all parties you have multiple offers and you will be countering more than 1 party. You do not have to disclose how many offers you received.  (2 versus 20) Arizona promulgates a multiple counter offer form that can be downloaded from our website. It is imperative that you use this particular form. Do not use the basic AZ counter offer form. The multiple counter offer form will help you avoid having more than one party make a claim to the property in the event more than one party accepts your counter offer.

Another alternative to countering is to go back to all parties and ask them to resubmit their highest and best offer. Then simply choose the best offer.

Always try and use the phone # that you will be most often available to answer. Try and avoid routing calls to attorneys or other points of contact when you can avoid it. If you have a cell phone, use this on your sign and MLS listing. (and phone forwarding if you select this feature) The problem with making your attorney your point of contact is that this individual will most likely not be available on weekends and evenings. (when many showing request take place)

Also, try to avoid putting too many phone #’s on your listing. Ideally, have one phone dedicated solely to selling your property. Thus, when you hear this ring, you know to put down what you are doing and address the call.

This has come up multiple times within the past 2 weeks in Arizona for a handful of our properties. Underwriters are requesting desk reviews of appraisals prior to final approval. What this means is that the underwriter is asking for another party to verify the appraisal price of the property.  Typically, this results in the desk review coming in at a lower price than the appraisal. Lenders will almost always go with the desk review price and not the appraisal. The problem as a seller is that there is very little you can do to combat this. The good news is that the reason this is happening is because values in many areas are starting to rise again. As a result, lenders not familiar with Arizona are questioning why appraisal values are coming in much higher than they were 2-3 months ago.  (hence, asking for the desk review)

As a seller in Arizona, it’s important to remember that even though the appraisal may have come in at your price, wait and be certain a desk review does not take place prior to assuming the sale is a done deal.