Amy,
The best answer is consult with a seasoned Realtor- there is no magic number or percentage. A home's value is what a willing buyer will pay and a willing seller will take (and a willing bank will lend if financing is involved!). What the seller paid or owes is of no consequence if there's equity, and it's almost always a case-by-case basis. By way of example, let's assume all the comparable homes on a street sell for $200,000. If a motivated seller prices his at $190,000, he's already discounted the value by 5% and likely won't reduce from there. Conversely, another seller could price his at $210,000, so a 5% reduction would put you back to about market value- a local, seasoned Realtor can help you separate the wheat from the chaff.

Amy,

All the answers are great. If you are looking for a realtor in the Pitt county area to assist you i would like to talk with you about any questions you may have. Feel free to call me or e-mail me if you have any questions at all.

Amy
it sounds to me as though you should sit down with your Realtor and map out a plan, Have you done that?

When I meet with the buyers in my work we cover the process from start to finish.
The first part is the reality that in any given market about 20% of homes are properly priced, marketed, and will sell within three or four weeks. 80% of the market's homes are over-priced, not preprared for sale, and not marketed correctly.

From the buyer's position, that means that if they see a new listing come on the market, and their Realtor says "based on my experience, this one is going to go quickly at full price", then believe them. If you write an offer below asking, your offer will probably be either ignored, or countered. And there will probably be more than one offer.

If they see a listing that has been on the market for a while, then you have the problem of figuring out what the true market may be. To give you an idea, in my market homes that have more than 120 days on the market are selling for 92.7% of asking price. So we know that if this is the average, some homes may need to be sold at much less than that, a some a little higher.

Homes that sell within 30 days are selling at 99.7% of asking price. So that supports the idea that you need to make a "close to full price" offer in order to get the home.

Normally a Realtor who knows the local market can determine relatively quickly what the value of a property is. You should also know that it is usually a tough road to make really, really, low offers because sellers get ticked off and just reject them outright. If your Realtor can make a case for the price offered you'll have a better chance at starting a dialogue.

However, in most cases, buyers are not going to be able to buy the home "below market" because somebody will come along and pay market value. The only time that is not true is if the home has some values that are not easily discerned. If the listing agent has not done a good job exposing the points of value it is possible a sharp buyer's agent will see these points of true value and take them into account when ascribing a likely sales price.

There is no set amount to deduct from the price, each house should be taken case by case . You need to assess if the owner can go lower, most sellers owe at or more than the asking price. Check the past sales to see what they paid and check the regostry of deeds to see what they owe. Then most important you need to find out what the house is worth in todays market and then base your ofer on that. If you do not have the ability to look up the info needed to make a good offer, you should get a buyer broker who can assist you in getting the info and making an offer, in most cases you can negotiate it so that it does not cost you anything out of pocket as teh buyer agent gets paid at closing from the listing agent. This way you will have someone looking oout for you and guide you through the buying process. Good Luck with your purchase.

Amy,
Michael is correct since it would depend on what the market value of the home is in the first place. An agent can do a CMA (comparative market analysis) of all the comparable homes (similiar in size and features) in the area that are actively for sale and that have been sold within usually the last six months. Then you know approximately what the "market value" is. Looking at that and also pulling the information from the register of deeds site as to how much they owe. Compiling even some other information from other sources you can tell what to offer. There unfortunately is no magic percentage that we use to calculate how much we subtract from the price to submit an offer.
A good buyer's agent can help you with that. Not saying that you cannot do this on your own but, consider that the commission offered has already been negotiated between the homeowner and the listing agent. Well that commission does not get discounted if you walk in without an agent. It just means the listing agent keeps it all instead of splitting it with a buyer's agent.


Hope this helps,

Amy
You must use a Realtor and they will help you determine a fair price to offer based on sales in the area.
Michael