September 2008 Weddings
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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.
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Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
we got an offer
on the house.
but it is about 5% below what we were hoping to be our bottom line 
Its actually what we paid for the house, so a huge loss of everything including our down payment after fees etc.
ugh.
I'm hoping we can negotiate but I am scared to turn it down outright.
Re: we got an offer
Yay for an offer, bummer its not as high as you were hoping - all you can do is counter and hope for the best!
On a side note, YAY for a ticker
Yay for an offer. Boo on the price. I hope they are willing to negotiate with you.
Also, and unrelated, love the ticker! I hope C is feeling well.
I've loved reading your entries about your journey. Thank you so much for sharing!
Does seem low, but fast! Which is a good sign. I hope countering goes well!
Love the new sig
well, our asking is only 5% or so above our bottom line. we priced it to sell.
ugh. I read through the offer. These people can't afford this house. It is every penny of their pre-approval plus they want a huge seller assist (we'd take the offer w/out the seller assist). I'd be shocked if this even makes it to closing if we were to take it. I'm going to talk to our realtor this afternoon though and we'll counter.
ETA: I was nervous about the ticker but C just texted me from her last appt in PA and all looks good. 7 cm babies dancing.
Yay for an offer, but I think around here buyers expect the sellers to counter, right?
I know in my neighborhood, at least (which I imagine draws some of the same buyers, since I know we looked at houses right down the street from you when we were buying), houses have been slower to sell, but when they do, they are selling for a bit higher than when we bought.
Edit: I just saw your next post about them not affording it. That's a bummer, but this is a good time of year to sell, so I'm sure it's not the last offer you'll see.
2012 Reading Challenge
Squeeeeeee!!! Keep dancin babies!!
Keep an open mind for now. When we were looking we asked to only be pre-approved for a certain amount that we were comfortable paying, taking into consideration other expenses the bank doesn't take into consideration and still being able to save money each month. We ended up buying at the top of our pre-approval, so on paper it kind of looked like we were stretching ourselves thin, but we were comfortable paying that amount.
And I can't remember if we did this, but it was recommended to us that we tailor our pre-approval letter to match the offer as a way to make the sellers think we can't negotiate much beyond what we offered. Of course this can back fire in that the seller is concerned about the loan actually going through. And you may be 100% correct in that they can't afford the house. But it won't hurt to counter and if you still feel a bad vibe I think you're doing yourself a good favor by walking away rather than going through all the steps for it to fall through last minute.
This is an excellent point. I know that when we were looking, we only used B's income, and we only used about 75% of what the bank said we could afford based on his income alone as our "top of budget". We did this so that we could afford for me to be SAH for a while and pay for his grad school without loans, but we could have easily accommodated a slightly higher (in the grand scheme of things from a buyer's perspective) price if it was the right property.
2012 Reading Challenge
Don't be too nervous about this. When we bought our house, we only had our pre-approval letter written for what we offered (or just a bit more than that). We were really pre-approved for much more, but we didn't want the seller to know how much the bank was willing to lend us.
Good luck with the counter!
really? the letter says the pre-approval was done jan 30. can they generate these on the fly? i thought it was weird it is EXACTLY the same as the offer, and lists the mortgage value exactly as in the offer. The sellers concession is huge too.
Yep, preapprovals are tailored to the property all the time. I know our mortgage LO does this often for the reasons stated in PP.
Just counter back with no seller concessions (and possibly 1-2% over bottom line and see what happens.
Totally. Our mortgage broker was awesome and could get us a new letter the same day.
Based off the pre-approval being done a month ago, and the sellers concession you may be totally right though. Are sellers concessions usual in your area?
Another thing to take into consideration is whether they are first time buyers. Some are poorly educated in the buying process. They could just be trying to get the deal of the century without thinking about the seller's feelings (nor worrying about insulting them) or they could be in over their head and figured they take a shot.
Good luck with negotiations! We had our pre-approval letter tailored to our offer as well, and had it same-day. Hopefully, this is the case with your potential buyers!
2012 Reading Challenge
boo on the offer but YAY on the ticker!! Hope C is feeling better.
Boo that the offer was so low.
Love the new ticker
I had no idea that the sellers could see what the buyers were pre-approved for. And I had no idea that the buyers could get a pre-approval letter for a specific amount like that.
GL though!
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