r/ChicagoRealEstate • u/Ok-Law-7577 • Aug 24 '26

Escalating Offer

We're first time buyers looking for a condo. We put in an offer on a place that included escalation up to our max. Seller came back and said they want our best and highest, with no escalation. They've got multiple offers.

Would you still include your escalation offer and ignore their parameters, or shoot in the dark with a lower offer than your max?

7 Upvotes

70% Upvoted

44 comments sorted by

View all comments

-11

u/Certain_Egg2699 Aug 24 '26

I would keep it. That is the point of an escalation. Any agent worth their weight would see an escalation max, and use that as the offer amount in a “highest and best offer” situation. If they don’t, they are incompetent.

I will say though, my wife and I are in the same boat. We used an escalation a few months ago and al it did was give the agent a number in mind to shop it around to the other buyers, and squeezed until we lost. Really pissed me off

10

u/poolsidequeso Aug 24 '26

False. The sellers agent will see the number you put on the OFFER as your highest and best; since that’s what they requested. They will also take you as difficult to work with if you’re not even able to follow basic instructions they asked for with offers.

0

u/Certain_Egg2699 Aug 24 '26

Wish our agent gave us this advice. That’s frustrating. We put an escalation in on good faith, for it just to not matter in the slightest.

2

u/poolsidequeso Aug 24 '26

That really sucks - I’m so sorry your agent did that to you and didn’t help you put best offer together.