Make sure that you have a market analysis done on a house prior to writing an offer. The last thing you want to do is find out later that the home is not worth what you offer. If it doesn't appraise, the deal will fall through anyways. Contact me anytime at eddie.zahn@prudentialnetworkrealty.com if you have any other questions. Hope all works out for you.

Thu May 15 2008, 21:40

Penny,

You don't really provide enough data to answer the question. First off, is the home being offered for sale by a licensed Realtor? If yes, then the seller has already signed a listing agreement to pay the listing agent a commission, which means you should go get your own buyer's agent to represent you and help you put together the right offer. Your buyer's agent is going to take their compensation out of the listing agents commission, so in most cases you won't be incurring any additional cost by using your own agent to represent you. And they will have the ability to tell you what kind of offer to submit.

Answering your question without any knowledge of the market conditions, price of similar homes that have sold in the area in the last 3 to 6 months, and knowing where your market is heading based on trends, is a losing proposition.

Remember, the asking price is just that. It is not necessarily a fair representation of what a property is worth. How would you feel offering $330,000 for a home listed at $359,900, when it's actually only worth $300,000.

Hope this was helpful,

Jeffrey

Thu May 15 2008, 21:28