[kelsey82]

deleted

This post has been edited by kelsey82: 01/07/2012, 07:57 AM

[alpine air]

Hey OP, my DP and I are currently looking to buy a house soon as well. After having been looking for quite a while, it seems that there is no hard and fast rule unfortunately Which makes it quite difficult! Some houses are advertised as higher than what they want/are worth and some are advertised as lower. You just put in an offer of what YOU think it is worth and what you can afford, and see where to go from there. What's the worst that can happen if they reject it?

[laridae]

The house I bought was originally on the market at 420k. 6 month later when it was still for sale & owners were paying for there new place as well they dropped the price to 380k - I put in an offer for 340k. It was negotiated it up to 350k. So, if its been on the market or a while, definitley offer less.

[Thestral]

Bump! My DP and I are really interested in a house on the market advertised as "$470,000+." We are thinking of putting in an offer of $475k, but are willing to negotiate up to $490k (although we're not telling them this, obviously!) But that would be the absolute end of our limit.

Are we dreaming? We think $475 is about what the property is worth based on our own research and observations of the market over the past few months. Similar houses in the area have recently sold for $460k, some have sold for $480-$510 but have had extra bedrooms or features.

What does it mean when something is advertised as "$470,000+"? What do you think the vendors want for it? I have a feeling they are going to laugh at our offer of 475...

ETA: They were not accepting any offers below $470k at this point in their sale.

This post has been edited by Thestral: 15/07/2012, 04:16 PM

[Thestral]

...anyone?

[I'm Batman]

Id go in for what I think the property is worth, in comparison to other properties feature wise. People say offers above but if its just not worth that they wont be getting the offers.

Op, same advice as above. Ive been looking at properties here for a while. There are two houses, both renovated, ones listed at 349k and the other 279k. They are the same house as far as square feet. One has a new flooring laid and the other has the timber that was in there that has been polished (cheaper house), they both have brand new bathrooms,kitchens and same room sizes, layout. There is no way the higher priced house is worth that and the price goes against all the previous sales data. The cheaper one is actually a great deal. Go with whatever you feel is the actual value of the house

This post has been edited by I'm Batman: 17/07/2012, 06:53 PM

[solongsuckers]

...anyone?

I think it is a reasonable offer. It is still above the starting point they have advertised.

...anyone?

I think it is a reasonable offer. It is still above the starting point they have advertised.

[Thestral]

Thanks guys. We have decided that we really don't think the house is worth more than what we have offered, especially after further researching recent sales in the area. It's hard though, being prepared to let go if someone offers higher than us or if they don't accept We love the house but we really don't think it's worth more than what we offered!

[zande]

What does it mean when something is advertised as "$470,000+"? What do you think the vendors want for it?

We sold our house last year, and we listed it as "From $569,000". We had done our sums for our new house based on getting $550K for our house, but knew it was worth more. We were expecting offers starting at about $550K and thought we would negotiate to around the $560-570K mark, which is what we would have been happy to sell for.

We had 40 groups through our first home open, and 5 offers presented, all offers but 1 were over $569K and we ended up selling for $581K.

Conversely the house we bought (before we sold the other LOL), was listed as $685K. The agent told us that he had been instructed not to take offers of below that. DH wanted to offer $670K, but agent wouldn't take it, I think we offered $675, they countered at $695 and we got it at the list price. This was all done prior to a home open, we knew the house was worth what they were asking, and we were rapt.

For us, we've always bought information from the Dept of Land Admin I think it's called. It tells us recent sales etc, and then we go from (I think from a title search?) whether the house is mortgaged, when it was bought etc, how much money had been made. That sounds maybe silly, but on the house we sold, we had bought it 10 years prior and had fully renovated it. We made considerably more than double what we paid for it, so we weren't going to lose a sale over $5-10K, so we would have been happy to sell for $550 but rapt obviously to get $581.

This house we knew the owners had also owned for 10 years (they bought when we did!) and had listed it as considerably more than double, so we knew it was def worth the asking price, going on sales in the street/local area as well.

It's a difficult game OP, good luck.

This post has been edited by zande: 17/07/2012, 08:20 PM

[tia2009]

I think the lower the house price, the narrower the range for negotiations eg if a house was advertised for $1mil then a 10% range would not be inappropriate, but if a house was advertised for $500k, I think offering $450k would be taking the pi$$. Still, if you really think the house is worth the mid 400s and are only prepared to pay up to $460k or thereabouts on a $500k listed house, make the offer. Who knows, the vendor may be desperate, they may not have received any other offer.

We're about to place our house on the market and have had 4 market appraisals, all within 5k of each other including an independent valuation we received. The advice on listing price has also been quite similar, ie provide a range that gives us about $30k room to move. If I received an offer that was much lower than what I think our house is worth, I would consider it but not bother with a counter offer. I'd think either the purchaser can't afford it, or they're wasting everyone's time and they really should make a more appropriate offer.

I also think the most heat for a property occurs within the first 2 weeks, so the longer a property remains on the market, the more likely the vendor would be to negotiate a lower price.