<p>Perhaps I am a weird house buyer, but I’ve never hesitated to make a low-ball offer on a house that I liked. We bought our first house for 15% below list… it was “stale” by any standard. I think buyers who assume that list price is in any way related to what the seller will actually take are being very unrealistic (especially in this market). The corollary is that sellers who are “offended” by an offer are often being unrealistic as well. A house is only worth what a buyer is willing to pay. </p>
<p>Furthermore, with the perfectly legal practice of the seller writing a check to the buyer at closing (so that the recorded price is higher than the actual price) (which works only if tax assessments are independent of selling price)–well, even comps are often irrelevant.</p>
<p>^ In our area, the banks limit how much cash you can get back at closing to a couple percent, because it subverts the down payment percentage. Most buyers use it to cover their closing costs.</p>
<p>We only buy stale houses. Though actually the second house, the owners had indeed taken it off the market, but they’d already bought a new house. Neighbors alerted us it might be available, we knocked on the door to found out if they were still interested in selling.</p>
<p>Yeah…we can see why buyers want to buy stale houses…because the price for the place ends up lower than it would have if the place was priced right from the beginning…</p>
<p>I was kind of talking from the sellers point of view…:)</p>
<p>You don’t want a stale house if you are a seller…</p>
<p>I’m getting a little ****ed off with the process of buying the townhouse…</p>
<p>The seller told his agent he doesn’t want to pay anything for the issues that have come up with the inspections because we got a good price on the place…The fix
up costs aren’t huge, but they are higher than expected…</p>
<p>And the funny thing is…if we pay full price and the seller has to pay for the problems…we would have a better deal than getting the place at a bargain price and having to fix the place up.</p>
<p>And I have this idea that nobody understands that…it’s annoying…</p>
<p>Luckily my wife comes back in a couple of days from vacation and she can deal with this @@@@.</p>
<p>Our biggest problem is…everybody knows we are going to buy the place…Makes negotiating very tough. lol</p>
<p>They want to sell the house, dstark- so everything is negotiable. I would suggest you ask the realtors if they are willing to adjust their comission to cover some of the repair cost. I never understood why the buyer and seller are supposed to sacrifice the $$$ but the realtors don’t offer to help with that in order to make the deal. The selling price is fixed, so their commission doesnt change. They should help make the deal hapen, IMO (especially the sellers agent who have very little work to do since the house never really was on the market)</p>
<p>dstark, sounds uncomfortable. All the best. I hope your wife had a good vacation, because it sounds like she’ll need to be rested to tackle things on her return.</p>
<p>Our realtor just told us not to expect any showings at all in August, since no one looks at houses in our area in August. <em>sigh</em> We had a couple who loved the house and were thinking of putting in an offer after the second visit. Then the house the wife grew up in came on the market, and that was that. It will be a horrible commute for her since it’s an hour away, but I can understand an emotional attachment like that.</p>
<p>As you said before, dstark, we just can’t catch a break. You keep saying houses move if the price is right, but I don’t see anything moving in our town or the next one over, that’s in our price range. The middle and high ends are doing fine, but the low end homes, which my mother’s is, are sitting. It’s very discouraging.</p>
<p>Our area is really having a problem in selling houses for anywhere near what they were valued in the last 6 years. Low end houses are selling but the more expensive ones are not because banks here are not giving out jumbo mortgages and have really tightened up on giving any mortgages. Our neighbor did not sell the house after nearly a year on the market and two price drops. But she was able to rent it out on a 2 year lease that will cover the costs. Rentals are going well, but house sales are not.</p>
What my W and I do (she is an agent) is when we buy something for ourselves, after the price is settled, we go back to the other party and say we want to lower the price by the amount of my W’s commission, and lower her commission to zero. The other party never cares because their net stays exactly the same.</p>
<p>That way she doesn’t get 1099’ed by her broker on income that isn’t really income (you can’t pay yourself to work for yourself), and it makes doing our income taxes easier. Otherwise it’s a big mess to back that out for tax purposes.</p>
<p>Cptofthehouse, our area is experiencing a similar problem with what are considered upper bracket homes for this market. Houses >$1MM take at least 15 - 18 months to sell despite being priced at about 70% of their value in 2006-07. Houses between $500K and $1MM seem to sell a bit faster, averaging about a year on the market. The official averages for days on market are artificially low because many sellers seem to pull their listings after six to nine months, often just before Thanksgiving, and then try again the next year often with a different firm.</p>
<p>We had to move in late 2007 and lost a substantial sum on that house. We listed below our cost and dropped the price twice even though our RE agent thought we were giving it away with the second price drop. At least it sold within the year. There’s a builder’s spec on that street (larger than our old house) that still has not sold after five years on the market. The builder dropped the price from $1.5MM to $1.3MM and so on until it’s now just under $900K. People start to wonder what’s wrong with a property, and it does get a little shop worn. I’d be concerned about whether the systems were properly maintained by the builder (in this case, it’s doubtful.) </p>
<p>Our situation has changed significantly again, and we’d love to sell our current home. The current plan is to put it on the market next spring if dh hasn’t gotten lucky enough to land a new job with a great relocation package. He’s ready to take a cut in pay if necessary, just to have the relo company take the house off our hands.</p>
<p>Actually, Dstark, that’s our plan. I’ve been checking out rentals in a half dozen cities and am pleasantly surprised. After >30 yrs. of owning suburban homes, we’re ready to try renting an apt. or condo downtown for a while. We know where we’d like to build our retirement home and have the floorplan about 90% complete (awaiting final tweaking based on the specifics of the site.) The last house will have about 1/4 the sq.ft. of our current home, which will still seem large after the apartment. </p>
<p>It’s a nice fantasy; I hope we can make it come true. Yesterday, I filled four bags and two bins of stuff to drop off today at a charity thrift store. My goal is to have all closets and cabinets decluttered by the time fall weather makes it comfortable enough to work on the exterior of the house.</p>
<p>I won’t do as Cptofthehouse’s neighbor and rent out this house. We did that once and it turned into a nightmare. The house was trashed and we lost more money than if we’d taken what appeared to be a lowball offer in the beginning.</p>
<p>Starting to get a “little” action-- some question about the roof, another showing or 2 scheduled for dads house. Its priced to seel and we rewrote the description with the help of all you cc’ers!! Cross your fingers. I think (not sure) one might be a second visit at the house. That is promising!! The realtor told me not to get excited though. </p>
<p>Hoping to get the taxes reduced too. That would be a big help.</p>
<p>Apologies for typos above. The house is priced to *sell. There are 2 showings scheduled for tomorrow - one in the morning, one in the early evening (the ones back for a second visit). Stay tuned and hope for the best, please!</p>
Though actually the second house, the owners had indeed taken it off the market, but they’d already bought a new house. Neighbors alerted us it might be available, we knocked on the door to found out if they were still interested in selling.</p>