Did you have any success making a lowball offer on your home? (1 Viewer)

[Da Guru]

It all depends on the seller. If they are not in a hurry a lowball will not be accepted. When I bought our home that we live in now it was 5 years old and a builder custom built the home and was living in it. Much like fantasy football owners who over-value their own players when you try to trade... he over valued the home because he built it and all of the upgrades. I told my agent to shoot him an offer 25K less than he was asking...he came back with a "Screw you and I don`t want to deal with you anymore..no counter no nothing" After the dust settled we made another offer because we really wanted the home. Ended up paying 5K less than he was asking but he left all the new appliances. Plus the basement was fully finished and he had just finished wiring the whole garage that had lights and outlets everywhere and heat if wanted. It was funny after we met the guy in person we got along great..of course both realtors did not like that. My agent was all pissed because I called the guy to ask about his pool table..my agent said "Are you trying to blow the deal?" I realized later that he did not want the guy and me to work out our own deal.

 

[Ignoramus]

I like to negotiate from more of a strong playing hand so I look up the owner's current mortgage on public records to see what they owe on the house and figure out if they will be able to take a lower offer or not. Plus looking at buying a property from a deceased owner that has been empty for a few months will make for more motivated sellers. Using the tools available to you to gain a strategic advantage is only common sense IMO.

I know there are people that factor this in to their pricing, but what I owe doesn't matter. Pretend the house were paid off... should I just give it to you for $1000 and be happy that I'm one rack richer?

 

[Dickie Dunn]

I just went through all of this in the last 9 months.

Saw one house that we liked one day at an open house, and the realtor told us that the seller wanted a full price offer, but it was well within our budget. So we quickly called our agent, he took one look at it and did some math and told us they were counting the finished half-basement in the square footage. So we came in with an offer that was about $30k less and they immediately turned us down. Walk away.

The next house we thought we were in good position. We put it in an offer relatively close to asking and they countered. We decided to accept the counter, then our realtor spent the better part of two days trying to reach them before finding out that they accepted another offer even higher. Technically not illegal, but not very ethical either. It was crushing to my wife.

But then we found our current house less than two weeks later. Like RN and Bucky said, recently remodeled kitchen and all three bathrooms. Pretty much everything we wanted. Our realtor wanted us to come in a lot lower than we did, but his associate who worked the area had us come in a little higher and we settled for about $10k less than asking.

On the flip side, we listed my wife's house considerably lower than any comp house in town, then when we got plenty of looks but no offers, we dropped the price $10k. Immediately after that, an offer came in $30k below the new asking price. That was insulting, but part of us wanted to just counter about $10-15k higher and be done with it so we didn't get stuck with two mortgages. But our realtor wouldn't budge and told them we had just dropped the price and wouldn't go any lower. They ended up coming back with a "real" offer and we settled for just $4k below the new price.

So long story short, sometimes you have to trust the realtor knows the market and current conditions and don't follow any hard and fast rules. That might be tough if you're not working with a seller's agent, but if you have a good idea what you want and are willing to pay, go for it.