What does the seller want? Ask!
Then craft an offer that gets as close as possible to what the seller wants. It really is that simple.
If you’re making a home purchase offer, you want to buy the property. What makes for a strong 
purchase offer? Only the seller knows the details to that answer. So, we ask the question! The response from the buyer’s agent is never entirely candid, but some insight is always gained and our client’s offer at least inmproved.
The seller wants the price, of course, but there are many other significant factors in a home purchase offer … close date, contingencies, pre-Qualification strength and type of financing just to mention a few.
Most fundamental and universal … the seller wants a low probability of the deal “falling out” and wasting the time that his/her property was tied up in escrow.
With great care not to weaken our negotiating strength, we make a point to communicate that our client is “motivated”, committed and wants to be as flexible and accomodating as possible to produce a win-win transaction. We emphasize this when we anticipate that some, or several, aspects of the offer are going to be less that ideal. The perception of a “constructive attitude” goes a long way towards diluting negative factors.
Which leads to another important issue. There is never a need for adversarial agents. We learned a long time ago that a client’s best interests are far better served when agents are entirely constructive and seeking the best possible win-win situation.
If you have an agent who seems always “at war” with the other side, you need a different agent.
