We just got low balled on our house--WTF *?&!

[folivier]

Never get emotional about selling or buying your house. Your dream is usually not theirs. That is why we always use a realtor to put up a barrier between us and buyers.

 

[Dash man]

We are in the Sarasota / Bradenton area, and for the last year or so, properly priced houses in our area have an accepted offer within a week. Overpriced houses languish, get taken off the market and come back with lower prices. Many who purchased in the 2005 /2007 timeframe seems to get stuck on what they paid for the house, as if that is relevant. If this is your first week, be patient, you will get an offer. If you are pushing 3 weeks, you may need to reconsider your pricing. The least rational person about what a home is worth is the owner.

We had bought north of Tampa in 2006 for $280k and recently sold for $225k to a realtor buying for his personal use. He offered $5000 below asking with us paying all closing costs. We countered with our full asking price and normal closing costs shared. He accepted and we closed a month later after the appraisal came back at our asking price. We lost money from our initial purchase, but we're realistic about what homes were selling for in the area and we did little to upgrade. If a house is priced correctly it will sell. Ours did in less than a week.
My FIL took forever to sell his place since emotions got to him from having built it himself. Once we convinced him how to prepare the place and how to determine the real value (a very soft market area), the house sold the first day when it was relisted. Emotions flared up during the inspection process, but closing is this week...finally!


Enjoying life!

 

[Dawg52]

Never get emotional about selling or buying your house. Your dream is usually not theirs. That is why we always use a realtor to put up a barrier between us and buyers.

I sold 3 houses w/o a realtor and the process was a piece of cake. The 4th......not so much. This house(my mom's) I had planned to turn over to a realtor because of the poor location. But a person in the neighborhood approached me about buying it shortly before listing with the realtor. Anyway as we talked they appeared undecided so I go ahead and list it with an exclusion in the contract. No fee if I sell to these people within 30 days. To make a long story short, they became more interested but were very difficult to deal with. I ended up having to bring in the realtor in to handle the final negotiations and paper work at a nominal fee.

I'm pretty much done buying and selling property although I will sell my condo one day. When I do I will certainly use a realtor.

 

[dallas27]

I really dont get this, someone is upset because they don't like an offer they received? I mean, come on.


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[6miths]

Agree with the main sentiments expressed. It's just an offer. Take it for what it is, decide what to do with the prospective buyer and move on. Agree with the thoughts expressed about seller's/buyer's market - if you are truly in a seller's market and your house has been listed that long.... Around here the current seller's market has average time on market at less than a week, multiple offers and sales above asking. Yes, bubble territory!

 

[Newventurer]

After they spent time on much due diligence, you just found out what your house is worth to one couple.

That's all.

The house is worth more to you cause you are invested in it and less to them because they have other options and fear making a poor investment.

Marketing a home is your agents responsibility. If you don't feel he/she is doing their job look for another.

 

[Moemg]

One thing I always look for when I am looking at houses is how long the person owned the house . When I see a house that is listed after just one year of ownership it sets off red signals . What is wrong with this house ?
This house was your dream house one year ago and now it is not . What changed ?

 

[ivinsfan]

I'm with Moemg...you built what you say is a 700K house that is "perfect" but have decided to leave..Why? I hope you keep this thread updated so we find out if you sell and at what price.A 100K earnest money payment? Is that what you mean when you say 100K down payment?That would be a walking issue for me.

If you think the market is so strong why are you listing 12 months ahead of moving time?

 

[CaliKid]

...

You mention that the market is "projected" to rise 25% over the next three years, but projections aren't concrete. Sellers might look at what housing was worth at the peak, before the bubble burst, but buyers might be looking at what prices were like AFTER the bubble burst.

I agree. Talking about the future is just such an unknown. Plus, it seems to me that expectations of the future (good or bad) are built into the valuations of all houses that sell. If one thinks it's a guarantee to go up then they wouldn't sell.

 

[MRG]

One thing I always look for when I am looking at houses is how long the person owned the house . When I see a house that is listed after just one year of ownership it sets off red signals . What is wrong with this house ?
This house was your dream house one year ago and now it is not . What changed ?

Ding, ding..

I know on our 10 yo new home it's tough to reclaim all the monies we spent. Yard upgrades, shrubs, hardscape, drapes.... it's taken a long time.

We're buying a place the owners had for a year. They asked for their investment + transaction fees. I offered their investment, not my problem they bought the wrong house.

 

[H2ODude]

I have no idea what the market is and from a previous comment it sounds to priced at higher end of the neighborhood. However, the OP's qualifying comments about busy street are a red flag to me. Our first, third, fourth and fifth houses were on cul de sacs. That second was on an intersection of two 20 mph streets but we swore never again. DD and SIL bought a house just outside DC for well over a million that was right on a busy street; it would be worth very little to me (I know, location location location but just because it's Chevy Chase doesn't negate listening to traffic noise continuously). So OP may have to wait for someone elderly who doesn't hear so well.

 

[Dog]

We sold our home of 30 years and it closed in June. It was DH's childhood home before we bought it (a tanker with daylight basement, 1-car garage built in 1958. A simple home, but the area has proven to be highly desirable (by the water with good school district). I've always kept an eye on home prices as I find residential real estate interesting. We kept our home and yard in good condition and made some decent updates/upgrades over the years. It was one of the smaller and less fancy homes in the area. There had been and continued to be only a handful of homes for sale within our homes price range. I really wanted to get the house on the market in May so I hustled to get it show ready. We chose a local realtor I knew and she did her homework before meeting with DH and I. I knew what $ range our house could be sold at and it jived with her recommendation. DH felt that the price was $25-$50k too high and asked her to price it lower. This is because he knew all the warts of the house. I convinced him to let her do her job as she is the expert and knows the market. She priced the house about $10k less then her original proposal to pacify DH (he was still uncomfortable). She had us declutter and had the house simply, but tastefully staged. The house listed at noon on Wednesday and we had showings that afternoon and an Open House that Sunday with multiple showings everyday in between with the understanding that we would review offers on Monday at noon. DH was on a golf vacation in Palm Springs
I met with our realtor on Monday and we had multiple offers all higher than the realtors original proposed price. I accepted the highest offer even though it was VA. DH was uncomfortable selling at that price, but we agreed it gave us room for any improvements that might be needed from the inspection. We were selling to a realtor-broker that was moving back to our neighborhood, so figured that may have been their thinking too. Ended up that they couldn't make it for the inspection, so it was waived. However, it did need to be appraised by VA before it could close. The appraisal came in a bit under the offer. Our realtor suggested we get another appraisal as she felt it was low or we could put the house back on market (the buyer couldn't come up with the difference). We opted to accept the appraised price. We felt it was more then fair and more then we had expected to get. DH felt better as he expected we would have had to make some concessions if the house went through an inspection. The couple was thrilled to get the house (warts and all). All-in-all, we felt it was a win-win for everyone.
Moral of the story is to remove personal feelings and let the market determine the value of the house.


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[ExFlyBoy5]

People get too emotionally attached to the selling of a HOUSE. Stop looking it like your HOME. If you get an offer that offends you, simply ignore it.

Not sure its a sellers market . Average days on market is 90 to 120.

And yeah. That is NOT a sellers market. We have a seller's market here...current average days on market for my neighborhood is about 7 days and selling price for the last 3 houses has been in excess of asking price. *IF* we reasonably believe that we can sell ours at price X, it will be put on the market...immediately. I personally think a RE bubble is coming...at least around here. Rents aren't keeping pace with the great increase in home selling prices and that's a bad sign.

 

[HadEnuff]

DW loves to watch "Love it or List it"...if you aren't familiar with it, a couple living in a house they no longer enjoy will have one of the hosts of the show do some renovations, while the other host looks for a different home to buy. There is a friendly rivalry between the two hosts.

Anyway, on every episode, no matter what the renovations are, or what they cost, they always, ALWAYS, increase the house's selling value by MORE than the cost of renovations. Always.
Which is, by my experience, almost never the case. Buyers almost never love the changes as much as the owners, simply because it's unlikely to match their tastes or desires.

 

[ExFlyBoy5]

DW loves to watch "Love it or List it"...if you aren't familiar with it, a couple living in a house they no longer enjoy will have one of the hosts of the show do some renovations, while the other host looks for a different home to buy. There is a friendly rivalry between the two hosts.

Anyway, on every episode, no matter what the renovations are, or what they cost, they always, ALWAYS, increase the house's selling value by MORE than the cost of renovations. Always.
Which is, by my experience, almost never the case. Buyers almost never love the changes as much as the owners, simply because it's unlikely to match their tastes or desires.

Yep. That's an issue for those in the RE profession. The DW has worked with folks that have done stuff with HGTV and without fail, things are always "tweaked" to make it look good for TV and most of what you see is FAR from the truth. Two things that Realtor absolutely hate hearing: "ZILLOW" and "HGTV".

 

[ivinsfan]

DW loves to watch "Love it or List it"...if you aren't familiar with it, a couple living in a house they no longer enjoy will have one of the hosts of the show do some renovations, while the other host looks for a different home to buy. There is a friendly rivalry between the two hosts.

Anyway, on every episode, no matter what the renovations are, or what they cost, they always, ALWAYS, increase the house's selling value by MORE than the cost of renovations. Always.
Which is, by my experience, almost never the case. Buyers almost never love the changes as much as the owners, simply because it's unlikely to match their tastes or desires.

I'm not certain that's true, they prepare a "new listing" document for the fixed up house, simple showing the new asking price. Once the couple decides to "love it or list it" the show is over.

 

[Just_Steve]

DW loves to watch "Love it or List it"...if you aren't familiar with it, a couple living in a house they no longer enjoy will have one of the hosts of the show do some renovations, while the other host looks for a different home to buy. There is a friendly rivalry between the two hosts.

Anyway, on every episode, no matter what the renovations are, or what they cost, they always, ALWAYS, increase the house's selling value by MORE than the cost of renovations. Always.
Which is, by my experience, almost never the case. Buyers almost never love the changes as much as the owners, simply because it's unlikely to match their tastes or desires.

One thing to note is Love it or list it is filmed in Toronto, a housing market that is on fire so I can see them recouping most of their renovation budget.

 

[convergent]

Not sure why anyone would be "insulted" or "furious" with any offer. If you don't like the offer then don't accept it. They have no idea what your motivation is. They are simply saying your house is worth what they offered to them. Any offer to a seller is data about the market, and should help you get a feel for the market. If all the offers you get are low balls, then you are priced too high. We sold a house during the 2008 market collapse and ended up lowering the price $90K to finally sell it. If I had received an offer of $90K low in the first week I would have rejected it without question... but after sitting with two houses and two mortgages, our motivation changed.

 

[haha]

I don't think 15% to 17% below asking is a low-ball offer. Is it really?

Using words like "low-ball" is never helpful, unless you are skillful enough to use these terms to influence your counter-party.

Your goal as a seller is not as simple as it may seem. The point is to improve your life. Only rarely will this be the same as maximizing the price you are offered. Time, terms, conditions, market factors can all play a big part in what is satisfactory.

Ha

 

[haha]

I personally think a RE bubble is coming...at least around here. Rents aren't keeping pace with the great increase in home selling prices and that's a bad sign.

Wouldn't this be a sign that an existing bubble is perhaps coming back to earth?

Ha

 

[sheehs1]

As a "real" buyer, I probably would have started at $600K. heck it's still within 15% of asking.

I'm not sure why sellers get butthurt about those kind of offers. I've sold three properties within the last 5 years with similar opening offers.

It's one thing if it is truly a lowball offer. I know from having looked at resort property the last 3 or 4 years and having put offers in, I typically do a market analysis and take the property condition into consideration. In all cases it did not warrant a list value offer. The property has to appraise if one gets a bank loan and even when I offer cash, I request an appraisal.

I am sure your property is in mint condition but I gotta tell you there are tons of sellers out there that expect fair market value and have not kept their properties maintained. I have been in many that would have taken $100K or more to bring it up to what I consider mint condition. (bathrooms, kitchen, floors, etc.)

Ironically enough in all cases my real estate agent agreed with the analysis and initial offers. Also, in all cases they would come back and tell me I insulted the seller. I began to think it was a racket. Sorry but I did and do. Probably mostly in resort areas.

So it can be a two edge sword and depends on the property.

Good luck to you.

p.s. Also in all cases, after I let things go the house either sold for what I initially offered (months and months later) or was taken off market as there were no offers at the sellers list or close to list.

 

[kgtest]

and here I thought anoffer was all about price per square foot. I must be too non-emotional. a house is a number to me, and it's subjective by both sides of the fence.

If you're neighbors house sold for a much lower price per square foot, and the recent comps are coming in 15% lower than list, its not offensive, it's reality.

I bought my home 2years ago in a sellers market. List was 420, they dropped to 369 after being on the market 31days. But 369 was more in line with the recent comps selling price/sq ft.

With that said, whenever I see my neighbors list a home, I make sure to encourage them to get the highest possible price per sq ft...its to my benefit.

 

[Teacher Terry]

Even if I get a really low offer I always counter because that means the person is interested. I never just reject. Someone did that to us once and we walked away. I don't want to deal with a jerk.

 

[Souschef]

But as you are moving to a condo (and possibly downsizing), you might want to look at the difficulty of getting rid of stuff. Most of what we have gotten rid of has simply been donated, since selling it on Craigslist or whatever is a PITA.

Amen!! We were clearing out my condo with a free! listing on Craig's List. One item was a desk. A lady called and started asking my wife all kinds of questions about it like the color, drawer measurements, etc. Finally, in exasperation, my wife said, "Look! How much cheaper than free do you want?"

 

[Chuckanut]

I offered a painting by a local well known artist for sale on Craig's list. I asked $100 and would have probably settled for $75. I got a low ball offer of $10!! Instead I donated it to a charitable auction where it sold for $160. Even at my low tax rate I did better than $10. I just ignored the guy when he wrote back and and offered $25. I don't want to deal with chislers.