Three offers, one Saturday, one note
A popular listing gets three offers over a weekend. The negotiator takes them by phone between viewings, rings the vendor, relays each one, and the vendor accepts the second. On Monday, the buyer who made the first offer rings to ask why they never heard back, and the vendor asks whether the third buyer ever increased. The CRM has a single note: offers received, vendor accepted.
Nobody behaved badly. But the office cannot show when each offer came in, what was said to the vendor, or when the unsuccessful buyers were told.
Why offer records are thin
Offers happen at speed, often out of the office, and the pressure is to get the deal agreed rather than to type. The CRM's offer screen, if it has one, is designed for a desk, not for a negotiator standing outside a viewing. So offers are recorded later from memory, or only the accepted one is recorded properly.
Your obligations around passing offers to sellers and keeping records come from the rules and codes that apply to your business, and your compliance lead decides how you meet them. The trouble is that a good policy is no use if the record-keeping step is too slow to happen in practice.
| What should be recorded | What often gets recorded |
|---|---|
| Time and amount of each offer | Accepted offer only |
| Conditions and buyer position | Nothing |
| When and how the vendor was told | Assumed |
| Vendor's response | Verbal |
| Unsuccessful buyers informed | Sometimes |
The cost of a thin record
When a buyer or vendor complains, the question is always what happened and when. A thin record turns a simple answer into your word against theirs, which is a bad position for an agent. Competing offers also go more smoothly when each one is described consistently, and vendors feel better about their decision when they can see the offers in writing.
Unsuccessful buyers who hear nothing are also buyers you may want for the next property. Silence loses them.
An offer log that keeps up with negotiators
- Quick offer entry: a phone screen for negotiators that takes the offer amount, conditions, buyer and position in a few taps, timestamped at entry. Voice notes can be transcribed into it.
- Buyer confirmation: the buyer gets a written confirmation that their offer has been received and will be passed to the vendor.
- Vendor notification: the vendor receives the offer in writing, alongside the negotiator's call, with the buyer's recorded position summary.
- Response capture: the vendor's decision is recorded with the time and how it was given, and counter-offers are logged as a chain against the original.
- Outcome messages: when an offer is accepted, the other bidders are informed in wording you approve, and invited to stay registered.
- Offer history: the property record shows every offer in order, readable by your branch manager and compliance lead.
The messages use templates you approve. Negotiators still make the calls; the system makes sure a written record follows each one.
How it feels day to day
Negotiators spend less time typing up offers later, because the entry is quick enough to do on the spot. The branch has a clean offer history for every property. When someone asks what happened, the answer is a screen, not a recollection.
Is this familiar?
- Offers are mostly taken and relayed by phone.
- Only accepted offers are recorded properly in your CRM.
- Unsuccessful buyers are not always told the outcome.
- You have had a complaint where it was hard to show what the vendor was told.
- Competing offers are presented verbally rather than in writing.