buying a house and the bidding got a wee bit emotional this weekend.

[GasX]

Originally posted by: DBL
I understand the need to show them up a bit, but in reality, it's a sellers market and if you feel that the price is a bit below market value, then 10k is not worth making a big deal over. I would feel inclined to keep the process as civil as possible and pay the extra 10k to score the house. I mean, you are talking about and extra $50 per month?

They raised their own counter offer for no good reason. If their original counter offer was $10K higher I would have had no problem with it...

Paying more because it is only $50/month is poor financial planning. I may pay more, I may not, but it will not be for that reason.

 

[Aharami]

good luck. NJ here too (central NJ...near Princeton). where is Glen Ridge?

 

[WhiteKnight]

Glen Ridge is right between Montclair and Bloomfield. It's a pretty small town by North Jersey standards, only about 7500 people. Something like 1.3 sq miles.

Edit: here

Tom Cruise went to the public high school here. My parents still have the program from when he played Nathan Detriot (Guys & Dolls) in the high school play in the late '70s.

 

[Rob9874]

$700K home? They'd love you over on the P&N board!

 

[DrPizza]

Good luck! I'm hoping to hear this afternoon if my offer is accepted on the place we've been very interested in.. Our last purchase offer is 10K less than the banks counter-offer.. we're hoping they accept.

 

[ViRGE]

Originally posted by: Rob9874
$700K home? They'd love you over on the P&N board!

Ya, seriously. If you don't mind my asking Mwilding, what do you do that allows you to afford such an expensive house?

 

[Rob9874]

Originally posted by: ViRGE

Originally posted by: Rob9874
$700K home? They'd love you over on the P&N board!

Ya, seriously. If you don't mind my asking Mwilding, what do you do that allows you to afford such an expensive house?

Judging from his icon, I'm assuming something in medicine.

 

[welst10]

Originally posted by: Rob9874
$700K home? They'd love you over on the P&N board!

north jersey has tons of houses selling for that price.

 

[WhiteKnight]

Originally posted by: welst10

Originally posted by: Rob9874
$700K home? They'd love you over on the P&N board!

north jersey has tons of houses selling for that price.

Yeah, $700k ain't cheap but it certainly isn't anything out of the ordinary for the area.

 

[GasX]

Originally posted by: welst10
You're confusing. When you say "their offer gone up 10K", you meant their asking price went up 10K, right. Were you the only one placing bid?

We offered X
They countered at Y
We countered at (X+Y)/2
They countered at Y + $10K
I said screw you, I am back to X
I then cooled down and said that our (X+y)/2 offer stands for 5 days

 

[HomeBrewerDude]

lol i'll be interested to hear how this turns out.

i hope you didn't shoot yourself in the foot there.

edit: sounds like a jack ass seller, though so you are probably going to be in for three months of BS if they do accept your offfer.

Good Luck!

 

[GasX]

Originally posted by: Rob9874

Originally posted by: ViRGE

Originally posted by: Rob9874
$700K home? They'd love you over on the P&N board!

Ya, seriously. If you don't mind my asking Mwilding, what do you do that allows you to afford such an expensive house?

Judging from his icon, I'm assuming something in medicine.

My avatar is related to my volunteer work as an ambulance driver. I work in the Pharmaceutical Industry and my wife is a succesful entrepreneur.

 

[Nitemare]

Nice house and all but :Q on the price....

It would probably got for no more than 250k here.

How many square feet and how much land?

 

[dullard]

Originally posted by: Mwilding
We offered X
They countered at Y
We countered at (X+Y)/2
They countered at Y + $10K
I said screw you, I am back to X
I then cooled down and said that our (X+y)/2 offer stands for 5 days

What you orignially posted looked more like this:

We offered X
They countered at Y
We countered at (X+Y)/2
They countered at Y + $10K
I said screw you, I am to X - 10K
Thus the split the difference offer is (X-10K + Y+10K) / 2 = (X+Y)/2

The bolded part is what I thought your original post said. That would have been more funny. As it is, I think you were quite justified. But why the 5 days? When I just bought my house the realtor strongly recommended a 5 hour maximum. Oh well, probably doesn't matter. Good luck.

 

[WhiteKnight]

You know, I look through the pictures again and I think I used to babysit for a family that lived in that house, 10 years ago or so.

 

[waggy]

bwhahah nice.

wonder what they are thinking? thats silly


edit: hmm now that i think about i had something like this happen to me. But the Realtor was the same for both. I think since the house was cheaper then we were looking at the Realtor decided to try and screw us.

i just called back and said nope. i'm sure i can find a nicer house thank you. The funny part was the house ended up selling for 15k LESS then oure orginal offer.

 

[welst10]

Originally posted by: Mwilding

Originally posted by: Rob9874

Originally posted by: ViRGE

Originally posted by: Rob9874
$700K home? They'd love you over on the P&N board!

Ya, seriously. If you don't mind my asking Mwilding, what do you do that allows you to afford such an expensive house?

Judging from his icon, I'm assuming something in medicine.

My avatar is related to my volunteer work as an ambulance driver. I work in the Pharmaceutical Industry and my wife is a succesful entrepreneur.

I work in pharmaceutical too. I think it depends on whether there're other bidders on this house. If there are, then it's tough. I placed a bid on a townhouse in north jersey a few months ago. Asking price 299,990. I offered 295,000. Turned out there were 4-5 bids placed on the same weekend and the seller didn't even counter-offer me. The next townhouse's asking price 305,000 and I offered full price and got it (didn't want to risk again).

 

[moonshinemadness]

Wow. just wow. That a beautiful house. I hope you get it, nice tactics btw

 

[Vic]

Obviously this type of seller's market is not indefinitely sustainable.

 

[Rob9874]

To put things into perspective, my mother-in-law lives in rural Pennsylvania, where it's common to see 3 bedroom homes sell for $50K-$60K. We live in Phoenix, and just bought a $200K home last month (well, started building). We didn't tell MIL what it cost. But when she asked what homes go for in the area, I said the CHEAPEST you can find a home is about $100K. She said, "There's nothing cheap about a $100K home." I guess it's all relative.

 

[jyates]

Originally posted by: Mwilding
About 2 weeks ago, my wife and I put in an offer for this house. It was supposedly a "closed bid" situation and the only feedback we got was "No" (they went with another offer). Friday night, the realtor called me to say their deal fell through and that they countered. We offered to "split the difference" on Saturday and yesterday heard back from their realtor that their offer had now gone UP by $10K.

My immediate repsonse was to tell them our offer just dropped by $10K (that'll show 'em...). When my realtor passed that on, the seller's agent bitched that we were supposed to go up and not down.

gee, what is good for the goose is good for the gander, right?

We left it that our "split the difference" offer is good for 5 days.

Fingers crossed...

hehe.. the seller's agent can gripe all they want......it's YOUR money and you can
offer whatever you want.

I've got some friends who made an offer of like $140,000 on a house and the
seller refused it and then several months later the realtor came back and asked
them to make another offer and this time they offered $120,000 and got the house
so I learned that you can never guess what's going on when someone is selling a house.

I'm guessing the original seller didn't have any luck selling the house so might have went
to a relocation company and they dumped it far below what the original seller wanted for it.

 

[GasX]

Originally posted by: WhiteKnight
You know, I look through the pictures again and I think I used to babysit for a family that lived in that house, 10 years ago or so.

one block from Watchung?

 

[ActuaryTm]

Originally posted by: ViRGE
Ya, seriously. If you don't mind my asking Mwilding, what do you do that allows you to afford such an expensive house?

As mentioned by others, this seems about average cost for this type of home in the area indicated. In fact, it is remarkably similar to an offer a member of my family placed on a house in the Homecrest/Brighton area (their offer was $689,900). As the photographs show, these type homes are in no way to be considered mansions or ultra-luxury - merely a typical family dwelling.

Actually, in this case, the home pictured is a great deal more than what $700,000 would fetch in a number of areas. From what I know of Glen Ridge, it is a fairly nice area, and the home pictured indicates likewise. Appears to be an excellent location to raise a family. Very residential. Have a few clients a bit southwest, in the West Orange area. They are quite pleased living there, and the commute to any of the major areas (Nyc, Newark, etc) is not all that terrible.

Good luck with your negotiations, Mwilding.

 

[WhiteKnight]

Yeah. There's a white house somewhat across the street from the one you are looking at. I still babysat for a kid that lived there when I was in HS. I seem to remember that I got that job because the people that used to live at the house you are looking at now gave me a referral, but I can't be 100% sure.

 

[Rudee]

Nice house, outrageous price. That house where I live would be a $350k house CDN, so that works out to about $300k USD.

The kitchen seems rather small for that size house.