So I’m in the market of buying a house and we came across a house that we liked that was well within our budget and so forth.
Before placing an offer we ask our realtor to pull up the comparables. I’d like to get a sense of how much other houses have gone for in that area, etc.
Turns out there is a 40K range and the house we want is listed at the high end. The house we want does not have a finished basement and houses with finished basements have gone for less than what this owner is offering.
We decide to offer 20K less than the asking price. This is a low ball, we will work our way up, but it’s not completely ridiculous either. This is an average of what all the other houses are going for.
Our realtor sets up the paperwork and calls the owner’s agent to make a presentation. After a couple of hours the agent responds with “the owner does not want a presentation just fax over the offer.”
So basically the owner doesn’t want to know why we’re offering what we are offering, they just want the number. We deny the request.
A few hours later the agent calls back saying the owner adamantly does not want a presentation just fax it over. So we did.
The next day we hear back from the owner with a counter offer. They dropped their initial offer by less than 5K, increased the closing date to 90 days, and said “no appliances.”
This isn’t negotiating. You are not working with us at all. I understand the dollar amount, but we asked for 60 days and appliances and you’re just not giving at all.
So after some thought, we decided to try again on the owner. We brought up our offer by 6K, increased the closing day to 75 days, and asked for half of the appliances..
At this point I don’t see what their hang up is over the appliances. They’re not new, they’re not special and any house they purchase will likely give the appliances. I’m thinking if they really want the appliances so bad, they’d drop the cost of the house, right?
WRONG! Instead of denying our offer entirely, they shot us back with the exact same offer as before. How is this negotiating? What makes you think I’ll say ‘yes’ to this? If I didn’t like the offer before, what makes you think I will like it now?
We countered with a “go f*ck yourself” – good luck selling your house. We have plenty of options and you have none. Who comes out the winner here?
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