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A house that is listed at 399,000 sold 3 yrs ago when the the market was much better. A fair bid?

Mon, 31 Aug 2009 00:32:00 GMT

A house that is listed at 399,000 sold 3 yrs ago for 265,000 when the the market was much better. A fair bid today? The house is a 4/3 with a pool 2519 sq ft. Needs work.

6 replies

What Happens?

Mon, 10 Aug 2009 14:16:00 GMT

A buyer and seller enter into a contract and the buyer makes a good faith deposit of say $5000 with all the typical contingencies. If for a legitimate reason the buyer backs out or does not qualify, how is the $5000 returned to the buyer if the seller refuses to sign the release? Now the obvious answers are they have to or you sue them, etc, etc. The real question is why are buyer's agent's not required to advise the buyers that the release is not a unilateral option and both parties and brokers must agree in writing? There is a conflict or at least a mis-leading implication between the contract and escow handling laws in at least three states I am familiar with. Basically brokers are not permitted to release the funds back to the buyer until both parties have agreed or a higher authority has made a judgement. Again, why are buyer's not made aware of this by their agents?

5 replies

short sale

Fri, 03 Jul 2009 18:27:00 GMT

1 reply

Reduce offer on short sale with recent lower comps?

Thu, 18 Jun 2009 05:26:00 GMT

*every property mentioned in this question is a short sale except where specifically stated* We placed an offer for a 3 story 3/3.5 townhouse in 5/09 for $250k based on the only recent sale in the community of a 3/2.5 at $238k back in 3/09.

One week after our offer we learned that an upgraded end-unit 3/3.5 non-short sale (yes,regular arms-length transaction!) closed for $300k. That house has wraparound balconies and a lot more windows but is otherwise very similar to the one that we are hoping to purchase. Two weeks after our offer, a smaller 3/2.5 in the community sold for $200k. If we were to use the lower recent sale price for a $/sqft comparison, the house we're offering for should only be $225k. There are 2 more short sales of the 3/2.5 floor plan available in the community and they have both dropped their asking prices to $225k.

The 45 day period in our contract is up this weekend and we are wondering whether it would make sense to submit a lower offer based on the idea that the $200k comp appears to be the trend of prices in the area, not an outlier. We don't want to derail the process, since it is possible that a bank appraisal will come back lower than our offer, but the arms-length transaction at $300k makes it possible that an appraisal would be higher instead of lower. There are only those 3 transactions in the past 6 months in this particular community, and neighboring communities range in asking prices from $140k-$450k and really don't provide good comps because there have only been a few of short sales and foreclosures in the past 6 months and no other sales.

Thanks for any advice.

3 replies

How do I determine what to offer on a short sale?

Fri, 06 Feb 2009 16:29:00 GMT

I want to make an offer on a short sale, the loan is owned by IndyMac which the FDIC announced on Jan 2 2009 that they struck a deal to sell the failed mortgage lender Indymac to a group of private investment firms. The investors will in1.3 billion in capital and the FDIC has agreed to share the losses on the mortgages. With all that said, how do I come up with an offer?

1 reply

map of foreclosure

Sun, 25 Jan 2009 18:30:00 GMT

0 replies

How long till Delray Beach FL housing market a)hits bottom and b) re-eclipses its 2005 peak?

Tue, 06 Jan 2009 02:31:00 GMT

2 replies