Is $135,000 offer on a $150,000 asking price for a house reasonable?

Your question is essentially, "How Low of an Offer Can I Make?" This is a pretty common question. As a licensed Realtor I get asked this all the time and answer people like this: The quick answer is however low you want. The long answer is it depends on 2 things: how many offers and the Seller. If the property is a good deal and you offer too low, the seller may take a different offer. Usually, if you already have an offer in on a property and several others come in, the property will go to highest and best... which usually results in you paying too much for the property. If it's a bank foreclosures are handled by asset managers, who see 100 offers a day. They (almost mechanically) reply to offers based on their employer's criteria. Most of them are not authorized to approve anything less than 80% of list price. Another possible criteria (which is a bit ridiculous but I've encountered it plenty) is that they are required to counter X amount of times to any offer below list price. If it's a short sale, the seller certainly doesn't care what the offer price is... the lender is the one who cares. This situation is similar to a foreclosure in that the asset manager will require an amount they deem reasonable in order to cover the deficiency on the mortgage. If it's not a special sale and just being sold by John Doe, then it depends on his reasons for selling. If he's in need of cash and just wants to liquidate, he won't be insulted by any offer. If it's a snobby person in no rush of selling, then they might care. In any case, you'll likely never see/deal with these people ever again, so offer as low as you want. The worst that could happen is that they might reject your offer, in which case you come up a few grand more and resubmit. BUT, remember, if it's a hot property, someone else may grab it.

You can try! They might come back with a counter-offer.

Roxanne, while you don't want to run the risk of insulting someone to the point they don't want to deal with you, everything is negotiable! Your average seller concession is 4% There are also lots of factors that affect what you should offer. A bank won't feel insulted by ANY offer, they're only concerned with making financial sense, while a personal home owner has emotional attachment to their home and typically place more value upon it than it's actually worth. You also need to consider if the home is distressed. Is it being sold as-is? Do they require a rent-back? Divorce situation? Do they already have an offer in another home and would therefore be more inclined to take a lesser offer? Are you asking for closing costs assistance? If you're asking for cc assistance, for instance, $5,000, then you're actually making an offer of $130,000. That might sound insulting to some but the idea is to get the sellers to the table, get a dialogue going and start negotiating! No, $135 isn't a strong offer, but is not outside of a reasonable offer, either. FYI- tax records/deeds will not necessarily tell you if they have refinanced (what they actually owe)

It all depends. We ended up paying cash for a house that was up for $65,000 and ended up talking them down to $35,000. Also, that was paying cash. Normally you can talk people down about 30%. But it all depends on the person and the location of the house, how long it has been for sale, how much the seller put into the house... It all really just depends. I think $135k is more then a reasonable offer. You could also just lowball and negotiate a price. If they want 150k, offer 100k. If they say no, offer a little higher until they bite. People will always ask more then the lowest they will take for a house. You just have to find out what the absolute lowest is that they will take. Unless it is a REALLY nice house with a really good location, I would say you could talk them even lower then $135k. Also, something else you could do, go to the courthouse and you should be able to look up deeds for free (At mine you can at least.) look up the deed and find out how much they originally paid for the house. This would be a good start to find the best price. If you can find out how much they paid for it, when you view the house, ask them what all they did to fix it up before selling it again and figure out roughly how much they spent to fix it. So you would have What they paid + What it cost to fix = Base price for the house. If you are spending that much for a house it is defiantly worth it to do your research on it first. EDIT: Also, you can check out http://www.landex.com/webstore/ and it will tell you about mortgages and refinancing and such. I've honestly never used it, I just called my mother and asked her what she used. Lol. EDIT AGAIN: Nvm. I just looked into the site, it is actually just for houses in PA. But if they have a site like that for PA I would imagine there is a site somewhere for your state as well.