Hellobee Boards

Look on Zillow to see if you can find it's history (how much it has sold for in the past, what it is worth) and look at the other houses of a similar style in the same neighborhood. That will give a ballpark if it is priced appropriately.

We just bought a house and offered a certain dollar amount. In the process of closing, it ended up appraising for a little less. We then reset our offer amount for the appraisal estimate instead and saved ourselves money. This doesn't always work. The sellers could have walked on us.

Depends on the area -- houses where we are regularly go for over asking with several offers on them. I've seen $100,000 over asking. That being said, do your research on the market using Zillow, Redfin or whatever you have in the region. It should be pretty easy to get an idea about what is a reasonable price from that. Good luck!!

It really depends. I would get a realtor, they can look at comps in the neighborhood to help you decide what is a fair price.

It really depends on your market, too. Where I live, making a lower offer than asking price on a home in good condition is pretty much the kiss of death for your offer. Houses regularly go under contract in a week for full asking price or more. So you really need to do some research into what the conditions in your area are.

@anonysquire: zillow can be way off! Best way is comps from similar homes nearby.

@anonysquire: You could also see if your county does tax look-ups online. In my state, you can usually go online for most counties and look up the tax assessed value, who owns it, the last 5-10+ years of real estate tax billings/statements, etc. Tax values aren't always right on, but it may give you a more accurate ballpark range if Zillow seems far off.

I'd try to find out how much recently sold homes have gone for in your area to determine a fair price. A realtor can help you with that too.

When we bought our home, we offered 10% under asking but that was in 2009 and home prices were still falling.

I wouldn't use the Zestimates in Zillow. They're all over the place. However, use Zillow to find recently sold properties in the area. Then you can see the details of the houses on the county auditor website. I'd look at houses sold in the last six months or so at most. The market has changed a lot since the beginning of the year. Prices , at least in our area, have gone up quite a bit.

Like others have said, the zillow "zestimates" are not particularly accurate.

You can look up "comps" in the area - similar square footage, beds, baths, features to get an idea. Also look at sales in the past 3 months. Easy to look online at all of that.

You can definitely negotiate down if its dated. Percentage is hard to say without knowing the market.

The fact that its been on a month already works to your favor!

And I would say knowing them is a disadvantage... It's not ok to be personal about something as big as a home purchase and your future. Def hire a realtor and closing attorney!

We just bought a new house but had to basically offer asking, it was on the market for 2 days and they had 4 backup offers - but the market here is nuts. During the inspection we found some items that we would have to pay for and they negotiated the price down.

Good luck! Exciting!

@JoJoGirl: ugh! Good luck... It took us months and we missed out on a few being over bid. But we are psyched about where we ended up! The market should be better in the winter! Less bidding wars hopefully!

And we were thankful because our current townhouse sold in 3 days and for the last year we thought we were going to loose money on it, so we took advantage of it!

Are you north, south or metro?

@JoJoGirl: we would have LOVED to stay metro earlier but couldn't justify the $$! I hear ya, so much for places that need a ton of work.

DH is in NH a lot for work -- so we're north... just got a single-family a little further northeast, closer to ocean... house is less than a mile from the commuter rail, which was key for me as I work downtown. we got lucky & found a place that was move-in ready and the updates we need to do we can wait on for a few years!

I'm wondering this as well. I assume it also has to do with whether the area is a buyers or seller's market. If a home has been sitting on a market for a while the seller might be be willing to accept a (within reason) lower offer. Also, I would think if they just recently dropped the price, they might not go much more under. (I'm thinking they will want to see if there are any more offers after they just dropped the price.)

This is all speculation. (We have never purchased a home before.) If we find a home, I will definitely ask my realtor. Last time we considered buying a home our realtor (a family friend) definitely gave us an idea of if the house was priced right.

Totally depends on the market.
We talked ours up 22% over asking.