The wife and I put in an offer on what will hopefully be our first house the other day and are currently trying to negotiate but the seller is being quite stubborn. Any tips for swaying things in our favor? (Outside of having a great realtor on your side) we were told by several people that writing a personal letter to the seller is a huge help so we gave that a shot.
Wish us luck were buying a house
- Thread starter MikeZ37
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I know my parents got our house because my neighbor who owned our house before is a Doctor and he liked my parents jobs. So maybe a letter about yourselves will help.
When we placed our offer, our house had 3 offers on it from that weekend. We wrote a letter and according to the realtor that's what gave us the edge since all of the offers were similar. I'm biased but I'd say it's worth a shot.
Any personal connection with the sellers you can make definitely helps. We recently bought a new house also. We had been looking for months and could not find anything in our price range with everything we were looking forward so we had resigned ourselves to having to build again which was the last thing I wanted to do. Our realtor called us early on a Saturday and told us of a house that had just been listed and if I remember correctly, her exact words were “ y’all need to get your asses over here right now and look at this place because there is going to be a bidding war”. We hustled over and instantly fell in love with the place. It was at the top of our price range but listed under market value. The older couple that was selling was home and we met them and instantly hit it off. He was retired military and the wife was from the same area my wife had grown up in. They told us that 6 other couples were coming over the course of the day to look at it so after a short discussion, my wife and I made a full price offer. I didn’t feel very good about it when I left as we were already at max budget and I was sure we would get outbid. The realtor called us the next morning and told us they had gotten several offers higher than ours but that the couple wanted us to have it because they felt a connection and knew we would take care of it. Sometimes God puts us in the right place and time with the right people. I guess what I’m getting at is do what you get to let the sellers know your good people and not just some faceless people in the masses. Maybe send a box of Padrons.
maybe this letter will be our saving grace then. Their asking price is a bit ridiculous and they have no other offers on the table right now so I’m hoping since they’ve turned away a couple offers in the past and it’s been listed for so long now they are just ready to be done with it.
They are offering 3k at closing to replace carpet or go towards closing costs and i think that’s why they are so hesitant to come down on the price. But it’s not enough to justify what they are asking
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Seems like if they’re being sticklers a letter would just be a waste of time, at the end of the day it’s a business transaction. If you love the house, you’ll pay for asking. That’s what happened to us and it was well worth it. Although the asking price was fair and the house was move in ready, we couldn’t complain about it. So just ask yourself, can you justify paying more for something you love? Is it move in ready? Are you going to have to put a lot more money into?
Remember never to have that “ penny wise dollar foolish “ mentality. Sometimes paying a little more for convenience is well worth it, espically when you’re dealing with such a stressful purchase.
And at the end of the day, if it’s not in the budget and they’re difficult, move along because it wasn’t meant to be.
Remember never to have that “ penny wise dollar foolish “ mentality. Sometimes paying a little more for convenience is well worth it, espically when you’re dealing with such a stressful purchase.
And at the end of the day, if it’s not in the budget and they’re difficult, move along because it wasn’t meant to be.
They are pricing it as if it were move in ready and it needs a good amount of updates so we already have our top dollar offer in mind and if it gets that far and they still won’t budge then we’ll have to walk. Plenty of fish in the sea. They need to realize the market now is not what it was six months ago. They missed the bubble and should adjust the price accordingly.
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Absolutely brother if one door closes another one opens. and if it’s not move in ready at the price they want then screw it. Because before you know it you’re going to be up in your neck with things to fix and projects and money money money. Either talk them down to where you’re comfortable or tell them goodbye.
Being a homeowner is so expensive, I know for me I didn’t realize how much money everything cost and much time I spend trying to do things myself instead of hiring people. Even just simple things like taking care of the yard, redoing my bathroom, adding a fence/backdoor. Literally there is always something that needs to be done, and it takes it toll. That’s why I said pay a little more for something better, and save the headache.
BUT, at the EOD, there is nothing better than coming home and just relaxing with your loved ones, in your castle that you work your butt off for. You will find your castle and embrace every second of it. Hopefully with a cigar room as well
Does a garage count as a cigar room..? If not then I’m SOL hahahaAbsolutely brother if one door closes another one opens. and if it’s not move in ready at the price they want then screw it. Because before you know it you’re going to be up in your neck with things to fix and projects and money money money. Either talk them down to where you’re comfortable or tell them goodbye.
Being a homeowner is so expensive, I know for me I didn’t realize how much money everything cost and much time I spend trying to do things myself instead of hiring people. Even just simple things like taking care of the yard, redoing my bathroom, adding a fence/backdoor. Literally there is always something that needs to be done, and it takes it toll. That’s why I said pay a little more for something better, and save the headache.
BUT, at the EOD, there is nothing better than coming home and just relaxing with your loved ones, in your castle that you work your butt off for. You will find your castle and embrace every second of it. Hopefully with a cigar room as well
OleVaSmoker
Leafman
Nothing but positive thoughts for you and the wife. Good luck!
My wife and I have looked at multiple homes and have been in plenty of bidding wars, even on the front lawn of one of the homes we both loved but people here in NY rather pay ABOVE their asking price by like $50-60K more. And when they see us and how young we really are, we just get laughed at or people didn't want to even bother with us or hear our offers. The best one was we were told from a realtor holding an open house that with our budget we'd never find a house here on Long Island because we're so young and can't afford it. My wife took that one to heart, I told her F*CK that guy and we'll show him and everyone that we can do well for ourselves. Sure enough, we saw that a**clown at a home with our agent as he was leaving and when he saw us and said, "Oh my buyers want this house, good luck" and I let my wife pounce him like a cheetah on prey. She made some snarky remarks to him, his face turned white as a ghost and he drove off with his buyers.
Go get pre-approved from your mortgage people. The sellers and their realtors will love that, plus it shows you're serious about buying a home together and ready to rock and roll. Our guy was awesome and made himself readily available to us most days when we were hunting. He'd give us ballpark pricing and estimates on homes we were looking at and what we were comfortable with for payments. We looked at plenty of foreclosures, overpriced homes and ones a little out of our comfort zone budget in hopes of maybe coming down on prices. We finally decided together that we should just pay a little more to have a home that won't need as much work as other homes. We set our criteria of what we'd love in a home and I think we got everything we wanted so far. I'm still getting a "NO" for the smoking room in the basement but that's a work in progress to allow one.
After pulling teeth for the guy to sign the contract which took him a few weeks and plenty of hiccups all along the road, as frustrating as it is, I sit back and try to enjoy this ride in life. My wife and I have put plenty into the house already. And there's nothing wrong with secondhand furniture especially to start out. I'm so glad I picked up some furniture and even perfect stuff people were tossing in the trash. Just needed some good TLC and cleaning.
Another suggestion which a few people have mentioned to us and I'll share here, is to drive past the house at all hours of the day or night and scope out the area and surrounding neighborhood. I did that before moving in here when we went into contract. I know it sounds and probably will look creepy but it might give you a piece of mind into what is surrounding the area.
Good luck to you brother! If you need to chat or have any questions, shoot me a PM. I can try to help as best I can.
Go get pre-approved from your mortgage people. The sellers and their realtors will love that, plus it shows you're serious about buying a home together and ready to rock and roll. Our guy was awesome and made himself readily available to us most days when we were hunting. He'd give us ballpark pricing and estimates on homes we were looking at and what we were comfortable with for payments. We looked at plenty of foreclosures, overpriced homes and ones a little out of our comfort zone budget in hopes of maybe coming down on prices. We finally decided together that we should just pay a little more to have a home that won't need as much work as other homes. We set our criteria of what we'd love in a home and I think we got everything we wanted so far. I'm still getting a "NO" for the smoking room in the basement but that's a work in progress to allow one.
After pulling teeth for the guy to sign the contract which took him a few weeks and plenty of hiccups all along the road, as frustrating as it is, I sit back and try to enjoy this ride in life. My wife and I have put plenty into the house already. And there's nothing wrong with secondhand furniture especially to start out. I'm so glad I picked up some furniture and even perfect stuff people were tossing in the trash. Just needed some good TLC and cleaning.
Another suggestion which a few people have mentioned to us and I'll share here, is to drive past the house at all hours of the day or night and scope out the area and surrounding neighborhood. I did that before moving in here when we went into contract. I know it sounds and probably will look creepy but it might give you a piece of mind into what is surrounding the area.
Good luck to you brother! If you need to chat or have any questions, shoot me a PM. I can try to help as best I can.
I work for a bank so the pre approval/budget setting was the easiest part. We even decided to switch from a 20yr to a 30yr to give us some more options and a wider budget. I think I need to just be a little more detached and realize it’ll probably take a couple tries before we lock down a deal
This is a great post. I’m glad you guys finally found a home, it sounds like that was quite the roller coaster process.
Yes it was. I'm not going to say it was easy either. Actually, no part of it was easy to be honest. We hit quite a few potholes in the road. Plus, we had a lot phone calls with our lawyer and real estate agent through it all. My wife was (and still is in my eyes) an absolute Rockstar and at times talked to them more than me and I live with her. But achieving that one goal, getting handed the keys and saying we're homeowners is honestly one of the best feelings in the world. I do complain about bills and how expensive things are and all the yard work and other BS I have to do but I love the fact I can do whatever I want in my own home and the only person I need to answer to is my wife. Usually, she's ok with whatever is going on, unless I drop the "Hey hunny, when I work on the basement I'd like to setup a smoking room" ordeal and that's when I'll get the stink eye LOL.
I just need to keep telling myself that Rome wasn't built in a day and money doesn't grow on trees. My Uncle stresses to me to take one room/project on at a time to update/remodel as time and the money allows or I'll be in some serious debt real fast. He doesn't want to see us fail.
Like I tell everyone I speak with, we're lucky to have good jobs to afford all of this and have the full support of our family and friends and of course good health to keep working and hustling to live the dream.
Best of luck. Our market is still pretty hot though. I've noticed unless they're pushing open houses the realtor isn't usually trying to hard. Is this a private sale? And we noticed one this that might help too. Say it is a 3000 difference. You're talking about a 30 year loan. That's roughly an 8 dollar a month before interest(12 ish after) payment. Is it worth that small amount to not call it your home. We ran into this and it helped a few times really look at a house and see if we could make it our home or not. Our area has slowed down but you know it'll pick back up in March april and it'll be crazy again. Let me know if you need a realtor have a family one that's out by you that's good.