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I'm sorry to say, but you buy property based on what you can get it for...not what some other property sold for. It may work out to be the case sometimes, but that is not the way a self-interested buyer should be thinking about their largest investment in my opinion.
The comps are good for establishing a list price, establishing a value for a mortgage company to lend against (aka the appraisal)...but there is no way I would have comps raise my offer if I felt I could get it lower.
OP...obviously these comments are relative to how accurate your portrayal of the situation is. But it seems you just have idiot sellers in this case. We can't even give them the benefit of the doubt and say they are upside down or cannot afford to go lower...again, assuming they were insulted & refuse to negotiate any more despite them being on the market for 5 months. As a seller...I would never refuse to negotiate after the 1st offer. If I thought an offer was significantly lower than I would accept, I would verbally relay (thru my realtor to their realtor) what I am willing to counter at & let that verbal neogtiation continue as long as they are willing to engage in it. Then if we arrive at a verbal...let them put it in writing (again).
I feel sorry for their realtor (a little).
Must be very different in your neck of the woods. Here offers aren't based on feelings. The comps here would have shown if the sellers indeed were in lala land or not. The fact she had none but one that didn't even apply shows their realtor didn't do their job properly. At least in my area that is how it is.
yeah, the agent should have told seller to counter.
seller usually thinks house is worth more than it is, and probably has the agent to blame for getting their hopes up when agent "bought" the listing with the inflated asking price.
To the OP, if you really want the house, submit a CMA to their agent to justify your price.
and to everyone else looking to sell, STUDY THE CMA to make sure your listing agent isn't just pulling a (high) price out of his arse.
Study the CMA too if you think your agent is listing too low. You may think your home is worth more than it really is.
Must be very different in your neck of the woods. Here offers aren't based on feelings. The comps here would have shown if the sellers indeed were in lala land or not. The fact she had none but one that didn't even apply shows their realtor didn't do their job properly. At least in my area that is how it is.
It works this way in everybody's "neck of the woods". And it doesn't make use of feelings either...its called negotiation & leverage. I would submit the only one using "feelings" is the seller in this case...and it is not serving them well, obviously.
A property is worth what a buyer will pay for it. Period. End of story. Don't like the offer? Go wait it out until a buyer comes along that WILL pay it. It doesn't matter what the comps sold for...those people have already made their purchases...you need somebody ELSE to pay that much.
There is no rule and certainly no law that says you MUST pay up to any set of comps, asking price, or any other figure just because other people have paid as much or more for similar properties. If you were told this, you were misinformed severely I'm afraid.
Now, from a practical point of view, if you have absolutely no idea what to offer on a property...then by all means go do a CMA or get an appraisal proactively. Yes it would be helpful if their realtor had this type of knowledge of the area offhand (many do), or had done their own CMA on the property. But in the end...the buyer is the one footing the bill for it and thats who dictates the offer ultimately (whether your realtor likes it or not). And if you don't recognize a property that may have room to negotiate significantly downward, then don't expect your realtor to be guiding you through that as it is not in their financial interest to do so.
They can ask for whatever they want to and don't have to accept anything less, it's their right. You made your offer and it was rejected, counter or move on. Don't waste your time if the seller won't negotiate.
It works this way in everybody's "neck of the woods". And it doesn't make use of feelings either...its called negotiation & leverage. I would submit the only one using "feelings" is the seller in this case...and it is not serving them well, obviously.
A property is worth what a buyer will pay for it. Period. End of story. Don't like the offer? Go wait it out until a buyer comes along that WILL pay it. It doesn't matter what the comps sold for...those people have already made their purchases...you need somebody ELSE to pay that much.
There is no rule and certainly no law that says you MUST pay up to any set of comps, asking price, or any other figure just because other people have paid as much or more for similar properties. If you were told this, you were misinformed severely I'm afraid.
Now, from a practical point of view, if you have absolutely no idea what to offer on a property...then by all means go do a CMA or get an appraisal proactively. Yes it would be helpful if their realtor had this type of knowledge of the area offhand (many do), or had done their own CMA on the property. But in the end...the buyer is the one footing the bill for it and thats who dictates the offer ultimately (whether your realtor likes it or not). And if you don't recognize a property that may have room to negotiate significantly downward, then don't expect your realtor to be guiding you through that as it is not in their financial interest to do so.
Never said there was a rule but it's expected to get comps while pouring over numbers and then making an offer. But hey, if it works for you to offer based on what YOU want to pay, go for it. If a person here wants to actually purchase a house, comps help formulate real offers. If it's not what you want to pay, then either lowball it or go elsewhere. It's a free world. But comps do matter very much here.
And what the other buyers have paid for similar nearby houses are a very good basis on which to formulate your offer.
Basis is fine if you have no clue what you are looking at. Thats what I actually said and you quoted ironically enough.
But it is not, and if you value your money, should not be what you solely base your offer on. So the suggestion that a realtor should be fired for not producing one is...a bit immature in my view. And perhaps letting feelings get in the way, since that word seems to have appeal here.
Quote:
Otherwise we'd all have to wait for every seller to come up with an arbitrary price based on ... feelings.
Actually quite the opposite from feelings. Not sure why you (and the other poster) would think that a CMA is to be strictly adhered to..else one must use feelings. Not everybody else thinks that way as FYI.
The house has been sitting for 5+ months. Its priced at $236k. This is all we know. An offer of $210k was made (~11% under asking) and the seller was offended & cut off negotiations.
It doesn't matter whether a CMA says the property should sell for $236k. Nobody offered that (to our knowledge) and the seller threw away a buyer over an offer when the seller is not even aware if the buyer is willing to come up on the offer. The seller's (foolish) emotional reaction is the crux of the problem here, not the offer, and certainly not relevant, is whether the buyer's realtor performed a CMA.
Never said there was a rule but it's expected to get comps while pouring over numbers and then making an offer. But hey, if it works for you to offer based on what YOU want to pay, go for it. If a person here wants to actually purchase a house, comps help formulate real offers. If it's not what you want to pay, then either lowball it or go elsewhere. It's a free world. But comps do matter very much here.
No disagreement with you on this. In fact, we don't really know whether the $210k offer was itself higher than what should be offered. We're all assuming its a low(ish) offer based on the OP's statements.
The time on the market & potential maintenance expenses (without any other information to go on here) is reason enough to offer much lower. If the sellers won't even engage in negotiation, then the sellers are doing themselves a disservice.
My only point is that the buyers would equally be doing themselves a disservice by NOT starting lower, given some of the data points we have.
Basis is fine if you have no clue what you are looking at. Thats what I actually said and you quoted ironically enough.
But it is not, and if you value your money, should not be what you solely base your offer on. So the suggestion that a realtor should be fired for not producing one is...a bit immature in my view. And perhaps letting feelings get in the way, since that word seems to have appeal here.
Actually quite the opposite from feelings. Not sure why you (and the other poster) would think that a CMA is to be strictly adhered to..else one must use feelings. Not everybody else thinks that way as FYI.
The house has been sitting for 5+ months. Its priced at $236k. This is all we know. An offer of $210k was made (~11% under asking) and the seller was offended & cut off negotiations.
It doesn't matter whether a CMA says the property should sell for $236k. Nobody offered that (to our knowledge) and the seller threw away a buyer over an offer when the seller is not even aware if the buyer is willing to come up on the offer. The seller's (foolish) emotional reaction is the crux of the problem here, not the offer, and certainly not relevant, is whether the buyer's realtor performed a CMA.
As you stated, we don't know any other facts. You paint a very dark picture. It could be that the house is valued at around $250K and sellers are offering $236K to make it sell and was insulted by the OP's offer as it's well below the "value" of the home. Who knows? That's why I asked if the OP had comps to show that their offer was indeed fair for the area OR if the house was priced well?
But again, we don't have all the facts and can infer whatever you want about the sellers. I do think it's odd to cut off negotiations like that which really has me curious what the area is going for OR if the sellers are indeed in La La land about their selling price.
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