Making lowball offers day 2

June 6th, 2006 by Kenric

As I mentioned before on Sunday I went to look at a bunch of houses in one subdivision. I decided to target just one subdivision for now until I’ve exhausted all the potentially motivated sellers within it. I looked at 6 homes and decided to make offers on just two of them. I made offers on the two homes that I thought were the best homes out of the 6.

So my first offer from Monday was on HO#1 asking $410k. Other similar houses on the block were asking $425k-$480k. I offered $370k with $10k earnest money. That offer was rejected and the sellers were insulted with such a low offer. I actually didn’t think my offer was that bad, it was only $40k under asking price. I’m going to keep track of this house and see if it sells near asking. Doesn’t sound like the sellers are motivated here.

My second offer was $260k on HO#2 asking $330k that had been sitting for 120 days. This house originally started at $375k and has been reduced several times all the way down to $330k. The sellers did not even respond to my offer so I’m guessing they were insulted too.

Today I made 4 offers (HO#3-6). I didn’t even view any of these homes and I based my offers solely on the square footage, pictures, DOM (days on market) and price. I figure why waste time and go see them if they’re just going to reject my offers. The four houses were all asking between $400k-$420k and my offers were at $335k-$355k. These homes are larger than the ones I saw on Sunday and were the next best priced in the subdivision. What I mean by best priced is that these $400k-$420k homes are the lowest priced per sf, had several price reductions, had high market times and were already priced $20k-$40k before similar models currently selling. So in theory if I were able to get one at $350k I would be getting the home for $100k under what others are currently asking.

Update: On HO#3 ($355k offer, $400k asking) the agent didn’t like the fact that I hadn’t seen the house. This is a good sign because it means that they actually thought about my offer. My response to that is that I know this subdivision and have seen the same model so I already know the floorplan. They countered at $390k.

Update 2: I got two other counteroffers. The counters were at $380k (HO#4, offered $335k, asking $400k ) and $395k (HO#5, offered $355k, asking $400k). I will be viewing these houses tomorrow to see what they actually look like inside and then I’ll decide on how to respond.

Update 3: HO#4 did not even respond to my offer.

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