Mostly sold my house...

[inishowen]

Krishan,

I'm a full time RE investor and what I see here is SOP. I do it almost every deal. They want the property and made you a strong offer for two reasons. (1) To gain control of the process, and (2) To stop the marketing of the property. They are only after a rebate and since their offer is in they have no leverage to reduce it, the only option they have is to beat you up through the inspection. Re-sheathing a roof and replacing air handlers are expensive. They're hoping you get estimates to scare you into a bigger rebate. I laughed at the wood stove reference. Most seasoned investors do their own repairs or have contractors that do it for them (is he in the trades?). Either way they know much better than you how much the repairs are going to cost, you can't compete as a homeowner calling out of the yellow pages. (This is assuming that they would actually do the stated repairs on a rental property, which I doubt). Don't waste your time getting estimates, the buyers are only looking to pay less. Decide on how much you're willing to rebate and dig your heels in.
Wait to hear back from the buyers, you'll then get a price from the buyer that is closer to what they are really willing to pay. Negotiate from there, giving very little off your rebate until you can reach a compromise. Lastly, don't show any price weakness to your realtor, those p ricks are as transparent as glass.

[krishan]

[ QUOTE ]
Decide on how much you're willing to rebate and dig your heels in.

[/ QUOTE ]

There is the rub. I'm willing to cover everything if need be. The property is a pain in the butt and I want to get out of it. How much would you offer in my shoes where you don't care too much about the money but you don't want to give money away if they will take less.

I've gotten estimates for the HVAC at 4,500 and the roofing at 3,000. I already paid a plumber to fix the minor plumbing issues. Thanks for the post, very informative.

Krishan

[inishowen]

"I'm willing to cover everything if need be"

I wouldn't disclose this info to the buyer or the realtor.

What happens if you give him the $7500 estimate and he asks about the rest of the issues raised during inspection?

My premise is that he never had any intention of paying $199k. He forfeited his negotiating position upfront with plans to extract a rebate later in order to exlude any competition from other buyers. By getting you to furnish estimates he's getting you to bid against your asking price. In the above $7500 scenario he might ask for further rebate for the remaining problems and thereby get you to bid against yourself twice. My advice would be to try to put the onus on him to come up with numbers.

You could:
-decide on a final number your willing to accept, add some wiggle room to it and negotiate back to your acceptable number. Make him come up with a counter offer.
-Get him to bid the repair work needed and battle him from there.
-give in to everything in order to get out of the property.

This all assumes your $199k house was priced accurately for the area and its present condition.

It might sound like a game of chicken but it really isn't. It's just negotiation.