# Definition of Fixed Price?



## moonspinner (Jul 2, 2002)

I was interested in a property that noted "fixed price" in the description. I've seen multiple defintions from that's the final price to open to some negotiating.
Anyone care to clear this up?
Thanks!


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## Fishindude (May 19, 2015)

I would interpret that to mean they are not open to negotiating anything lower?


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## MattB4 (Jan 3, 2016)

Probably from people tired of the low ball offers from those folks that have attended, "how to get rich in real estate" seminars. I know that it would tick me off no end to get some of the stupid offers that some people would make. Negotiation over price is one thing, seriously under stated price is another. I don't deal with that at all. I would put such a person in the never sell to at any price category.


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## suitcase_sally (Mar 20, 2006)

Seems to me that you should be asking the local real estate salesperson, not us.


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## tree-farmer (Jul 5, 2015)

Whatever they've said, if they think you've got the best offer they're probably going to take it


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## Declan (Jan 18, 2015)

I am not a big fan of people who say their price is firm if it is an individual because they usually are unrealistic. Kind of like people who say they only want what is "fair". The only reason to be that way would be if you had a mortgage to payoff and just wanted out from under it quickly without having to deal with the hassles of a short sale.


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## FarmerKat (Jul 3, 2014)

I would also interpret that the seller is not willing to negotiate on the price at all. Is it a good deal? Would you be willing to purchase it for the asking price? If it is listed with a realtor, I would call the listing agent and clarify. The agent is a 3rd party with no emotional involvement so I would think he/she would not take offense to the question. If it is by owner, I probably would not bother as I would think the question would tick them off and they would not want to deal with me.

Like others said, there are reasonable offers and then there are crazy low offers that are offensive.


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## Bellyman (Jul 6, 2013)

I don't quite get the whole idea of someone being offended by a low offer. They've stated what they'd be willing to pay for said property. The seller can, and probably will, say "No." Big deal. There's no deal made. Buyer can negotiate or not. Seller can negotiate or not. If neither has any intention of moving, it's a really short conversation. 

All buyers won't be looking at a property they way an owner does. The buyer may not have the same intended purpose for the property. The buyer may not have the same kinds of attachments (sentimental or otherwise) to the property that the owner has. That stuff can affect the value of the property in the buyer's eyes. 

I've been a buyer and I've been a seller. As a seller, I can't ever remember being bent out of shape over a lowball offer. Either it was something to be negotiated or it was little more than noise. But it was never personal. As a buyer, I have only made a few offers. I offered what I considered to be a reasonable value and it was either taken, rejected or negotiated. It was never intended as personal insult if it was low, only what I felt the property was worth TO ME at that particular moment in time.


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## MattB4 (Jan 3, 2016)

Bellyman said:


> I don't quite get the whole idea of someone being offended by a low offer. ...


Well you just have to accept that there are some of us that do get ------ off to deal with very low offers. I am one of those. I not only get ------ off I will reject said offer with prejudice. You will never buy from me after making this your method of bargaining. 

If your intention is not to create such a negative atmosphere than you should keep it in mind. Some of us will hold it against you.


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## Bellyman (Jul 6, 2013)

MattB4 said:


> Well you just have to accept that there are some of us that do get ------ off to deal with very low offers. I am one of those. I not only get ------ off I will reject said offer with prejudice. You will never buy from me after making this your method of bargaining.
> 
> If your intention is not to create such a negative atmosphere than you should keep it in mind. Some of us will hold it against you.


So if you happen to be asking $100k for a property that has no realistic value beyond $75k and I offer you $75k, you're gonna be all bent out of shape? That's the kind of situation I find, way more often than I'd like. And I will not pay more than the market value for a property no matter how badly someone wants more. Sorry. You can sit on your property for the next several years if you want to. (And I know of a dozen or so close to me who are doing just that.)


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## FarmerKat (Jul 3, 2014)

I think it really depends what the low offer is. We looked at a property that was priced at $250K. It was not worth that in today's prices. It has been on the market forever. The owner has done A LOT of work and we honestly appreciated amount of effort & money he has put in the place. Considering what he paid for the property before the improvements, the $250K would probably just recoup what he paid for it during the real estate market bubble. In today's world, the property is probably worth somewhere around $180K but when we discussed with the realtor that offer, the listing agent advised he would not present that offer as it was offensive. After 3 or 4 years on the market, the seller took it off the market. We walked away and never made an official offer ... 

I personally would want to know about any offer but I can say that if I had a house that is worth $80K, asking $100K because everyone always offers less than the asking price and then getting an offer for $20K because someone thinks I am an idiot .... yeah, it would probably tick me off some.


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## Bellyman (Jul 6, 2013)

FarmerKat, I get where you're coming from, and thanks for your thoughts.

I guess we should have defined "lowball". A $20k offer on a $100k property... I suppose that might be offensive to some. I can understand that. What is harder to figure out is where it ceases to be a "lowball" offer and become a "low" offer. Would an $80k offer on a $100k property still qualify as "lowball"? Is there a percentage of asking price that's considered non-offensive?


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## FarmerKat (Jul 3, 2014)

Bellyman said:


> FarmerKat, I get where you're coming from, and thanks for your thoughts.
> 
> I guess we should have defined "lowball". A $20k offer on a $100k property... I suppose that might be offensive to some. I can understand that. What is harder to figure out is where it ceases to be a "lowball" offer and become a "low" offer. Would an $80k offer on a $100k property still qualify as "lowball"? Is there a percentage of asking price that's considered non-offensive?


That's a good question ... I cannot say I have an answer


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## Declan (Jan 18, 2015)

Bellyman said:


> FarmerKat, I get where you're coming from, and thanks for your thoughts.
> 
> I guess we should have defined "lowball". A $20k offer on a $100k property... I suppose that might be offensive to some. I can understand that. What is harder to figure out is where it ceases to be a "lowball" offer and become a "low" offer. Would an $80k offer on a $100k property still qualify as "lowball"? Is there a percentage of asking price that's considered non-offensive?


I guess an off the cuff response would be, "It is an offer you would even want to spend your time countering?" If I had a fair $100K piece of property and someone offered me $20K, if I countered, it would be with $120K just to tell them to stop wasting my time"


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## MattB4 (Jan 3, 2016)

Bellyman said:


> So if you happen to be asking $100k for a property that has no realistic value beyond $75k and I offer you $75k, you're gonna be all bent out of shape? That's the kind of situation I find, way more often than I'd like. And I will not pay more than the market value for a property no matter how badly someone wants more. Sorry. You can sit on your property for the next several years if you want to. (And I know of a dozen or so close to me who are doing just that.)


And you can sit without the property after I sell it for the price I set it for because I happened to have a fair idea what it is worth. You make the common mistake of thinking that your opinion matters more than mine. It does not when it comes to my business. If you do not want what I am selling than go away. 

Do some folks have too high of a sales price? Perhaps, but that is their thing to learn, not mine to insult them with making stupidly low offers.


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## MattB4 (Jan 3, 2016)

FarmerKat said:


> That's a good question ... I cannot say I have an answer


Generally 10% is considered common. More than that would require a reason such as a quick all cash closing or some other benefit to the seller. You get into the 20% range and you are into the range of annoyance. 

I had to train Real Estate agents in the past about taking low offers that I not only would not counter offer but if they brought me another one, that they were no longer welcome to do business with me.


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## Bellyman (Jul 6, 2013)

Ok, Matt, let me throw one at ya...

Property I looked at recently: about 8 acres total. 2 acres decent, nothing spectacular, but decent. 6 acres pretty much waste land, not much anyone could do with it. (Swamp, rock outcropping, scrub, power company easement.) Land prices in the area range from about $1k/acre for the lower end of things to about $7k/acre for decent land. (Premium can be higher, this isn't premium.) Has a cobbled together 100 year old house with a newer tin roof and some newer vinyl siding covering an old, pretty much non-functional house that will need a new septic system, complete rewiring, complete kitchen and bathrooms, almost complete replumbing, a minimum of a modest addition and something on the order of about $50k worth of work to make it into a modest but livable home. (That $50k would have to include at least some HVAC work, too.) 

The land isn't worth a whole lot. The barns on the property are not worth the materials they contain to tear them down. There is no garage of any kind. The house isn't even habitable as it stands despite the 'lipstick'. They're asking $110k. If I were to put that $50k into it, get rid of the broken down outbuildings and clean up those 8 acres the best I could to make it look nice, I would still only have a property that would sell in the $125k to $130k area. That's it. We're really not talking a high dollar place. It just happens to be in a quiet little corner of the county that I thought maybe I wouldn't mind living for a while. It's kind of secluded with only one farmer and one old cemetery for neighbors. Some people wouldn't want to live back in a place like that and it's not exactly handy for stores, gas stations, restaurants, or hospitals. But I thought, for me, maybe it would be an OK spot to call home for a while.

I offered them $70k. I thought that was a reasonable offer for what they had and what work was waiting for me if they should happen to want to sell at that price. 

According to what you're telling me, that was a lowball offer and an insult. I happened to think it was a realistic offer. If they wanted to negotiate, I might have gone to about $75k but that's about where I really wouldn't consider it worthwhile anymore, even liking the location of it. I wouldn't stand to make a killing on the thing as a flip, either. It's just not there. I'd be lucky to get enough out of the place when all finished to pay the real estate commission and have dinner at the local Mexican restaurant. HGTV this ain't.

The place has been for sale for going on 2 years now and they don't seem to have any interest in lowering the price. There's a reason why it's been almost 2 years. No, let me correct that, there are dozens of reasons. No one wants that set of headaches for that kind of a price. No one wants to be upside down by $30k when they move onto a $125k property. 

I didn't fall off the turnip truck yesterday, either. And I have no desire to take advantage of other people or insult them with offers that make no sense other than greed or stupidity. If I make an offer that's below the asking price, there's a reason, and it's not personal. If that causes someone not to want to do business with me, that's fine. There are a few thousand other places for sale within a 50 mile radius. I wish them all the best.

It may be that you wouldn't take on a listing like the one I describe above. Good for you if you wouldn't. But there are at least a dozen agents in this area that would list an 8X10 broken down tool shed on a dump of a postage stamp lot for a quarter million $ if that's what the owner wanted knowing full well they'd never get it save the chance of some schmuck from the big city with more money than brains that might happen to buy it sight unseen. In all due respect, I find that a lot more insulting than someone making a genuine offer based on reality.

Just my opinion.


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## farmgal (Nov 12, 2005)

It could mean that's what they owe and can not do a short sale. You never know someone's situation. People get sick, injured or lose a good paying job. Things happen and they may need to sell but have a mortgage that can't be short saled. That's how I got my farm. And it was in ruff shape because the previous owners were very old and crippled. Hard to care for things when your limited physically.


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## MattB4 (Jan 3, 2016)

Bellyman said:


> Ok, Matt, let me throw one at ya...
> 
> ...
> 
> Just my opinion.


All your reasoning about the value of the property is meaningless. If the seller wants a certain amount and you offer considerably less than the seller may get offended and rightfully so in my opinion. 

It is not your place to educate the seller into accepting your offer. Having encountered this type of negotiating tactic in the past I have always felt it was a poor choice. If the seller wants more for the property than you are willing to pay (some reasonable negotiation is always assumed to happen) you will not achieve anything by low ball offers other than enmity. It is a bit like approaching a woman and saying "you are ugly but I am desperate so will you go to bed with me?"


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## Bellyman (Jul 6, 2013)

MattB4 said:


> All your reasoning about the value of the property is meaningless. If the seller wants a certain amount and you offer considerably less than the seller may get offended and rightfully so in my opinion.
> 
> It is not your place to educate the seller into accepting your offer. Having encountered this type of negotiating tactic in the past I have always felt it was a poor choice. If the seller wants more for the property than you are willing to pay (some reasonable negotiation is always assumed to happen) you will not achieve anything by low ball offers other than enmity. It is a bit like approaching a woman and saying "you are ugly but I am desperate so will you go to bed with me?"


Reality is meaningless, aye?

Not much I can say to that. May they enjoy their Fantasyland.


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## Steve in PA (Nov 25, 2011)

Bellyman said:


> Is there a percentage of asking price that's considered non-offensive?


In my area I have seen many properties that I was once interested in now on the marked for twice (or more) the price they sold for when I was poking around now more than 3 years ago. We are not in a market that supports or justifies those price increases whatsoever.

I believe there are several agents playing a new game. Double the price, then when someone offers 25% off that price they can accept and still clean up. Agents work off commission and have very little risk in the parcel sitting outside the lockup with the owner will expire before it sells.

Until this recent phenomenon, from following sales I knew that in general a property would sell for 92% of asking price.


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## MattB4 (Jan 3, 2016)

Bellyman said:


> Reality is meaningless, aye?
> 
> Not much I can say to that. May they enjoy their Fantasyland.


And you enjoy that you did not get the property. A case in point from my past.

The present place I now own was unimproved land that had been on the market for several years. I bought it with a offer at about 15% less than what the Seller was listing it at but it was for cash immediately. Afterwards I heard from the neighboring land owners about how much they wanted to own this property but that the Seller was asking too much for it. They based this notion on the fact that their uncle had said he could have bought the entire area for a cow back 50 years ago but decided against the trade. So after offering a low amount to the Seller initially, been refused, they decided they would wait him out. Too bad but I bought it instead. I have since sold some of the acreage for 4 times what I paid for it. 

Property value is a slippery notion. Between what the seller would like to get and the buyer is willing to pay. After all Manhattan was sold for a few beads and even the Louisiana Purchase was not all that bad. 

So you can rest happy that you are smarter than the seller and avoided buying. Someone will eventually. Just not you.


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## Declan (Jan 18, 2015)

Steve in PA said:


> In my area I have seen many properties that I was once interested in now on the marked for twice (or more) the price they sold for when I was poking around now more than 3 years ago. We are not in a market that supports or justifies those price increases whatsoever.
> 
> I believe there are several agents playing a new game. Double the price, then when someone offers 25% off that price they can accept and still clean up. Agents work off commission and have very little risk in the parcel sitting outside the lockup with the owner will expire before it sells.
> 
> Until this recent phenomenon, from following sales I knew that in general a property would sell for 92% of asking price.



Yeah but three years ago the market was flooded and prices were depressed. When I bought my house a couple years ago I made an offer below list that was well below assessed and they turned it down and auctioned the property, which I then was able to buy for about 20% less than my turned down offer. It makes no sense they turned down my higher offer and accepted my auction bid even though they had reserved the right to refuse the high bid. That is just not a normally functioning market situation. It was a bank owned property I should add.


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## MattB4 (Jan 3, 2016)

Declan said:


> Yeah but three years ago the market was flooded and prices were depressed. When I bought my house a couple years ago I made an offer below list that was well below assessed and they turned it down and auctioned the property, which I then was able to buy for about 20% less than my turned down offer. It makes no sense they turned down my higher offer and accepted my auction bid even though they had reserved the right to refuse the high bid. That is just not a normally functioning market situation. It was a bank owned property I should add.


Bank owned properties are held to many regulatory (is the house a bankruptcy return?), internal policy and tax issues. To apply any lesson from dealing with them is difficult without keeping that in mind. They may not have legally been able to accept your higher price offer before they placed it into auction status. 

I have seen bank repossessed land go for a fraction of the loan amount they had on the place. But this is only after they refuse to discount the loan to the original borrower. Sometimes the situation is so messed up with multiple parties involved that the land in question becomes un-sellable and it sits vacant for year after year and not even the tax people bother with auctioning it off.


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## Declan (Jan 18, 2015)

MattB4 said:


> Bank owned properties are held to many regulatory (is the house a bankruptcy return?), internal policy and tax issues. To apply any lesson from dealing with them is difficult without keeping that in mind. They may not have legally been able to accept your higher price offer before they placed it into auction status.
> 
> I have seen bank repossessed land go for a fraction of the loan amount they had on the place. But this is only after they refuse to discount the loan to the original borrower. Sometimes the situation is so messed up with multiple parties involved that the land in question becomes un-sellable and it sits vacant for year after year and not even the tax people bother with auctioning it off.


Nope. The buyer just bought another house she liked better and walked away from this one. It was foreclosed on, deeded to the bank out of that by the trustee, then listed. I was the only person who ever made an offer on it and was only 1 of 3 it was ever shown to in 6 months, so I guess they just thought they would get lucky on the auction or something.


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## MattB4 (Jan 3, 2016)

Declan said:


> Nope. The buyer just bought another house she liked better and walked away from this one. It was foreclosed on, deeded to the bank out of that by the trustee, then listed. ...


That does not make any sense. A foreclosed on home is going to face bank loan regulations, laws and tax code issues, regardless of the loan holder walking out. I am surprised that she could buy another place without legal action taken against her by the bank for money owed. 

I suspect there is much more to it than you relate.


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## tree-farmer (Jul 5, 2015)

MattB4 said:


> Generally 10% is considered common. More than that would require a reason such as a quick all cash closing or some other benefit to the seller. You get into the 20% range and you are into the range of annoyance.
> 
> I had to train Real Estate agents in the past about taking low offers that I not only would not counter offer but if they brought me another one, that they were no longer welcome to do business with me.


Does it really make sense for the seller to try to teach the potential buyer a lesson? Who cares what kind of offers they then submit to other sellers, if the potential buyer eventually comes back with an acceptable offer it would be in the seller's best interests to take it.


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## MattB4 (Jan 3, 2016)

tree-farmer said:


> Does it really make sense for the seller to try to teach the potential buyer a lesson? Who cares what kind of offers they then submit to other sellers, if the potential buyer eventually comes back with an acceptable offer it would be in the seller's best interests to take it.


Yes, it makes sense to treat slimy behavior with immense discourtesy in return. 

I do not care to profit from a louse. They would not get a chance to continue as a potential buyer. This is their choice from making a deliberately low offer. My choice is to than exclude them from any chance of buying.

ETA: I have never seen low ball offer people to than come back with a more decent offer. They were bottom fishing when they made it. No loss by treating them like the scum they are.


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## Steve in PA (Nov 25, 2011)

Declan said:


> Yeah but three years ago the market was flooded and prices were depressed.


We didn't have a bubble here and prices never ran up until recently. Actually I'm not sure what is supporting the market now. If it weren't for the many federal prisons here things would no doubt be very bad. There are a lot of homes that are way-way outside of the normal income here that are for sale.


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## tree-farmer (Jul 5, 2015)

MattB4 said:


> Yes, it makes sense to treat slimy behavior with immense discourtesy in return.
> 
> I do not care to profit from a louse. They would not get a chance to continue as a potential buyer. This is their choice from making a deliberately low offer. My choice is to than exclude them from any chance of buying.
> 
> ETA: I have never seen low ball offer people to than come back with a more decent offer. They were bottom fishing when they made it. No loss by treating them like the scum they are.


Well I know someone who put in an offer 75% of the asking price, at his real estate agent's recommendation. The sellers were not impressed but they eventually settled at a little over 90%.

And as far as profiting from someone you consider a 'louse,' I know a few people who sold to someone they suspected was going to convert their property into a grow-op. And they were right but it's hard to stand by your principles when it's going to cost you tens of thousands of dollars.


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## MattB4 (Jan 3, 2016)

tree-farmer said:


> Well I know someone who put in an offer 75% of the asking price, at his real estate agent's recommendation. The sellers were not impressed but they eventually settled at a little over 90%.
> 
> And as far as profiting from someone you consider a 'louse,' I know a few people who sold to someone they suspected was going to convert their property into a grow-op. And they were right but it's hard to stand by your principles when it's going to cost you tens of thousands of dollars.


Agreed it is difficult to stand by principles. If it was easy to be honorable there would be much more honorable folks around. 

I will say that once I sell a property what the new owner does with it is none of my business. I am not even interested in visiting a property that I sold. Past is the past.


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## Bellyman (Jul 6, 2013)

Steve in PA said:


> In my area I have seen many properties that I was once interested in now on the marked for twice (or more) the price they sold for when I was poking around now more than 3 years ago. We are not in a market that supports or justifies those price increases whatsoever.
> 
> I believe there are several agents playing a new game. Double the price, then when someone offers 25% off that price they can accept and still clean up. Agents work off commission and have very little risk in the parcel sitting outside the lockup with the owner will expire before it sells.
> 
> Until this recent phenomenon, from following sales I knew that in general a property would sell for 92% of asking price.


Steve, I have seen a few things like that in this area, too. I can think of one property that was priced at about $145k that sat on the market for close to a year. I think the general thinking of those looking was that comps would suggest something closer to $120k would have been closer to the market. At the year mark, they took the price up to $189k. I asked the agent I was working with at the time about it. I had been keeping an eye on it to see if perhaps it would reduce a little bit and I might want to take a closer look at it. The agent was curious enough that he called the listing agent while I was sitting right there in his office. (I could hear what both of them were saying.) My guy asked whether they had done some remodeling or adding on or what might have been the reasoning for the jump in price. There was no reason. They just decided to raise the price. Whatever. It's their house, they can ask anything they want. (That was last year and it hasn't sold.) 

People do some things that strike me as odd, for sure. I've seen several others in this area do the same thing within the last couple of months but usually not by that much. There really have not been big jumps in property values around here. It's a rather depressed area for the most part and property values don't move quite as dramatically as other parts of the country anyway.


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## Bellyman (Jul 6, 2013)

MattB4 said:


> And you enjoy that you did not get the property. A case in point from my past.
> 
> The present place I now own was unimproved land that had been on the market for several years. I bought it with a offer at about 15% less than what the Seller was listing it at but it was for cash immediately. Afterwards I heard from the neighboring land owners about how much they wanted to own this property but that the Seller was asking too much for it. They based this notion on the fact that their uncle had said he could have bought the entire area for a cow back 50 years ago but decided against the trade. So after offering a low amount to the Seller initially, been refused, they decided they would wait him out. Too bad but I bought it instead. I have since sold some of the acreage for 4 times what I paid for it.
> 
> ...


Oh, really? I can show you a few dozen houses within a 15 minute drive from where I'm sitting right now that are in a continuing and increasing state of disrepair because someone did NOT eventually pay an unrealistic asking price. 

Your cases-in-point really are not all that relevant at all. You mention values from many years ago. I was never talking values of yesteryear. I was speaking of the market today. The market today is not the market of yesterday or the market of tomorrow, you know that. Maybe your neighbor could have bought the whole farm for the price of a cow way back when. That was the price back then. It wasn't that way when you bought the property, I understand that, and rightfully so. When you bought the property, the price you paid then was based upon what the market was at that time. Perfectly understandable. The price of Manhattan 200 years ago, totally irrelevant.


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## MattB4 (Jan 3, 2016)

Bellyman said:


> Oh, really? I can show you a few dozen houses within a 15 minute drive from where I'm sitting right now that are in a continuing and increasing state of disrepair because someone did NOT eventually pay an unrealistic asking price.
> 
> Your cases-in-point really are not all that relevant at all. You mention values from many years ago. I was never talking values of yesteryear. I was speaking of the market today. The market today is not the market of yesterday or the market of tomorrow, you know that. Maybe your neighbor could have bought the whole farm for the price of a cow way back when. That was the price back then. It wasn't that way when you bought the property, I understand that, and rightfully so. When you bought the property, the price you paid then was based upon what the market was at that time. Perfectly understandable. The price of Manhattan 200 years ago, totally irrelevant.


So you make my point that your valuation of a properties worth is based on nothing but your opinion about comparable property. 

Another interesting event about property value. 

My mother owned a Condo in San Diego but had moved to Northern Ca. for a job. This was about 10 years back. During the time she lived up north she rented the condo out since she was not sure if she might move back. After a couple of years a RE agent contacted her about listing the property for sale. My mother was first opposed to this but after setting a unrealistically high price (she thought) she went ahead. Well what a shock, withing a couple of weeks not only did her offering price get met but people had bid substantially higher! It was not a auction! The idea that people would be eager to pay more than a listed price was not something I could ever imagine. But it happened. 

So all for all your supposedly realism about setting value in your mind about a place, I equally put the realism that your opinion about it is just yours. About the only thing that assigning comp value does is allow you to be in the ranks of property flippers and appraisers.


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## Fishindude (May 19, 2015)

As a buyer, I think it's good business to start pretty low. So they reject it, you can always go up. Realtors always try to lay a guilt trip on you that "you don't want to offend them" by going in too low. Hogwash ! I don't know the seller, and they don't know me, nothing is personal, just trying to get to the best price.

As a seller, you either reject, counter or accept, pretty simple. Most realtors advise you to list a bit higher than what you would take, so you have room to negotiate a little, buyers know this. Getting emotional about a low offer gets you nowhere, just reject it or counter just a few dollars under your listed price to keep the negotiations going. Realtors get frustrated because they just want to make a quick sale, but nothing wrong with going back and forth with counters a half dozen times or more if that's what it takes.


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