In November, the home buyer tax credit expiration created some incentive for us to go shopping. We placed several offers on short sales. As of this posting, those homes are still on the market and we have not heard back from the agents regarding our offers from over 6 months ago. Typical short sale frustrations.
Finally, in last month we decided to give it another push and we found this property in Roy:
This home was a bank-owned property when we viewed it. I always prefer REO transactions when working with buyers because they are much more straight forward than short sales. Our experience with the previous offers was enough to deter us from continuing on that course.
What I find interesting is watching the price points adjust to what the market will bear for specific properties. Here is the price history of this home:
Notice the optimistic list price over 16 months ago at $165,000. Ultimately, it became apparent to the owner and the agent that the home was worth less than what was owed on the property. The pricing was adjusted to short sale price of $145,000. Being unable to consummate a sale and the owner behind on payments, the home foreclosed. With this home being on the market for so long, we offered $143,000 and asked that a healthy dose of closing costs be paid by the seller. I expected a counteroffer. They did and adjusted our closing cost concession down aby $1,800. We accepted. When we inspected and found some roof problems, the seller repaired the roof and agreed to pay an additional $1,800 in closing costs.
I always try to negotiate from a position of strength. In this case, our strength came from my clients solid qualifications to buy. When the listing agent found out that my clients were ready to close, he pushed for the asset manager at the bank to accept our requests for repair and concessions.
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