> Ray wrote: > +1 on the buyer's agent advice. They rock. > 1.) If you like this house I'll echo what Robert said: get an agent. That being said, they don't always work in your interest because they get a percentage of the home sale (the higher the sale, the higher their pay).
2.) Get pre-approved for the loan, tell this to the agent, have her make a pending offer. 3.) Do a "comparable home" search on the internet. Similar homes in similar locations with similar features with a similar size. What did they sell for? Many times your county's tax assessor has a nice website that makes getting this info easy. In this area that includes maps of the town, you click on the house, and you see the sales history. That's all public information. From this, determine a "like-new" price from which to base your offer. (Remember, comparable means location, land parcel size, house, and house mechanicals/features.) 4 .) The offer should be pending on a *detailed* home inspection. Deduct any issues (carpet, windows, basement smell, insects, etc) from the like-new price. Many times you can have the owners pay for this inspection and even negotiate in a warranty given you buy. 5.) Figure out your "BATNA" before hand and agree on it with your wife! BATNA is: the Best Alternative To a Negotiated Agreement. In plain language this means, "what's our backup plan?" Know what you'd do if the house doesn't pass inspection, has issues, or your offer isn't accepted. I think JP Morgan said something like, "We can never purchase that which we really endeavour to buy" I think he meant that if you don't have a BATNA, you'll never make a good offer. Personal Story --------------------- About 5 years ago we found a house we really liked in a good neighborhood with a great view (which was most of the worth to us). It wasn't an ideal layout, but it was much better than what we had. The house was pre-inspected and came with a warranty. As my wife was travelling I was tempted to make an offer right there, however I went home and did a bit of research. I found it had been on the market for 9 months which was quite a long time given the market and that home - it should've sold within a few days. After a walkthrough I determined 2 things: 1.) The house was *really* cluttered and thus didn't show well. 2.) The basement smelled of mildew. So I had an inspector re-inspect and he assured me that there was no mold problem, but that there had been water in the basement. However drain tile and a new sump system had been installed presumably fixing it. As there were 2 offers in at 20% over asking we offered asking -$5000 for those issues. Our kicker was that we were willing to close immediately and gave their real estate agent the sale on our existing home. Obviously this motivated the agent to advise our offer based on the small contingency and his fat commission. Once we moved in I installed a ThermaStor Santa Fe industrial de-humidifier and replaced the carpet and now all is well. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| Purchase Captivate from House of Fusion, a Macromedia Authorized Affiliate and support the CF community. http://www.houseoffusion.com/banners/view.cfm?bannerid=52 Message: http://www.houseoffusion.com/lists.cfm/link=i:5:187583 Archives: http://www.houseoffusion.com/cf_lists/threads.cfm/5 Subscription: http://www.houseoffusion.com/lists.cfm/link=s:5 Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/cf_lists/unsubscribe.cfm?user=89.70.5 Donations & Support: http://www.houseoffusion.com/tiny.cfm/54
