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.
Including central air in offer?
We are putting an offer on a house tonight. We love the house, but there are a few downfalls. Such as?one stall garage, no dishwasher and no central air. The house is already at the top of our price range at 197K. My husband is adamant that we would want central air. So we got a bid on it last week at 10,700K. We have two more estimates coming in hopefully today.
Here is the question ? can you include adding in central air to the offer? I?m thinking? as is ? we would probably offer 184k and work from there, but if they would be willing to add central air ? we would maybe offer 196 or full asking price. I?m just not sure how to approach this.
Our realtor is also the listing agent. He pretty much said ?We can try whatever you want!? Not much help there!
Re: Including central air in offer?
You can ask but they'll laugh in your face. Central air is an upgrade. You want upgrades, you do it yourself. You can ask for things that are deficient - code violations, etc. But I would say that they'll say no and won't bother to counter. If they're not in a rush to sell, they might not even respond to your offer, because it's really pushy, IMO.
Offer what you feel the house is CURRENTLY worth. And go from there.
RIP Dr. Irving Fishman - 10/1/19-7/25/10 - thank you for holding on for me.
You made my wedding day complete.
Not having central air was an automatic dealbreaker. We refuesed to look at houses that didn't have it. Although our weather is humid and hot.
You can ask for it but personally if I was selling the house I wouldn't put it in and I would look more seriously at other offers. The few downfalls that you listed are not small - they're actually pretty major to me.
this!!
1. How long has the house been on the market and what was their starting $
2. What was the previous purchasing price and in what year
I'm assuming that because this is 'the one' for an offer that other than the items you mentioned it has everything else you want and is not going to be a constant money pit?
- the difference in down payment is not substantial IMO between 197 and 184 and definitely won't matter but a few bucks probably in your mortgage payment. So either way you are going to be shelling out probably 10K (by the time all is said) whether you pay 197 or 184.
- I personally don't like having the same agent for buying and selling and would request a different agent. This happened with our last sale. Our selling agent ended up being the buyer's agent and we were assigned the manager of the brokerage to represent us. Either way it probably doesn't matter but we just felt more comfortable.
- As your agent say, you try for whatever you want. You can have your real estate attorney review the offer and add in a contingency of central air being installed and being inspected (I would provide copies of the three bids) prior to X date. Or whatever the proper legal lingo would be to protect yourself IF, big if, they accept your terms and offer.
In the end, I suspect you will be living with window AC until you can afford the extra 10K after closing IF this is really the house for you other than AC.
Is $197k a fair price for the house? Do most houses in that area & price range have central air? I think those things make a difference. If it's fairly common for houses in the area not to have central a/c, then it's not likely for the sellers to pay for an upgrade that they won't get to enjoy themselves.
I think you might be better off offering $184k and putting in a/c yourself than bidding higher but asking the sellers to add a/c. In the end it comes out to be fairly equal money-wise regardless of which way you go, but if you offer less and you take care of the a/c installation, that's easier for the sellers. They'll likely go for whatever is easier for them.
Then again, if $197k is a fair price for the house without a/c, they might not go for an offer of $184k.
Mr. Sammy Dog
I would offer what you think the house is worth without A/C and do it the upgrade yourself.
Reason being is that installing an A/C is not a once and done deal. It is going to involve the contractor possibly coming out multiple times to make sure the system is balanced correctly, etc. You want to make sure that is done right. The sellers have far less incentive than you do to make sure the work is done in the best possible manner. As a seller, I would have refused to do it because I don't want to deal with the hassle. I had the entire A/C replaced in our house, I know what a pain it is to make sure it's done right and I'm not about to go through that and not get to enjoy the benefit myself.
My Chart My Nest Bio
I'd see what other homes w/o AC are selling for to do your comps.
I would also, have multiple quotes done because I recently had mine replaced and received a pretty big spread on price. 3k-8k was the range.
Why in the world would you finance an a/c unit for 30 years?
Because that's what you are doing if you are able to get them to put it in and you offer more for the house.
I completely understand wanting it- we wouldn't even look at a place that didn't have central air!- but I wouldn't include changing it in my offer.
? ?????????! Z!
BFP #1 EDD 12/14/12, C/P 4/9
dx: DOR
Clomid + trigger + IUI #2
Everyone welcome.
Does the house have ducts for central AC? We bought a new construction with the listing stating that it was "prepped for central AC" meaning it had the ducts and everything, just didn't have the unit. We put in our offer that the builder would include the central AC unit in the price and it was accepted.
But I agree with PPs that there is a major difference between getting a central AC unit and reworking an entire house to include central AC.
It's a dog's life!