We submitted an offer for a condo. Short sale. Asking price was $150K, my client wrote the offer for $136K, the Lender came back with $5K more than asking. The whole thing made my clients very uneasy, they thought that it was deceptive, wanted the answer in writing, thought that everyone was avoiding a paper trail.
The lender would not give this in writing, and as not the party to the transaction, they are not obligated (at least for now), they wanted that the Listing agent does it in writing, and, of course, the listing agent had no trouble to do it in writing, and neither had I
Then I sent them an e-mail, where showed the values, and a lot of other relevant stuff to put it all in perspective.
Anyway, I got the e-mail: "Jon, Thanks for your help. However, we feel our offer of $135K is fair for that property, and therefore, we will not increase our offer at this time. We remain interested in a 2 bedroom / 2 bath ocean front condo.
We would prefer a unit that had a few more amenities such as washer/dryer in the unit, shaded area by the pool, BBQ area, Hot tub, one outdoor pool and one indoor, a tennis court. For the right unit we may consider making an offer of $150K."
The problem is: there is not a single condo building on our 23-mile shore line that have all that even for the much higher price. All of them have some of the amenities, but none of them have it all. Even for $1Mil.
There is only one place which has all that, and thisis The Links in Ponce Inlet, where I live. But it is not right on the ocean, it is across the street from the Ocean, and the second problem is that the least expensive 2/2 in distress is $249K. We paid more.
What can I answer? That I want something like that on the Ocean for $150K myself? I really do. The funny thing is that $150K on the Ocean is not the market price, it was a distressed sale, and IMO a terrific value.
Oh, well. We all want what we can't get.
;)
;)
Jon
It is unfortunate that during this time of financial instabilitywe also have to take the time to educate the consumer on proper pricing of their offers for the current market. It doesn't seem to matter that that market is changing by the minute , who knows in six months this fantasy condo may exist. Lets hope not , good luck and help them with their learning curve.