Home buying thread

Heylel Teomim said:

Another update... this one I need some help on.

I received a response on my offer. The seller"s agent claimed that they were considering two additional offers at the moment, and to make our highest and final offer by 9am tomorrow.

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They don"t have two offers they have one and its yours. They are baiting you to try and get some more money out of you because they are seriously considering selling to you. Don"t move an inch.

Heylel Teomim said:

Another update... this one I need some help on.

What do you guys think? Am I being hard-sold by the owner? My inclination is to think they"re bluffing, but regardless it puts me in an odd situation. I"m quite partial to the home. It fits all my criteria, and is one of the very few choices within my search area that has met all my expectations so far. However, we"ve already established how important it is to not let emotion cloud judgement, so I don"t want to significantly raise my offer out of fear.

Opinions?

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I agree with what others have said here. It"s likely that there is only one offer and they are trying to bait you into raising yours. This is EXACTLY a play on emotion. From the seller"s perspective, they hedge their bet that the buyer could be emotionally attached enough to raise their offer because they really want the house. From your point of view, if you really want the house, I would raise the offer "slightly", like maybe another grand or two. That"s it. If they won"t come down to you, you say thank you, good luck selling your house and that"s it. Keep in mind, in this market, especially in your case where you have nothing to sell to move, you are in the driver"s seat. You determine the price point. If the seller is unable/unwilling to meet your offer, it"s his/her loss, not yours.

Keep in mind also that not just the price of the house is in play here. You say the outside needs some work, perhaps you can come up to 140K but have them give you an allowance for outside repairs. Perhaps have them pay a bulk of the closing costs. Another thing in this is, how much do you trust your agent? What is his perspective? If he is a buyers agent, it is in his and yours best interest to provide the best possible advice in this situation.

Heylel,

I had a similar experience buying a couple years ago (Fall 2007). I had put in offers on houses on 2 separate occasions. Each time was markedly below the asking price for the house. Each time my agent came back and told me there were other offers on the house, but I stood by my price. These houses ended up not going to me. Whether or not they actually sold or the buyer just refuse to sell that low...I don"t care. They were nice places, but none of them perfect enough for me to concede on my end.

Granted it was a somewhat different market then and Denver, CO is one area that"s been slower to be affected by the downshift in the economy, but the realtor may not just be lying to you. I"m not encouraging you to put in a higher bid, but don"t feel bad if the house doesn"t go to you.

I won"t. It"ll be a bummer since it"s a really great location, but I haven"t been looking for very long at all, and I still have plenty of time left on my lease to find something new.

I ended up submitting an offer for 140, but shifted the closing costs entirely onto the seller. The net change is about 2500 dollars. If they take it, rock on. If not, I"m in no rush. I deliberately started looking when I had several months left on my current lease so that I wouldn"t feel pressured into a buy.

update: It"s an hour past their deadline and nothing yet... still waiting :/

Heylel Teomim said:

I won"t. It"ll be a bummer since it"s a really great location, but I haven"t been looking for very long at all, and I still have plenty of time left on my lease to find something new.

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It"s not like there will be any shortage of houses on the market. There"s some truth in that when the right house shows up, you"ll just know it"s the right one.

I received a response about 2pm. Looks like the other offers were legit, they chose to go with one about 10k higher than what I submitted. So, it"s back to the search.

On the up side, in the last hour I"ve stumbled across 9 new potential properties I"ll be checking out this weekend, some of which are larger homes than the one I bid on, and all of which are listed lower. This was definitely not my only option.

Wow, I am surprised that there were actualy other legit offers. But 10k over your raised bid was way too high anyway so they just found a sucker is all.

CnCGOD said:

Wow, I am surprised that there were actualy other legit offers. But 10k over your raised bid was way too high anyway so they just found a sucker is all.

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Yeah. My dad happens to be a building supply wholesaler, so he saw right away some exterior problems that anyone not in the business would have missed. It"s one reason we offered low, we knew there would be repairs to be paid for very soon.

The next most promising is a 4b/3ba (way more than I need actually, but its very cheap) a mile or two away. It"s listed even lower since it"s a foreclosure. There"s a contract on it currently, but it"s contingent on the sale of the bidder"s current home. My agent says if I like it, there"s a very strong chance I can steal it away. The bank is more interested in selling a home now than soaking up the cost for several more months.

Ya 10k is to high to upbid. Especially in the current buyers market. Besides just check back in 3 months you"d be surprised how often deals fall through.

Sharmai said:

Ya 10k is to high to upbid. Especially in the current buyers market. Besides just check back in 3 months you"d be surprised how often deals fall through.

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I strongly suspect that the offer will be rescinded once a close inspection reveals some of the exterior problems. The only reason I was willing to take them on was because I have access to building materials for a fraction of cost. Anyone else is going to put another 5 to 15 thousand into the place within 3 years, closer to 25 thousand within 5 to 6 since the roof is 20 years old. None of it is the sort of wear and tear that prevents move-in, but it will have to be addressed sooner than later.

That being said, I"m not looking back. I"ve got other places to check out that are more recently built, with comparable access to the roads. Had I found them two days ago, I might not have bid on anything at all yet.

Heylel Teomim said:

That being said, I"m not looking back. I"ve got other places to check out that are more recently built, with comparable access to the roads. Had I found them two days ago, I might not have bid on anything at all yet.

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Exactly. Actually, look back-and be content with the fact that maybe they found a sucker and it wasn"t you

Haha when I read the seller"s agent claimed they received 2 other offers I was going to post: "They are bluffing, guaranteed". Shows how much I know.

Sorry they ended up being legit and you got outbid but I think it"s a good break for you. A lot of economists and the like keep talking of a 10-20% further decline in median housing prices, depending on the severity of the scenario.

Assuming a property is listed reasonably (whatever the fuck that means in this market), I would use the 10%-20% off of list price as a general rule of thumb for offers. Take your time, enjoy the fruits of a buyer"s market that"s not going to end anytime soon.

The guy on Bloomberg radio this afternoon was talking about an excess inventory of 1.4 millions homes being built up during the bubble. His forecast was that it would take until the end of 2010 to work through the inventory and stop the price declines.

Yeah, I"ve started looking at homes 10 to 20 thousand over my self-imposed limit, and will offer bids about that same amount under list price. I find new properties to check every day, and have about 12 for this weekend, half of which have great potential.

It really benefits me as a first time buyer. People who went crazy with mortgages have provided me a great opportunity. My one concern is that I want to be closing on a home before Obama presents any sweeping foreclosure prevention measures, since it will dry up a lot of short sales.

Sometimes spending a bit more is ok because better homes have better resale value. They cost more for a reason (assuming they are priced well)... when I looked the condos for 20-30k less were just not places I wanted to live while the one I choose just struck me as a place I could call home.

I put in a few different offers on a few houses before I got mine. I really wish I had gotten the first one I put in an offer on, it had a really unique layout. But they just wanted way too much, and it already needed to be almost totally renovated.

I"ve only ever bought the one house, but I would imagine that the worst thing you could do is marry yourself to a house and adjust your bid to them. You have too many options in this market to get locked down like that.

Need some help from someone who"s had experience making lowball offers in the past. What type of homes will I have the best chance of getting a good deal? I"m inclined to think short sales are more likely to sell for significantly under list price than foreclosures, since it"s saving the bank the money they would have spent foreclosing the property. Also, what sort of range should I begin making offers? 30% under list, 25%... etc?

I"ve broadened my search criteria a bit and included some homes that are a bit out of my price range to see if I can drag them down into a more reasonable zone.

I didn"t do any bidding when I bought my house (I bought new) but if you have nothing to lose why not just bid on everything you can?

I mean one after another that is in the order of ones you like the most to least like the most. I don"t think you can bid on more then one at a time unless you want to risk having to buy them both.. I think..

Bids tend to be contracts that you sign and they sign if they accept... so yea.

I"ve found a place I"m considering making an offer on, but I"m not sure if it"s really worth my time. The home is listed at 185k. My personal limit I"ve set is 150k, and obviously I want to start lower than that... so I was thinking of offering 140 - 142k. It"s a short sell property that claims to have already received lender approval (I assume that means it"s approved at the list price, however).

140 is about 22% under list price. 20% under list is 148.5, which is within my limit. Do I stand a chance in hell of having a bid 20% under list accepted? The home has been on the market for exactly one year.