Appraised value vs. asking price, re making an offer?

[Pholi]

I think it was more that they would be offended, and not want to bother with the whole negotiating back and forth from such a low starting point and that it's so low that they may think its not a genuine buyer or likely to close.

Just ask the real estate agent before putting an offer in.

I see what you're saying, but if they want to sell, then they have to 'bother' negotiating. If they think your price is too far away, and so you're not genuine, they won't counter-offer, and it'll be up to the OP to make a higher offer.

I've had an agent tell us that they turned down an offer of X last week, so it';s not worth going in any lower than that, but we only went $2500 higher, and they countered at just $1250 above that, so we accepted. It was a final amount well below asking price, and I had expressed my concerns about 'offending' the sellers, to DH... he convinced me to not be worried by it, and just make the offer anyway, and he wa exactly right.

Don't forget that the agent is not *your* agent, they are the seller's agent, and they are not going to give you advice which lowers the possible selling price and therefore their commision.

[Beach Mama]

Keep in mind too, that if there are other people interested that once one offer comes in, the agent will call in all other interested parties to put in offers too, so you may not have the luxury of being the only people negotiating? Depends where it is and the situation I guess, we were lucky that nobody else was involved and were able to go in low (well under their listed price which was just over 10%) but if others were involved we wouldn't have taken that risk.

[Netix]

Thanks everyone. I think we would negotiate the additional "stuff" as part of the overall price, not after the sale. The property has been on the market three months, and I think the agent said he has only shown one, maybe two (damn goldfish memory!) other parties through the property. And that other party has to sell their property in Melbourne first, a property which has some "issue" in being sold easily, so isn't really a serious contender for the mean time.

[Netix]

I have been googling this property this morning, and came across it for sale/sold last November and December. I don't know if that means it was for sale and they took it off the market for some reason, but it seems to have bene for sale a whole lot longer than three months! Hopefully that will work in our favour too.