Should I Accept the First Offer on My Pasadena Home or Wait for a Better One?
Listed by Tracy Do and Elias Tebache of Coldwell Banker
The first offer on your Pasadena home could be the best offer you receive, but that doesn't mean you should automatically accept it. Before deciding, look beyond the purchase price and evaluate the buyer's financing, contingencies, deposit, requested credits, closing timeline, and overall likelihood of successfully closing. You should also consider how much interest your home is receiving and whether waiting is realistically likely to produce a stronger offer.
Your Pasadena home has finally hit the market.
You've cleaned, staged, photographed, held the open house, and waited for buyers to respond.
Then the first offer arrives.
Exciting!
Until almost immediately you start wondering:
"Should we take it?"
Followed closely by:
"What if someone offers us more tomorrow?"
This is one of the hardest parts of selling because there's no way to know with certainty what the next buyer will do.
But there is a strategic way to evaluate the offer that's already sitting in front of you.
And the first thing I tell sellers is this:
Don't dismiss an offer simply because it arrived first.
Sometimes your first buyer is your best buyer.
The First Offer Isn't Automatically a Bad Offer
There's a strange tendency among sellers to distrust an offer that arrives quickly.
If someone makes a strong offer two days after you list, it's easy to think:
"If we got this already, imagine what we'll get if we wait!"
Maybe.
But maybe not.
A buyer who has been searching for months may have been waiting specifically for a home like yours to come onto the market.
They've seen the competition.
They understand the value.
They're pre-approved.
They're ready to move.
That can be an extremely valuable buyer.
The fact that they acted quickly doesn't necessarily mean you priced your home too low.
It may simply mean your pricing and marketing did exactly what they were supposed to do.
Don't Look at Price Alone
Suppose you receive two offers.
Offer A: $1,300,000
Offer B: $1,325,000
Easy decision, right?
Not necessarily.
What if Offer A has strong financing, a substantial deposit, reasonable contingencies, no requested seller credit, and a closing date that works perfectly for you?
Meanwhile, Offer B asks for a large closing cost credit, has a smaller down payment, includes more contingencies, and has terms that create additional uncertainty.
Suddenly that $25,000 difference doesn't tell us nearly enough.
The highest offer and the strongest offer aren't always the same thing.
Current consumer guidance on multiple offers makes the same distinction, noting that financing, contingencies, closing timelines and earnest-money deposits can all affect the strength of an offer beyond its headline price.
How Strong Is the Buyer's Financing?
This is one of the first things I want to understand.
Is the buyer paying cash?
Are they financing?
How much are they putting down?
Have they been fully pre-approved?
Has their lender reviewed their financial documentation?
How confident are we that their financing can make it through underwriting?
A fantastic price doesn't do you much good if the buyer can't close.
That's why communication between the agents and lender can be so important when evaluating an offer.
Look Carefully at the Contingencies
Price gets everyone's attention, but contingencies affect risk.
Depending on the contract, a buyer may have contingencies involving:
Inspections
Appraisal
Financing
Sale of another property
Other contractual conditions
That doesn't mean contingencies are bad. They're a normal part of many transactions.
But when I'm comparing multiple offers for a seller, I want to understand exactly what protections each buyer has and how those terms could affect our transaction.
Is the Buyer Asking for a Seller Credit?
This has become especially relevant in 2026.
Nationally, 46.2% of home sales included seller concessions in May, the highest May share in Redfin's records. Concessions can include things like contributions toward eligible closing costs, repairs, or mortgage-rate relief.
So imagine you receive:
Offer A: $1,250,000 with no credit requested.
Offer B: $1,270,000 with a $20,000 seller credit.
Those offers may look very different at first glance, but their financial impact to you could be much closer than the headline prices suggest.
This is why I like to evaluate the net offer, not just the purchase price.
How Much Activity Is Your Home Getting?
This is where our selling strategy becomes very important.
If we listed Thursday, had 75 people through the weekend open houses, received several calls from agents, and know multiple buyers are preparing offers, I'm probably going to approach the first offer differently.
We may have good reason to believe competition is coming.
Now consider the opposite situation.
We've been listed for three weeks.
Showings have slowed.
Nobody else has indicated they're writing.
And suddenly a qualified buyer submits a reasonable offer.
Waiting for an imaginary buyer to appear and pay substantially more can be risky.
The strength of the offer has to be considered alongside the actual activity we're seeing on your home.
Pasadena's Current Market Makes This Especially Important
Pasadena isn't behaving like one uniform market right now.
Redfin currently characterizes Pasadena as somewhat competitive. Over its recent three-month measurement period, homes received about four offers on average and sold in roughly 35 days, but individual results vary considerably. Recent sales include properties that sold below asking as well as homes that sold substantially above asking.
We're seeing that selectivity at a more local level too.
In Pasadena 91104, July inventory increased from 22 to 33 active listings while both closed and pending sales declined from June. At the same time, homes that buyers did choose moved into escrow faster. Ten of the 33 active listings had already reduced their asking prices.
To me, that's an important message for sellers:
Good homes can still generate strong interest, but you shouldn't assume every buyer is easily replaceable.
Should You Counter the First Offer?
Maybe.
Receiving a good offer doesn't mean your only choices are accept or reject.
We may decide to counter.
Perhaps the buyer's price is reasonable, but we want to adjust:
Purchase price
Seller credits
Closing date
Contingency periods
Included items
Other contractual terms
A counteroffer can help us improve an otherwise attractive offer.
But there's something sellers need to remember:
Negotiation always involves some risk.
The buyer could accept.
They could counter again.
Or they could decide to walk away.
That's why I don't recommend countering simply because we feel like we're supposed to negotiate.
There should be a reason behind what we're asking for.
What If Another Offer Comes Tomorrow?
It might.
That's the uncomfortable truth about real estate.
We can't know what a hypothetical future buyer will offer.
Instead, I want to evaluate what we do know:
How many showings have we had?
How many agents have expressed serious interest?
Are other buyers preparing offers?
How does this offer compare with recent sales?
How strong is the buyer?
How long has the property been available?
What are competing Pasadena homes doing?
From there, we make an informed decision rather than gambling on something that may or may not happen.
Don't Lose a Great Buyer Chasing the Perfect Buyer
This is probably the biggest takeaway.
Every seller wants the highest possible price.
Of course you do.
My job is to help you maximize your result.
But maximizing your result doesn't necessarily mean squeezing every last dollar out of the purchase price while ignoring everything else.
Sometimes a strong, motivated, financially qualified buyer offering good terms is worth considerably more than a slightly higher offer carrying significantly more uncertainty.
The goal isn't simply to get into escrow.
It's to successfully close escrow.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is the first offer usually the best offer on a house?
Not always, but it absolutely can be.
Early buyers are sometimes among the most motivated because they've already been searching and are ready to act when the right property appears. Rather than judging the offer based on when it arrived, evaluate its price, terms, financing, and likelihood of closing.
Should I wait until after the first open house to accept an offer?
It depends on your listing strategy and the terms of the offer.
If substantial buyer activity is expected, there may be a reason to allow additional buyers an opportunity to see the property. If an exceptionally strong offer arrives, however, waiting isn't automatically the better decision.
Should I accept a full-price offer immediately?
Not necessarily.
A full-price offer can still contain terms that affect your net proceeds or create additional risk.
Review the entire contract before deciding.
Should I take the highest offer on my Pasadena home?
The highest price isn't automatically the best offer. Financing, requested concessions, contingencies, deposit, closing timeline, and other terms can materially affect the quality of an offer.
Can I counter an offer instead of rejecting it?
Yes. Sellers can generally accept, reject, or counter an offer. A counteroffer allows you to propose different terms rather than simply saying no.
What if I accept an offer and a higher offer comes in later?
Once you've entered into a binding purchase agreement, your obligations depend on the terms of that contract. This is one reason sellers should carefully evaluate an offer before accepting it rather than assuming they can simply switch buyers if something better appears later.
So What's the Next Step?
If you receive an offer on your Pasadena home, I don't want to simply tell you:
"It's a good price. Take it."
I want to break it down.
What will you actually net?
How strong is the financing?
What contingencies does the buyer have?
Are they requesting credits?
How does the price compare with the market?
What other buyer activity do we have?
And, most importantly:
What is the probability that this buyer actually gets us to the closing table?
Current Pasadena conditions make that analysis particularly important. There are still properties attracting multiple offers and selling well above asking, but other homes are sitting longer, reducing their prices, or ultimately selling below list.
After nearly 20 years helping homeowners throughout Pasadena and the San Gabriel Valley, I've learned that the best offer isn't always the one with the biggest number at the top of the page.
It's the offer that gives you the best combination of price, terms, certainty, and a successful closing.
If you're considering selling your Pasadena home, I'd be happy to help you create a strategy before the offers arrive so that when they do, you'll know exactly what we're looking for and how we'll evaluate them.