What should I offer for this house?

**jkprules** · 03-09-2010, 04:05 PM

Hey, everyone. I'm hoping to make an offer on a house later this week but I don't know what it should be. Its a 3000 sqft house in a cookie cutter neighborhood where I'd be buying from the builder. The asking price on the home is 176K but the family that had it built was contracted to buy it at 167K with 2K of that being closing costs. It was finished in November but the family was unable to get their loan approved and it's now back on the market. My thinking is that the builder will be motivated to sell since he's had it several months longer than he planned, but even in this market this startup neighborhood has almost a dozen houses under contract. On the other hand, I've heard through the grape vine that even the smaller homes are selling for around 10K under asking price. I was thinking of offering 165K with closing cost included. Is this reasonable? Should I go lower? Thanks for your help.

**Greg** · 03-10-2010, 05:41 AM

The only way to know how much to offer is to figure out what the house is worth. Forget the asking price and how many homes are supposedly under contract.

You need to find out how much the similar surrounding houses have recently sold for. Don't get your information from the builder or his reps. Hire an appraiser or go to the tax department and pull up recent comparable solds.

Anything else and you are just guessing.

**Lease_Abstract** · 03-10-2010, 09:24 PM

I think you need to all the cost and expenses you've rendered in that house in order to know the worth of that property. Be reasonable enough to know first the status, quality and environment of the property before rendering a price. Buyers do love properties at low cost but have benefits to offer for their living, I hope the price is not yet final.