You’re assuming he gets good tenants that pay the rent on time and don’t wreck the joint and he doesn’t have to take them to court and pay the legal fees. That’s a huge assumption.
I work in real estate. Have you approached your mortgage company about taking a “short sale”? They may accept taking the immediate proceeds from your sale and cancel the rest of your mortgage (the $4,000) in exchange for it. Mention this to your agent or the company itself.
I told my realtor to offer $132K. If they won’t go for it, I’ll probably take the $130K.
The extra $2000 difference is not a huge deal at the moment–I have it, and it would mostly mean holding off on buying much furniture for my new place. It only becomes a big deal if my medical license gets held up and I can’t start working until mid-September, leaving me jobless for 2 1/2 months, but that’s not likely, and even so it’s not the end of the world.
Basically, by taking $132K but not $130K, I’m gambling that I will find a buyer who will pay the $132K and close before September 15. (My mortgage is ~$1000/month, and these folks want to close July 15.) Around here, April and May are pretty busy times for home buyers, and July through September are pretty much dead. Even during those robust months, we only got about 10 showings, so I don’t expect that to improve.
I trust my realtor on the price and on the prospects of selling. The truth is that there are a lot more houses for sale in this price range in this area than there are people buying them.
I can’t really complain–we’re buying a great house that is ridiculously underpriced.