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House Offer Rejected? Here’s What to Do Next.

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This post is all about house offer rejected what next.


You see each other across the sidewalk. 

The first meeting is electric.

You each can’t believe the other exists real life… can’t wait to see each other again…

You eagerly wait by the phone for the next three days, the anticipation growing, when…

Your realtor calls. 

And…

You don’t get the house.

…it is like dating, isn’t it? 

Not getting the house is disappointing, to say the least.  In 2021, as I write this, the market is off its rocker with people outbidding each other by 100k, buying houses without inspections, offering to name their firstborn after the sellerINSANE would be the right word, no? 

I’m guessing that if you’re on the path to buying a house, you’re probably dealing with a word many a sweetheart-seeking young person hears. 

Rejection.

Ouchie.

If your house offer is rejected, here’s what you can do next. 


Wallow.  It Sucks.

If you’re really disappointed… wallow in the disappointment!  Learn from my 4-year-old niece.  When she doesn’t get her way, she wallows in it, sticks out that bottom lip and sinks in, replete with extra cookies and Nick Jr. 

Now, I don’t recommend for doing this very long, since as a grown-a** adult, you’ve hopefully acquired some coping skills by now. 

But just for a few minutes or an hour or an evening if you need to, pull out the ice cream pint and let yourself feel your feelings.  Maybe if you talk about them and air them, you’ll validate them, and they’ll eventually diminish. 


Remember, Successful Individuals Have Failed.

Feeling rejected? 

Consider Glenn Close and her Oscar record. 

Or Susan Lucci (anyone else remember consuming copious amounts of mid-day soap operas with their grandma in the 90s?).

Or, if you’re a sports person, consider Derek Jeter – yes, the all-mighty Yankees shortstop. (Yes, I will fight you to the death should you have a substantial argument as to why he’s “not that great” – see also “the flip” below).  

Jeter, before hitting it big in the majors with all those World Series rings, committed a whopping 56 ERRORS in AA minor leagues.  56!!!  That’s 56 times more than a baseball player should ever commit an error. 

Years later, he’d go on to win 5 Gold Glove Awards (non-sports fans: that is the opposite of committing 56 errors in a season).  In his first book he outlines that it was a blessing in disguise that in that same season, he injured himself in a way that allowed him to practice… only fielding, and nothing else.

Michael Jordan didn’t make the cut on his high school basketball team.

Abraham Lincoln endured losses for decades before becoming president.

Oprah Winfrey – OPRAH for Heaven’s sake – was fired from her first news job, leading her to daytime talk.

My point is, there’s hope for us all. When things seemingly aren’t going your way, they’re probably, actually, very much, going your way. 

Which brings me to point #3.


Find the Silver Lining.

You may not know the bullet you have just dodged. 

My parents often tell the story of the day they departed for a northbound trip out of town.  They were all set, car packed, hit the road – and realized they forgot their jackets.  They turned home, got them and returned to the road to find a deadly collision, involving cars and trucks flipped over the highway median.  Had they not forgotten their jackets, who knows how badly their trip may have gone.

Back to houses.  Truth: it was never yours.  It’s not meant to be.  You might not ever know what could have happened, or you might be able to pinpoint the reason. 

I like to do the juvenile relationship thing and name all the things I never liked about the (newly ex-) boyfriend in the first place.  His brother was rude, his haircut was stupid, how could I have even fallen for him in the first place? 

Or, in house talk: the location wasn’t that great, it needed a new basement bathroom, those underground oil tanks are gonna leak someday, blah blah blah. 

There’s a positive in here somewhere. If your house offer is rejected, what to do next might involve finding the positive!


Regroup and Reassess

Actors are familiar with this one – you have a failed audition for something HUGE, or you attended 3 callbacks and still didn’t book, or you tune in to your primetime debut only to find your big scene with Mariska landed on the cutting room floor.  And then, that very day, you have another audition to tackle. 

Your confidence shatters, you concede that Auntie Petunia was right all along and you’d have been better off as an accountant, and you approach your next opportunity with your head down and shoulders slumped. 

It’s so easy to dejectedly carry on as if your past results will indicate your future successes. 

THEY WON’T!  Not necessarily.  Not if you do something about it. 

House talk: Regroup.  Reassess from your last bidding process.  Did you bid too low?  Do you need a new realtor?  Was your negotiation unreasonable?  Basically, give yourself a debrief: what worked and what didn’t? 

Learn from it, become wiser and better, archive it, and…


Move On

The best part about a rejected bid – or breakup, in my exhausted analogy – is that you’re now free to find the house which is right for you.  After a rough break-up, my bestie told me, “Today is the best day of someone else’s life because now he can date you.” 

House talk: It may suck that you lost the house you wanted, but now you’re free to find the house that is yours!

You must believe that there is another house out there.  And, even more importantly – that “other one out there” is yours, just waiting for you to come scoop it up and love it. 

“There’s a lid for every pot.”  Sometimes they’re all organized in the wrong cabinets but eventually you’ll find each other, amiright? 

Your house is waiting for you. 

Even if your house offer is rejected, here’s what’s next: believe the right one is out there and go after it. 


All summed up, I agree – it sucks when you don’t get what you want.  Plain and simple.  But with a few tactics to regroup, you can get on your way to house buying success! 

What about you – if your house offer was rejected, what did you do next? 


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