Hellobee Boards

It sounds like you aren't talking about just disliking the cosmetics in the house, but there's trim and flooring missing.

If you love the location, layout, footprint, etc but don't like the paint and applicances my advice is always to go for it because those things are changeable.

I would talk to a realtor (your own, not the listing agent) and get their opinion on the price for the condition of the home. He or she will be able to tell you if the comps support the price of the home as it is or if it's overpriced for the condition. It's hard to say what kind of wiggle room you'd have with negotiations because every market is different.

@jetsa: I would definitely look at the listing vs. sales prices for comparable homes in the target area. Where I live, most homes sell for about 97-98% of the list price. We paid 95% of the list price, which we were pretty happy about. However, if the house in question is really overpriced, then you may be able to swing a larger reduction.

ETA: Good luck! A house on a lake, with a dock, sounds amazing!

@jetsa: Maybe see what your realtor says? When we sold our house, there's no way we would have considered an offer of 20% below list. We probably would have been a little offended, to be honest. (Though, I think that's because our house was in great shape and fairly priced - we got three offers at once about 10 days after listing, and sold it for 99% of list). However, it really does depend on the house vs. comps, the market in general, the motivation level of the sellers, time the house has been on the market, etc.

ETA: Yeah, rehabs tend to be more work... though new houses can have issues too. As long as your offer is contingent on a inspection, and you have a really good inspector, you are probably okay... but it makes sense to budget for unforeseen issues, especially if you plan to be moving around walls, etc. The nice though about rehabbing is you get to really make the house your own... it's nice to be able to get exactly the fixtures and finishings you want.

I think 20% off for a couple rooms missing flooring is too much. I'd talk to a realtor to assess market value and go from there.
In our area the things you are talking about changing would be taken care of by the buyer after closing.

@youboots: I agree, it's usually preferable to negotiate and use the money towards the repairs, than have them done by the sellers. They might choose the cheapest person, not the best. However, when we bought our house, we did have the seller repair a safety issue (radon) and we just specified that it had to be someone with xyz licensure, transferable warranty, etc. But yeah, generally I think it's best to get the work done by somebody you trust. Sometimes you can have a contractor come with you to view the house and give you estimates before you buy.

@jetsa: I mean we told the realtor that we needed to bring the GC but if the seller were to have an issue with that I would run basically the home is open to the public when it's for sale so as long as you go through the proper channels for a viewing there are not any rules that you can not do that that I know of.

Is the flooring and trim work the only changes you'd need to do inside to make it the way you'd like it, or is there more in addition to that and you only brought up the flooring and trim since that's still unfinished?

Honestly, we just sold our house and our basement is unfinished and some of our rooms are missing trim and we would have been seriously offended by an offer 20% lower than list price. The home we just sold is also in an ideal location by a lake (not on the lake, though) and even with an unfinished yard and some quirks in the house we still got 5k over list price.

I would look at comps for your area and see what is reasonable. There is also the possibility of asking for money off at the inspection phase.

In my area, homes do not sell for 80% of list. Even during the housing crash, homes were still selling for 90%+ of list. I know that isn't the case everywhere.

When we bought our home we asked for a closing cost credit for the approximate amount of flooring we knew we needed to change. The floors had old, smelly carpet and we put in laminate for my husband's wheelchair.

I relied a lot on my realtor's advice when deciding on what to offer. I would find a realtor to work with - I found mine on yelp.

@jetsa: wow! Okay, that was worse than I was expecting from your OP. It definitely needs some work. I would definitely compare that house with other homes - it may be that the house is already at a list price that is lowered to reflect the home. But if not, I do agree with your assessment that the house will probably sit on the market for a bit and also that you should offer a lower price based on those pictures alone. Is it livable? Well yes. But I wouldn't consider that finished space either.

@jetsa: you need a realtor to pull comps. If the realtor says similar size/location houses that are move in ready (more than subfloor, include all baseboards) are 100k, and this one is listed for 94k then it has some of the repairs built into the price. If your contractor says the repairs to get it to the same condition as the comps would cost $10k, then you need to ask for another 4k off the price.

No baseboards or exposed subfloor is NOT "finished"