Should I Pay My Buyer?

In many markets it is not uncommon for a buyer to ask the seller to cover all or some of their closing costs. Meaning, a buyer has a certain percentage (typically 3% of the purchase price) that they owe to purchase
the home and they can ask a seller to pay their portion on their behalf.

Whether or not you should pay the closing costs is not the concern of a good real estate agent. A good real estate agent only cares about your net profit, your bottom line. So, if a buyer needs $9000 on a $300,000 sale, as long as you can structure the deal to keep your bottom line safe by paying closing costs but not allowing the buyer to ask for repairs or increasing the price to $305,000 or the myriad of ways a good agent can protect your bottom line, that’s truly what matters. It’s possible the buyer may need closing costs in order to move forward on the purchase. In this, as in all things, you should do everything you can to make the contract work with what you have in front of you. Remember, you can be as creative as you need to be to make it work and a good real estate agent will help you.

Listen along!

The Maroon Group Podcast

For example, I sold a home to a buyer that needed $9,500 in closing costs. We did not want to give that to them but the buyer needed it. So, in order to make that $9,500 a wash to my seller we increased the purchase price by $5,000, got the buyer to agree to not ask for any repairs (around a $1500 savings) and give my seller a free rent back for three months (meaning the seller would sell the home but be allowed to stay there for free for three months which was easily a $3,000 savings).

There are lots of ways to craft a scenario to make a win-win you just
need an open mind and a professional agent to help you.