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

[tennisno1]

I understand the frustrations and anxieties of buying / selling homes. I've sold 5 homes and just bought my 6th in FL... hoping to stay with this one for a long time. As others mentioned- this is a business transaction. The price of a home is what a buyer is willing to pay and the seller is willing to sell for. I've never considered offers insulting- just starting points to a deal or no deal. As the seller I always have final say. We've received what we considered low ball offers, countered and moved on when not accepted. One buyer came up closer and we sold. In another home we found that that appraisals and current home prices had not declined to the current market conditions (price and buyer sentiment ) and our home languished with the rest of the homes on the market. Over time prices drifted down and we eventually sold. Other times we were priced correctly and sold with in a reasonable time. Good luck- this is a marathon- not a sprint!

 

[Quantum Sufficit]

Thanks all for the help! I will make sure next time to keep it all business. Also the buyer will not be told that his offer was insulting.

Sent from my SM-N920V using Early Retirement Forum mobile app

 

[Shanky]

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.

 

[ShokWaveRider]

Low ball offers are to be expected, why? Because sometimes you do get lucky. Personally I have done this 3 times and purchased the home(s). I NEVER got them for the initial offer, but pretty close. There again, I/We have always paid cash for the home(s) with no contingencies. In fact we always went out of our way to let the seller provide all the dates and conditions.


Remember the true definition of a bargain. "Getting Something You Want At a Price You Are Prepared To Pay".

 

[Teacher Terry]

WE have bought and sold many homes and we learned the hard way that usually the first offer is the highest. ONce we had a seller refuse our offer and not counter calling it insulting and we walked away. If they had countered then we would have played until everyone was satisfied.

 

[LOL!]

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

Suppose they had offered $645K and after any counter offer from you, they simply repeated $645K, what would you have done?

I think it is good to work out scenarios in advance ... war-gaming if you want to call it that.

And if you really want to keep your furniture, tell the buyer who you bought them from in the first place.

 

[ShokWaveRider]

As long as the Realtor does not agree with them and backs you. Remember, the Realtor will follow the money. They do not care about you. Only their paycheck. We have purchased many houses in our lifetime and it did not take us long to figure it out. listen to their advice with caution, and ALWAYS put yourself in their shoes, the Realtor's that is.

 

[Music Lover]

As long as the Realtor does not agree with them and backs you. Remember, the Realtor will follow the money. They do not care about you. Only their paycheck. We have purchased many houses in our lifetime and it did not take us long to figure it out. listen to their advice with caution, and ALWAYS put yourself in their shoes, the Realtor's that is.

They follow the money, but some of them will only follow it so far. There is very little incentive to work harder for an extra $20k, which on a 5% commission would only be $250 if the commission is split with 2 agents (2.5%) and each agent then splits evenly with their company (1.25%).

Tell the seller to accept $650k and they will earn $8,125...or, they can take a chance and tell them to hold out for $670k, but to do so they may have to do a couple extra open houses and have a few more showings, and after all that they will make $8,375.

 

[harley]

By the way , the "drop in the bucket" totals 8 k in requests.

Not really. You couldn't get 25 cents on the dollar for those items. Probably not even 10. Now, if you were going to have to replace them, then they have more value to you. 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.

 

[Aerides]

Quantum, glad to see above you are taking the feedback in stride here. Your original post suggests you are more personally attached to this home than you might think.

Given you don't want to move right away, and the buyer wants to hold for 6 months, they seem like an ideal couple for you. And the furniture? probably won't fit in your condo anyway, and reduces moving costs (and your DW might not have told you how happy she'd be to shop for new!). Used furniture has a lower resale ratio than used cars - even if it's hardly used.

I think maybe wiggle them up a bit from where they are, and find some middle ground, and then be glad to have it sold. Yes, selling now is easier than 2 years ago, but your price range isn't as competitive in some areas.

Good luck!

 

[carnivalday]

Just because I find real estate trends interesting...

I believe I found your house on Zillow. Amazingly beautiful home. It does seem that you are by far the highest price in the immediate area, tho in the general area of your city theres a lot of homes in your price range for sale. It seems a lot of them are at the 90-120 DOM right now. You may just need to have some patience, which might work out for you anyway.

 

[pb4uski]

I don't find a 15% off offer to be that offensive. Ya, it's low but I usually start at 10-15%. Sometimes you get lucky. The reality here is we won't know if it was a "low ball" offer until we see how long it takes to sell (i.e incurring carrying costs for you) and what the ultimate sale price is. We were selling a house last year for $375. We got an offer the first day on the market for $325 which seemed too low. we did not counter. 6 months later we were down to $340k and hadn't sold so decided to rent it out. So while we felt the initial offer was low it was solely based on our miscalculating what the home was really worth. Good luck with your sale.

+1 I looked back and our initial offer on the condo that we recently purchased was 89% of the asking price. We ultimately paid 93% of their asking price.

When we sold our main home in 2011, the seller's initial offer was 85% of our asking price... we calmly told them that price was a non-starter but we would entertain a revised offer... they came back with an offer of 92% of our asking price and we accepted.

 

[RobbieB]

"You got to haggle"

 

[pb4uski]

Socca,

We would be taking our house off the market for 6 months thats why i want 100k. I flew off the handle here in the forums but i thought we countered respectfully dropping to 685 k and enforcing our request for 100k. By the way , the "drop in the bucket" totals 8 k in requests.

Sent from my SM-N920V using Early Retirement Forum mobile app

An approach that would be common in our area is that if the sale is contingent on the buyer's selling their property, the seller would retain the right to market and show the property... if the sellers get an offer without a sale contingency that was at least equal to the contract price then the buyers would have x hours to waive the sales contingency. If the buyers decide not the waive the contingency then the seller is free to accept the competing offer and the buyer's deposit is returned and the contract is null and void.

This overcomes the concern about taking the house off the market for so long. If the buyer doesn't want the seller to be able to continue to market the property then they have to put a big deposit at risk.

 

[Music Lover]

Good tips about the furniture...most people are quite happy with a deck or lanai set that is under $1000 new, so even if the furniture is good quality, to them it's just a minor item that can easily be replaced inexpensively.

 

[RobbieB]

The best story I know was a forum buddy (not here) that installed 20 grand of solid cherry cabs in the kitchen and sold the house shortly after.

When he drove by one day after the sale all that beautiful wood had been removed and was out on the curb for the trash man.

Amazing. But that's life in the real world today!

 

[pb4uski]

Yeah, my sister had nice wood kitchen cabinets (maple or hickory or something like that) in her brand new house and then had them painted white... I could never figure that one out but I like natural wood.

 

[W2R]

My buyers tore out the gorgeous high end granite countertops and the rest of my lovely kitchen, but decided to leave the hideous un-renovated and sad looking 1972 bathroom with pink fake marble plastic counter and matching shower surround, and dark pink (brownish pink?) bathtub, toilet, and sink. They love it.

There's no accounting for taste! But hey, it's their house now and they can do whatever they want as far as I'm concerned. To me this is one more reason why I'm so thankful that I did not renovate to sell.

 

[MRG]

My FIL replaced a bunch of taste specific built-ins, the new owners ripped them out to replace with the old originals. They'd been to the house and loved the old!

 

[FUEGO]

When I tried to FSBO my condo 10 years ago I got the same kind of lowball offers (20-30% or more off the reasonable asking price, though on a sub-$100k property).

I would kindly respond that we were so far apart as buyers and sellers that it was unlikely we could reach a deal and then I would refuse to negotiate below my initial offer unless they made some reasonable offer. Eventually I sold for cash, no contingencies, sight unseen as asking price (California real estate bubble $$ found me in North Carolina!).

There are plenty of folks looking to lowball sellers just to see if they will bite. Never know when a seller is desperate to sell.

 

[pb4uski]

DSister and BIL found a place they liked and submitted a lowball offer that was accepted. They later found out that the seller had, earlier that day, found his dream home and was desperate to deal so he could buy that dream home. You never know.

 

[HadEnuff]

In the end, the market will find you. If you are truly in a seller's market, and you are priced a bit too low, buyers may actually bid you up, fighting over the property. But if you are indeed high, or if it's not really a seller's market, buyers won't feel that desperation to buy YOUR particular house at YOUR price, simply because there are others to choose from.

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 suspect you love your house, and went into this with the most optimistic of outlooks, based upon being told it's a "seller's" market, and the projection of rising values, and are surprised that you haven't had more action in 36 days. The market is telling you something about your original expectations.
Have you checked out sites like Trulia and Zillow to see if there are a lot of similar options for buyers to choose from?
And the big key is how desperate are you to sell quickly? Are you OK with waiting 6 months for the buyer who really falls in love with your particular house, among the many others that may be available?

 

[bUU]

I don't think it is worth getting bent out of shape about people coveting your personal belongings. If anything, take it as a complement (but decline it just as breezily, if you're so inclined).

Low-balling should also not be taken too personally - it isn't personal. These people don't know you and you don't want them to. Selling a house through a broker means it is a 100% business transaction, and so such gamesmanship is not unusual. When we were selling our home a number of years ago, we had one buyer who was evidently quite belligerent to our realtor, insisting that we were being unreasonable expecting fair market value when we only paid $X for the place. He was seemingly outraged that we'd be making a profit on the increase in fair market value and that he could not therefore capitalize on our forethought to buy the place years earlier when it was less expensive.

I'm not sure I'd counter such offers though. Again, from a strictly business standpoint, I think it is more profitable to decline such offers, forcing the buyer to either go away (if they're immovably unreasonable) or make a reasonable offer from which real negotiations could begin. That's just me, though.

 

[UnrealizedPotential]

Each real estate market is unique. I began 3 months prior to listing looking at a few real estate sites to get a good idea of what my place was worth. So I knew pretty close what my place would sell for. Some sites were off on the price but a few were close and kept checking them. My neighbor had almost the same condo I had so it was easy to compare. Three weeks into listing with no bites I lowered the sales price by 3%. I received two offers. One I accepted . Yes, I had to pay closing costs and had to deal with a few minor repairs. I was offered 98% of my final sales ask price. I figured that was the best offer I was going to get and I jumped on it. Glad I did.

 

[donheff]

It is all about the market. Where I live in DC houses stay open for one weekend after which bidding wars take the asking price up, frequently 10% or more. When I recently sold my weekend house on the Potomac river in VA it sold for 14% under where I initially listed it after 18 months on the market! Midway through I had a lowball at 33% under. Can't blame someone for asking.

I build the VA house after getting a great deal on the land during a down market in the early 90s. I had earlier made an offer on a nearby house at 27% under that the realtor told me POd the seller. I learned that about a year later the seller unloaded the house at exactly the amount I bid. By then I was glad the offer was declined since the place I built was far superior.