Arghhh! I’ve spent my summer on a home shopping odyssey, and I’m quite frustrated.
What I’m wondering about are bidding strategies.
The first place I bid on was a 30 year old townhome that had been a high end place when it was built, 30 years ago. So, it just doesn’t have what a lot of new construction has in the way of current amenities, but it does have some plusses. It’s two blocks from work, and has one of my criteria, a pool. A three story job, the second floor (living room, dining room and kitchen) were gorgeously redone in recent years, but the 1st and 3rd floors are in bad shape, the pool needs replastering immediately, and we suspect that major replumbing is in order.
These days you can research market histories rather easily, and this place has been vacant and on the market for a long time. Armed with the knowledge that most sales are between 93-97% of asking price, for places that are basically in good order, I bid 85%, thinking that I might go as high as 89% and go with it even if the inspection revealed that I might have to replumb (highly suspected) the place, along with the work that I already know must be done.
Well, that didn’t work. It just pissed the guy off and his counteroffer was 100% of the asking price. I put in an 87% counter-counteroffer, but I suspect that’s a dead horse.
I can’t imagine what people are thinking, other than that they’ve heard that the housing market is hot, so go for it. If the owner of that property has even been in it recently, he must know it has major fixin’ to be done.
So, lesson learned and we move on. I looked at what seemed like an interesting prospect this weekend: local high-end architect designed townhome with a pool. Interesting design, with some oddities.
Nice neighborhhod, and possibly a nice place, but it too needs work. Not the potentially systemic work the previous place mentioned probably needs. But what struck me is that they didn’t even clean it up for sale, but are still asking a high end price. The pool is not fit for human visitation, and is in fact kind of scary lookin’.
It’s pretty obviously been a rental since the owner bought it (trashy condition plus it’s been on the market 7 times since he acquired it in 2001 - IOW, almost continuously).
He bought it in January of 2001 and put it on the market five months later at 135% of his price. Since then he’s steadily dropped it to the current asking price of 111.4% of his acquisition price, and it doesn’t appear to need the systemic work the other place probably does, but it does need work to even come up to code, I thought I might bid around 93% of asking, with a max-out at 95%. He is described by his agent as a motivated seller.
What think y’all?