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Homebuyers are wack

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Capt Caveman said:
What town are we talking about? School systems and access to highways/public transportation are big draws for people in this price range. Also, nicer towns will always be in higher demand.

In this price range, people are also more willing to remodel an older home in a nicer town b/c it will return a lot more on their investment.
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One of the metro northwest towns. Don't really want to narrow it down more than that as I don't want you boobs ogling my solid gold floors. We have all the nice amenities, including a good school system. Wife takes the bus into Boston every day (20 minutes in, 40 minutes out). <10 minutes to major highways. Walking distance to great food.
 
soxfan said:
Both are irrational purchases. At least in some cases.

Regardless, the point of my OP is that 3% is negotiating territory. If a buyer would purchase a $590k, why did they require a 20k price reduction to "prompt" them to make the offer. Why not simply float the offer and see what happens? Worst comes to worst the owner tells you to screw off.
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It's possible they had made an offer on another house and then it fell thru. The price drop put your place back on the radar and so they made an offer.
 
PaperclipGod said:
You're only 9 miles from Boston and you sold for 590? Sheesh... I thought all the real estate within a 25 mile radius of Boston was 1m+.
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OH, we didn't "sell" for 590. Still negotiating. Buyer has to sell their home (common problem nowadays). Only been on the market for 1 day at the new price, so I'm staying optimistic for another offer.
 
soxfan said:
CLIFFS: OP is selling home and amazed that buyers wouldn't even make an offer until a price drop of <3% of the original asking price. Hookers and economics are discussed in the thread.

FULL: So my wife and I are selling our house. Don't ask me why we are selling in the worst real estate market in 30 years. We just are.

We have a pretty nice home, nothing spectacular, but nice. Center entrance colonial in a great neighborhood with a big yard (at least for a home within 9 miles of Boston). We originally listed the home on late October for $620k. Since that is what we paid for the house when we purchased several years ago we knew we were reaching, but we were hopeful nonetheless.

So, three months have passed, and we have had ~60 parties through the house. All say the home is nice, have some minor comments (our driveway is a little steep), and that they are still looking. No offers. Not one. Well, we had one come in three days after we listed, but the buyers had an internal meltdown and withdrew their offer.

Considering I am now commuting 60+ miles one way to work (new job), we decided we needed to take action to help sell the house more quickly. So we reduce the price 20k to $599,900. Wham. Same day, we receive an offer for 590k from buyers who saw the home several weeks ago! Blows my mind that people think of 20k as a make or break difference when you are talking about a 30 year mortgage for ~600k. It's roughly 3 percent, for cripes sake.

What surprises me further, however, is that the buyer's realtor said that his clients refused to make an offer on our home at its original price, because they couldn't fathom us being willing to negotiate into the sub 600's. That was after we told the realtor to tell his clients that we would give honest consideration to any offer! Sheesh.

That said, I am glad that we got an offer. There is only so much talk radio one can listen to in the morning and afternoon drive.
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Maybe their maximum was $600k? I know when my wife and I were looking we had a cap and no matter what, we decided not to exceed it. We wanted to make a few offers on a couple that were over our cap, but we were gonna offer less and our realtor persuaded us not to. We got a new realtor shortly after. 😉
 
JS80 said:
Clearly, pricing dynamics of home = hookers.

If you wanted 100 offers you would have priced it at 550. If you wanted 0, 620. You chose 620. 3% is a big difference when you're talking hundreds of thousands of dollars and budget on a home. Down payment can change, PMI, closing costs, too many variables.
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Yep, so many home sellers think that since they bought a home at a certain price they should get it.

FACT: When you purchased a home in the past 10 years you OVERPAID. Not saying this is the OP situation but still.
 
soxfan said:
One of the metro northwest towns. Don't really want to narrow it down more than that as I don't want you boobs ogling my solid gold floors.
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Well, if you lived in Waltham, in that price range, people are going to be looking at fixers in Lexington, Belmont and Newton.

Or if you lived in Medford, then you're competing with Arlington and Winchester.
 
Zstream said:
Yep, so many home sellers think that since they bought a home at a certain price they should get it.

FACT: When you purchased a home in the past 10 years you OVERPAID. Not saying this is the OP situation but still.
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I agree that we overpaid. We actually wanted to buy the home for ~590, but the sellers weren't budging at that time and we were sick of looking at homes. The home we are in is the only one out of the 60+ that we looked at that we actually liked.

It didn't hurt that when we were buying, we had just sold our DC townhouse for a 110% profit. That's why I'm not too upset that we are looking at a $30k loss on this home. It sucks for sure, but in a way the profit from our old home was is just monopoly money to me.
 
lxskllr said:
Hmm... I'd rather have the 1910 house. Older would be even better. I like old houses.
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I do too, typically. But the lion's share of older homes in the boston area are in need of massive renovations. We are talking 100k+ easily. Otherwise, to quote my father, you "are heating the GD outdoors and fixin S all the time." Not the most articulate man, my father. Funny as hell though. And he could fix anything.
 
And now the OP knows why stores price stuff with dollar amounts ending in .9x. People are more likely to buy stuff that's under some mental threshold. Granted, the cost of a house is extreme case, but I'm guessing this principle still applies to some degree.
 
Sheep said:
And now the OP knows why stores price stuff with dollar amounts ending in .9x. People are more likely to buy stuff that's under some mental threshold. Granted, the cost of a house is extreme case, but I'm guessing this principle still applies to some degree.
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not even including mental threshold, it might get filtered out by someone searching for <600
 
JS80 said:
not even including mental threshold, it might get filtered out by someone searching for <600
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I've considered the search engine issue. But that does not explain why not one of the numerous parties viewing our home have made an offer.
 
Aimster said:
Will it even appraise for that amount?
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Good question. I believe so, because it appraised for $620k when we refinanced in January 2009, when the housing market plummeted like the space shuttle on reentry. Also, the 2010 state assessment for tax purposes came in at $569k, and state assessments are typically lower than the market value of a home.

Further, it is my understanding that the home values within 10 miles of Boston have not been affected nearly as much as homes in most of the other parts of the country. Anyone who has spent time in Boston would understand why that is the case. But simply put, Boston is the primary economic hub northeast of New York, and the land use rate within a 10 mile radius of downtown Boston is one of the highest in the country.
 
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Is the house staged correctly? You can not even begin to imagine how retarded buyers are. Just watch a day of HGTV.
 
Maybe they were only approved for a $600,000 mortgage? (or whatever amount + their down payment would get them to $600,000). They come in at $590,000 because it's stupid for them to not ask for less, and you have room to counter (and it'd be stupid for you not to).
 
What surprises me further, however, is that the buyer's realtor said that his clients refused to make an offer on our home at its original price, because they couldn't fathom us being willing to negotiate into the sub 600's. That was after we told the realtor to tell his clients that we would give honest consideration to any offer! Sheesh.
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Moron. In this market if somebody was selling at 620k I would offer 555-565. This way they will have an initial fvck you attitude but at the same time realize that if they can negotiate some middle ground it's not terribly far from what they were wanting.

You started at 620 and went to 590. If you sell at 580 you should count your blessings.

This is why I have little respect for most realtors, they are useless.
 
Every time I've been home buying I deal with a few dipshit selling agents or sellers themselves who fail to realize that it's a negotiation.

Those houses seem to sit there the longest too.

You should be happy to get an offer at all in this market. Now go back and couteroffer instead of getting your panties in a wad.
 
Sellers can be whack as well. I was buying a condo this spring/summer - basically I narrowed my choices to 2 condos, both within one block of each other - both had asking price of ~$550k.

The condo's were mostly identical, except one of them has 150 sq ft less space, had less-open floor plan and no hard wood floors. It also had two other similar condos in the same building sell for $450-$470.

So I pointed that out to the seller, and made an offer of $450. They said they won't budge and that the other 2 families who sold similar condos in their building were "crazy". After a fruitless round of negotiations I made a $525k offer on the "nicer" condo - they accepted and I couldn't be happier.

And btw, 9 months later that condo was still on the market - with the same price.
 
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