I am considering making an offer on a very nice home. The current owners paid $355k for this home several years ago. The owners are either divorced or will be shortly and the husband has moved out of state while the wife lives in the house. When the husband found out my agent was showing his house he called him and said,"don't worry about insulting me...bring me an offer I need to move this house". The house is listed at $305K and I'm considering an offer of $250k with NO contingencys and quick closing. Yes we are pre-approved and no we have no house to sell. My agent suggest we start at $265k. Thoughts on this situation?

All RE is local. If you trust your agent, I would seriously consider taking their advice as they know the local market and should have an idea what will fly and what will not. If there are 2 sellers you have to be aware of insulting either of them not just one.

Just my humble opinion.

Best wishes and good luck

Go ahead and offer 250. If they ignore you or outright reject the offer, you can always offer more.

It does bring up something that a fellow agent said to me recently:"Buyers today aren't satisfied with getting a good deal. They want to make the seller bleed."

Id make the offer at 250K. The seller has the option to accept, counter, or reject. When I get low offers I always encourage my sellers not to take it personal, counter it and let me do my job.

I agree with the offer of $250k. You won't know if they will work with this until you send them the offer.

Offer $250. There is no downside. Just like everyone else said, they shouldn't take it personal. They can always reject and counter.

I hate to say this, but being that they are getting divorced, it is probably likely that the wife wants to leave the house as well and put those bad memories behind her.

danw: Please check back in and let us know how this turned out for you.

On a side note, I'd like to add that what the out-of-state husband told your agent and what the resident wife says may be two entirely different things. I really doubt that these two divorcing people are on the same page.

There is a possible downside that someone else will come in at a higher price than your offer if it is really a deal. I can not tell you how many times we have had a listing for 45+ days and get multiple offers at the same time for no apparent reason.

Isn't that funny how a property sits dead for weeks on end and suddenly everyone wants to put an offer on it?!!! Great for the seller!

Funny. Just closing a deal now where after 45 days on the market, all of sudden there were multiple offers on the table (and this coming at a slow time in our market). It's a great deal, not sure why it didn't get taken before.

And to the OP, I'd say go with your offer of $250K and see where it lands. Post an update when you can.