Pointers For Negotiating on a House

Knowing a few negotiating tips can be very helpful in the negotiating process when buying a new home. Most buyers know we are in a down market and many home buyers think you can purchase a home for pennies on the dollar in a down market. Sometimes you can but it's not always the case.

You have to know how the home is priced. If a home is priced at $300,000 a majority of home buyers instantly want to offer $250,000 for the home. You have ask yourself, what is the home worth? How long has it been on the market. Who owns it? How much do they owe?

You want your real estate agent to complete a comparative market analysis on the home. There are most likely a lot of other buyers in your price range looking in the same area. Let's say the CMA comes back and shows that the home is underpriced and you see a lot of Realtors cards in the home. There may be other people circling the home to put in an offer. Have your agent call the listing agent to see if there are any offers before submitting your offer. If there are, then you may have to put in an offer at full price with an escalation clause.

If the CMA shows the home to be priced at market price then you can generally start your offer at around 10% under without upsetting the sellers. If you go much lower sellers tend to get irritated and it turns more into a who's going to win game rather than being about buying or selling a new home. If a buyer puts an offer in on a $300,000 home for $200,000 the seller would most likely counter higher towards the $300,000 or not answer back to the offer at all. If you offered 10% less at $270,000 the seller might meet halfway at $285,000. This contributes to a discount of 5%. Believe it or not homes selling in the Seattle, Washington area are selling for around 0-5% off of list price.

If you are negotiating with a seller that just won't budge on price and the homes has been on the market for a while then patience is the key. If the seller really needs to sell the home and no buyers come along then there will eventually be a price drop. Make sure you track this home weekly for price drops. I've seen this happen numerous times where you have a stubborn seller or a misinformed listing agent that believes they will get a certain price and they don't accept or counter back an offer. Months ฝากขายคอนโด later the home ends up selling for less than they could have got.

If you are negotiating a short sale it's important to remember that the seller and the listing agent most likely set the price but they are not the ones taking the loss on the loan. The bank is the one taking the loss and they make the decision on how much the home will sell for. If the list price on a short sale is $300,000 and it seems like a great deal and you put in an offer for $300,000 and the seller signs off on it, try not to get to excited. Months after you get your offer back from the seller, the bank or lien holder will send out their own appraisers and if the home appraises for $400,000 then they are going to counter you back at around $400,000. It can be very frustrating to wait months just to have the bank come back and ask for more money. You also want to make sure you don't deposit any earnest money and have all your timelines start on the day the bank accepts your offer in writing.

If you are negotiating on a bank owned home / foreclosure the banks can answer back fairly quickly. All banks are different but a good rule of thumb is that they will give you about 3% off of list price. If they don't accept your first offer just be patient because they will sell the home and they usually do price drops about every 30 days or so. Make sure you follow up and track any bank owned homes that you like weekly.