Yet another priced too high

Appreciate your comments, the sellers actually paid a lot less for the home, they are original owners, and back then the home cost about $130,000. They may have refinanced, so maybe that's where you getting the higher number. Again, both Pioneer and Delaine eastin are "blue ribbon' distinguished award winning school, the state average is 750, Pioneer is around 820 and Delaine eastin 880.

Anyway, if you're agent thinks you should wait, then so be it, hopefully prices will drop sufficiently to justify a purchase at some point. Good luck!

Steve, I appreciate your input, and what you say would be completely valid under different circumstances. We have visited the property twice, and were thinking about making an offer (well below asking price, of course), but our RE agent advised us against it. There were several reasons, including the following:

- In current Union City market condition it doesn't make any sense to buy a fixed-upper unless it is sold REALLY cheap. Basically you need no less than 20% down to get any mortgage for a Union City property (confirmed by several lenders), and then you need to spend extra money to fix it. At the same time the market is going down, and people are openly talking about recession, so it wouldn't make a lot of sense from investing point of view.

- The current owners paid for the house more that it worth now. If they got zero down, they have no equity and therefore will not sell below 640K they paid. For 640K there are already properties in Union City, which are either larger (sqft/lot), better neighborhoor and usually move-in conditions. At the same time I don't think the property worth now more than 600K, and I'd be probably reluctant even to make a 600K offer since it's a fixed-upper, and besides 120K down we'd need extra 15-30K for repairs already visible - and we haven't seen a property and termite reports yet.

- We investigated the situation with schools and crime in Union City very carefully, as we have several children. To be short, anything in New Haven School District cannot be "award winning" (maybe only inside the District), and the school results are close to state average - in some cases even lower, like B-W middle. We're not looking for the best district, but the New Haven screams loudly "private school only".

That's the reasons. Thank you.

Appreciate the positive feedback, why then don't you back up your words by putting in an offer, award winning schools - I suggest you research both Delaine Eastin & Pioneer Elementary Schools. If you want higher ranking schools, I would suggest the 'Mission' school area in Fremont, however, the same style of home will probably be around $1.2 million. Thanks, and fell free to call with any other questions.