if you were offered

$370,000 when the house is listed at $429,000 (originally 450,000) what would you counter offer? my MIL who IS a real estate agent only counter offered 425,000. i think she's stupid for doing that. at least knock off 10,000! i have a feeling the people won't try to put another offer in. i know she'll take around 400,000 (not that she wants to considering it's worth so much more) but i dont think people will offer 400 after offering 370. especially seeing her go down 5,000. what would you have offered?

Message edited 6/2/2009 5:16:07 PM.

Re: if you were offered

We put an offer of $380 on a house that was listed for 429. We were outbid right away with an offer of 419- which the seller accepted.

A week later we got a call that the other buyer backed out. We went in again at 390 (which got them p.o.'ed) but we knew our max was 410. They countered with 415 and 413 before we settled on 410.

So, I think they will come back with another counter- they just won't meet her #.

Message edited 6/4/2009 9:46:48 AM.

Re: if you were offered

I think in this market a counter offer at $425K was a bad idea. She needs to be willing to give more than that. If I were the buyer, I would be annoyed, and move on. I would think the seller isn't going to negotiate far off the asking price. I don't want to play the back and forth game (more than once or twice).

Message edited 6/2/2009 7:51:21 PM.

Re: if you were offered

I think I would have countered with $400K & then held firm. ( provided the house wasn't overpriced to start with.)

Re: if you were offered

the house is actually worth a lot more than 450,000 but we put it down to 429,000 because there are like 5 other houses in our neighborhood that are for sale and we want to keep everyone interested. but good news, they counter offered 390,000 and i think my MIL is gonna accept!!! it's less than what she wanted to take, but we really wanna get out of this house and buy a certain house in bayville so now my DH has to go through the whole process of pre approval and putting in an offer! i'm so nervous that they don't take an offer (the house has been on and off the market for 3 years and they didn't really lower the price so we're thinking they are just seeing what kinda offers they will get) it's our dream house and i just hope we get it! thanks for the insight guys. i totally agree with you but i'm glad they agreed to even 390,000!