Is it worthwhile to put in a low offer?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Went to an open house this weekend in a vacation location and house is a bit bigger than we would need for a second home but neighborhood we want and would be great. House has been on market since November 2023 and overpriced. Went under contract in May then relisted again in June. We know realtor and she encouraged us to put in an offer as sellers need to move to a different state and house is too big as they are older and need out. We told realtor with rates being higher, we couldn’t afford the current price and wouldn’t want to insult. Realtor insists we put in an offer. Our offer would be so low that it would be at tax assesed price. Original Listing of $2.5, already down to 1.79 and we are thinking an offer of 1.1. We are better off not putting out our low offer right?

What are you ultimately willing to pay? If it's $1.1m, I would not bother. If you are trying to offer $1.1m and then meet in the middle at say $1.45m, explain this to your realtor and see what they can find out from the seller's realtor.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You don't put in an offer like this.
Your agent tells their agent and their agent replies with whether they think they can convince the seller to meet you near the number. If yes, then you put in an offer.

Terrible negotiating strategy. One more reason it will be great when people stop using buyers' agents so they feel free to make offers they want to make, rather than offers that their buyers' agents want them to make.

[Anonymous]

If your agent is experienced and is sure you won’t be burning a bridge you might want to cross later, why not make an offer? The worst they can say is no.

We once really liked a house that we thought was overpriced by about 50%. We didn’t bother offering because we assumed there was no chance we would get it for 2/3 of asking price.

It then sat on the market for a while, without price reductions, and ultimately sold for exactly the price we would have been willing to pay. I wished our agent had encouraged us to make that offer.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Went to an open house this weekend in a vacation location and house is a bit bigger than we would need for a second home but neighborhood we want and would be great. House has been on market since November 2023 and overpriced. Went under contract in May then relisted again in June. We know realtor and she encouraged us to put in an offer as sellers need to move to a different state and house is too big as they are older and need out. We told realtor with rates being higher, we couldn’t afford the current price and wouldn’t want to insult. Realtor insists we put in an offer. Our offer would be so low that it would be at tax assesed price. Original Listing of $2.5, already down to 1.79 and we are thinking an offer of 1.1. We are better off not putting out our low offer right?

We made an offer of $20,000 less than asking (10 years ago, not in this hot market).

The owners were so offended by the offer that they didn't even counter and REFUSED to let us counter, lol.

Keep that in mind.

[Anonymous]

Wow. Embarrassingly low offer. If you’re truly interested that offer alone will keep you from moving forward as they won’t want to work with you. We put in a low offer for our house but that’s truly way too low.

[Anonymous]

OP, the tax assessment value isn't the same thing as the market value. The market value is typically higher. It's not clear whether you only have $1.1M to spend or whether you think the tax assessment value is the actual value (it's not).

[Anonymous]

low ball it and you never know.

I have been looking for a beach house in outer banks and low balled 30% below the list and the seller accepted. Yihaaa!!

[Anonymous]

My parents paid $465K for their current home when it was listed at $600K. Don’t think it can hurt if $1.1M is really your best offer.