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My wife and I recently sold our home in Philadelphia and are likely moving to Mt. Laurel, NJ. We are temporarily going to stay in a condo that we also own in Mt. Laurel, until we can find a more suitable space.
Although we've been told to buy a single-family home, b/c of resale value, we actually would prefer a nice-sized townhome - less maintenance, open floor plans, manageable green space, etc. We have found a fairly new development with easy access to rt. 38. We are considering putting in an offer on a unit and are curious, in this market, what folks would suggest? Seems to me, with the recent credit lending issues, that market is going to continue to soften and could get much worse, before a reversal. So...is this still a good time to place an offer on a home? If not, when might be better? What's an acceptable opening salvo? Again, we have the luxury of not moving, if we don't need to, but would rather find a larger place, sooner rather later. The specific townhome were looking at has been on the market for 7-months and already reduced their asking price twice, from $335 to $325 to $315. So, is an opening offer of $275 laughable? I'd rather be very cautious in this market, but am curious what others think? Thanks in advance for your insights.
A month ago we thought we had a buyer for our home. We then entered into finding a new home for our family. We found a home that was on the market for 296 days. Orig list price 649K. Dropped 629K, then 599K then 589K and lastly 569K. We put a bid in a 535K and it was accepted. We ended up losing the house due to our buyers on our home backed out for their own financial reasons.
The logic we used was:
1) Have your agent pull comparable listings that sold. See how prices have dropped.
2) Take in account how long the listing has been on the market.
3) Look to see how much you would need to upgrade or fix the home. Ours needed at least 10K in repairs, new appliances bought etc.
4) Lastly....you can sometimes feel the buyers out by floating an asking price to the seller's agent. Say something like......Would this offer offend your buyer? Here is our logic behind the price offer, etc. The home price range that we were looking in had at least many sellers who were literally begging to dump their home due to the fact that they could not afford their mortgage. Some even told us their bottom number via their agent. As long as you are educated about the market you can offer and get a great deal. Good Luck!
A month ago we thought we had a buyer for our home. We then entered into finding a new home for our family. We found a home that was on the market for 296 days. Orig list price 649K. Dropped 629K, then 599K then 589K and lastly 569K. We put a bid in a 535K and it was accepted. We ended up losing the house due to our buyers on our home backed out for their own financial reasons.
The logic we used was:
1) Have your agent pull comparable listings that sold. See how prices have dropped.
2) Take in account how long the listing has been on the market.
3) Look to see how much you would need to upgrade or fix the home. Ours needed at least 10K in repairs, new appliances bought etc.
4) Lastly....you can sometimes feel the buyers out by floating an asking price to the seller's agent. Say something like......Would this offer offend your buyer? Here is our logic behind the price offer, etc. The home price range that we were looking in had at least many sellers who were literally begging to dump their home due to the fact that they could not afford their mortgage. Some even told us their bottom number via their agent. As long as you are educated about the market you can offer and get a great deal. Good Luck!
Great suggestions, lastly in today's market any offer is a good offer..
I hope that you had your agent put it in writing, it is always better that way , seller takes you more seriously.Good luck!
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It Depends...
