By reviewing the records at the county register of deeds for the property you are chasing you can find information that may be useful in determining the seller’s motivation.
Through research, you can determine what the property was purchased for by its current owner, when it was purchased and how it was financed. While the amount that the seller paid for the property has no bearing on the current value or sale price, finding out how much equity the seller has does. If you were selling coffee cups, buying them for $1.00 each and selling them for $1.25 each and someone wanted to talk you down on the price, you probably wouldn't be very receptive. However, if you had purchased the cups for $.25 each, you may be willing to negotiate and take less.
This same concept is true with real estate. If a person bought a property 10 years ago, only owes $10,000.00 on it now and you're willing to pay $25,000.00 for it, you'll have a lot better chance of getting the deal than if the owner bought the property 2 years ago and owes $24,000.00. Even a highly motivated seller generally won't sell unless there's some margin of profit in it for him. The person who has more equity and less debt has more room to negotiate.
How the seller originally purchased the property may have a bearing on the terms he may be willing to accept. Someone who bought the property on a land contract might be more willing to sell it on a land contract than someone who purchased it on a mortgage.
Your research at the County Register of Deeds will also make you aware of any assumable financing that might be available on the property. Although there are very few assumable mortgages left, you may run across land contracts, which are generally assumable, VA land contracts, which are assumable, certain FHA mortgages and some private mortgages. Don't pass over a mortgage’s assumability too quickly. There are still a number of formal assumption mortgages being written as well.
In a formal assumption mortgage, the person assuming the mortgage must qualify with the existing mortgage company.
This is part of a book I wrote and a taste of one real estate investing guide DVDs done by me. I will be republishing the majority of my book on my active rain blog. If you are interest in DVD or Seminar I have done on Real Estate Investing you can go to http://stores.ebay.com/Real-Estate-Investing-Guide
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