Highly variable depending on the market you live in. You may want to consult a realtor as the commission will be born by the seller.

We recently put a contract on a house in the Northern Virginia area. Negotiations on houses is very area specific. In some areas it is still a buyer's market. In the area we are buying it is full price with little, if any, concessions.

ok
you say the house is listed at 340k

but what is it worth??????????

how long on the market?
comparable sales around?
work needed?

and don't bother with a realtor, they don't even know their own job. waste of oxygen.

I would get a good realtor. This may be difficult. They are few and far between on my experience. Went through 4 before finding a good one last time.

I would find an equally good inspector. Find your own. A good one doing a second inspection saved my ass on a home i had already put money on and finalized the price with the owner directly (weird deal, i originally contacted him about renting it for a few months while we looked for a house). After the first one went through and ticked off a few minor things, he balked on some questions i tossed him and it made me suspicious. So i called around and got a second one to come in and he managed to come up with about 20K in immediate but not obvious repairs needed due to flooding that had been papered over with a little paneling, major landscaping needs for drainage and other things. He flat out stopped halfway through and showed me what he had found and didnt charge me a dime for calling it quits right there. Just agreed to use him in the future and i have. On a house that old I would make this a high priority.

The realtor is going to be the biggest help in trying determine your first offer. Make sure the realtor digs up any info on past inspections as any adverse items are required to be disclosed. I found out in that case above the owner knew about it but didnt think it was such a big deal. A good realtor will show you the best way to negotiate the deal, specific to the market you are in.

What do i know though, nobody is going to be skilled at this unless you do it for a living, which is why you have got to find the people you can trust to guide your decision. So absolutely get a realtor and a good inspector, heck even getting 2 or 3 inpectors that have special areas of expertise would probably be a good idea. Whats another thousand bucks when you are talking about 300 thousand.

Wait next year. it will be cheaper then.

You realize what happens to prices when interest rates move back up right??????????

You make your profit when you buy.

Look I'm not going to pick this apart piece by piece because I'm not going to get into a pissing match. I will say this, things are done differently in different states and even in different areas and markets within a state. A cash deal with a 10 day option period is standard. Most of the time that "option" gives the buyer the ability to back out of the sale for any reason or no reason. As for backing out if the appraisal came back unfavorable, I totally understand, but as a seller I would require that appraisal to be done within 10 day option.....meaning, I don't care what your reasoning is for calling the deal off, but on a cash deal (since financing isn't an excuse) I say you've got 10 days, make up your mind yes or no.

Yes it does sound like the agent is less than professional and less than competent according to some of the stuff you mentioned. But I stand by the fact that you are painting with too broad of a brush. I've already agreed that there are a TON of bad agents but that doesn't mean they are all bad. Also like I mentioned I would find an agent like I would find any other service professional....word of mouth from a trusted friend or family member. Maybe that's just because I'm a small town guy and that's how I do business.


One last thing, I have NO idea about the laws and rules in your state but in Texas that is 100% absolutely without a doubt false. Anyone who believes that has no understanding of how licensed agents and brokers in Texas operate. If you are a seller's agent, you have a fiduciary responsibility of looking out for your clients best interest and the law is very clear on this. Disclosure is one of the big fiduciary responsibilities and if an agent knows that your house is worth more and tells you it isn't or lies or misleads you in any way, you have a legal case against them. What most people are confused of is the fact that in Texas, a seller's agent works for and is paid by the seller, they have NO fiduciary requirements to the buyer. They cannot lie or misrepresent anything but they are not charged in protecting the interests of the buyer. That's were buyer's agents comes in. Again, in Texas, they are required to do all the things a seller's agent is for their client, who is the buyer.

Like I said, I'm not in the business anymore and I never sold houses. I sold farms and ranches for many years and I never had any desire to get mixed up in the housing market and as I said, I'll be the first to admit there are tons of bad agents. But to paint them all with a broad brush and say none of them are worth their commission....sorry I don't buy into that line of thinking.