Money Matters
MommyLiberty5013
member
Dear Community,
Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
If you have questions about this, please email help@theknot.com.
Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
If you have questions about this, please email help@theknot.com.
Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
Got An Offer Curious for your feedback.
Background: Home is listed for $384,900. It's a seller's market here where we live. In our square footage and price range there are very few homes for sale in our highly desirable community. We wrote a few exclusions in our listing: washer, dryer, garage fridge, and a few rooms' drapery panels. We did this because we want those items to go with us BUT we also did that as ways to make negotiating concessions to buyers who asked for these things. We know any future buyer will likely do a home inspection with a radon test. And, we know that our reverse osmosis drinking water system is not working (it's not a major function of the house, so we never fixed it), and the furnace's humidifier is not working either (it wasn't working when we bough this home in 2012 from the previous owners and we never fixed it). We assume buyers may ask for these items to be fixed and/or there may be a few minor things that pop up on the inspection that need to be fixed since it's a 1993 house.
In about 2 weeks we have had 10 showings. 2 of which have been second showings. Three couples buying have expressed extreme interest in the home. All the people through, have said our price is right/good.
We received an offer this morning, from buyers who are not of the three couples mentioned above. Our REA is contacting those three previous REAs to see if their buyers want to make offers too.
This offer has no time limit for a response on it. They are doing a conventional loan with 3% down. The offered $375,000, wanting us to pay 3% of their closing costs (amounts to $11,250), and they want our washer, dryer, fridge, and curtains. If we accepted this offer (and we won't), we'd be forking over $26k roughly.
Our REA said it's a lowball. So, me being the passionate one between DH and me, I have gotten a bit feisty. DH and I agree that we are in the driver's seat and that we aren't going to give our home away in this market. But, we want to play ball and at least do a counter.
Our counter is: $384,900 (original asking price), $5,000 toward closing costs, washer, dryer, fridge, and curtains. We will run it past our REA and get her advice too. AND, we're sitting on this until we see if other offers come in from any of these three other buyers. Our thinking with staying at $384,900 is that they seem cash strapped (they want our appliances, and they are only putting 3% down, and want $11k in closing costs). So, we give them some cash and they do their mortgage for nearly the full amount of the sale price rolling that cost into 30 years. Note: It's odd in our market, and price range for sellers to pay ANY closing cots for buyers, so $5k we feel is fairly generous.
Thoughts?
Re: Got An Offer Curious for your feedback.
TTC since 1/13 DX:PCOS 5/13 (long, anovulatory cycles)
Clomid 50mg 9/13 = BFP! EDD 6/7/14 M/C 5w6d Found 11/4/13
1/14 PCOS / Gluten Free Diet to hopefully regulate my system.
Chemical Pregnancy 03/14
Surprise BFP 6/14, Beta #1: 126 Beta #2: 340 Stick baby, stick! EDD 2/17/15
Riley Elaine born 2/16/15
TTC 2.0 6/15
Chemical Pregnancy 9/15
Chemical Pregnancy 6/16
BFP 9/16 EDD 6/3/17
Beta #1: 145 Beta #2: 376 Beta #3: 2,225 Beta #4: 4,548
www.5yearstonever.blogspot.com
I know lowballs are usually many tens of thousands lower than asking. But more context...homes are selling for at or even above asking right now in our area. Many sellers have multiple offer situations. So, conceding $26k roughly, to these buyers IS, in our market, a lowball.
Anyway, we're still waiting to talk to our REA again and see what she says about our counter.
I agree, waiting at least through Saturday makes sense. We are motivated but not desperate sellers, so we do feel that we can afford to take some time.
I think your counter offer sounds very reasonable, considering your market. Seller concessions for closing costs almost always happen where I live, so I found it interesting to read that it is not the norm in your area.
I used the strategy @Melissa&mark mentioned when I bought my home. I was fortunate (with a little help from mom) to have a 20% down payment, but it left me really cash strapped for closing costs. Where I live (I think it's a state law), seller concessions are limited to 6% of the purchase price and I needed every penny of that. The list price was $79K, which was a great price and below comps (foreclosure).
I offered the list price $79K, with $4700 in closing costs. They countered back at $79K, with $2K for closing. I countered back with $81K, and $4K for closing...which, from their point of view, was exactly the same amount of money as their counter offer. But, from my point of view, it was $2K less I had to bring to closing and would just get wrapped into the loan. Win-win for everybody.
At any rate, if they are truly cash strapped and need as much money at closing as possible, raising the purchase price in exchange for you all covering more closing costs might be a great strategy for everyone. With the caveat that the house would need to appraise for the higher price and (hopefully) they aren't at the max of whatever they were preapproved for.
I wouldn't necessarily write them off because they are taking too long considering your counter offer. You are certainly in the enviable position of having a hot house in a hot market. If they accept your offer, whenever that might be, than great. But if a similar/better offer comes in, in the meantime, well too bad so sad for them. They just learned the hard way you need to "use the facilities" or get off the pot (to put it politely, lol) in a seller's market. There is no time for dilly dallying.
I had a recent strange experience in real estate also. I answered a Craig's List ad for a company selling two townhomes, but only wanted cash sales. I acknowledged they wanted cash sales, but told them I would possibly buy both if they would be willing to finance. I also offered a few sentences regarding how I was more than qualified to obtain real estate loans and already had a strong relationship with a lender, so closing should go smoothly and shouldn't be longer than 30 days. They told me financing was okay, especially since I might want both, and I went to a showing for one of the units. I made them an offer a few days later.
They took 10 days to respond back to me at all...guess they didn't find their cash buyers. Then accepted my offer and would send me the purchase agreements (weird, but okay) once they received the preapproval letter from my bank. A preapproval letter also sounded weird, because it's an investment purchase I'd buy under my LLC, but I asked my loan guy about it. Sure enough, no, preapproval letters aren't done for commercial loans. They're really more for owner-occupant buyers, but always have to be someone buying a property under their personal name. But he did give me a letter outlining my loan terms for this specific purchase, including the interest rate and required down payment.
I sent that to them the same day and gave a brief explanation that I'd be financing the loan commercially and these were the terms. They took an entire week just to reply back that what I sent them didn't look like a preapproval letter and they needed a preapproval letter. I went into a longer explanation as to why a preapproval letter was not possible. I also pointed out that while, sure it could blow up in underwriting (though not likely), that can happen with loans that had "preapproval letters" also.
Over a week later, they are still "thinking about it". And, of course, what is hilarious to me is...if they would have just accepted my offer over three weeks ago...we'd already be about to close on BOTH these properties they are trying to sell. As for me, I've already written them off. I've been more than patient and find their behavior bizarre...which sets off my gut reaction.
=D>