Seller's Price Justifications
The "hard" evidence that sellers can use like weapons
to defend their asking price sometimes overwhelms and intimidates buyers. Be prepared to
let seller's defenses roll off your back without compromising your position. Willingly,
sellers will bring out appraisals, market-value estimates by real estate agents, computer
printouts of homes sold in the neighborhood, and cost receipts of improvements that have
been made.
Be prepared to attack as follows:
An Appraisal: No matter how expert the appraiser, he or she can't
put a price on your home. No one can ever understand all the factors that are important to
you. An appraiser judges what's important to him or her.
Market-Value Estimate by a Real Estate Agent: Giving free market
evaluations is the way real estate agents get business. It's a device to butter up sellers
and entice the sellers to "come list with me." As such, agents wanting the
listing so badly sometimes give maximum, often outrageously high, market-value prices.
Computer Printouts of Homes Sold in the Neighborhood:
Interesting. Worth looking over. Usually these lists are limited to homes sold by real
estate companies, not by owners. Sometimes homes on the list are carefully selected to
justify a higher price. Check with a buyer's broker for the true story.
Cost Receipts of Improvements Made: Again, interesting. But not
necessarily suited to your needs. I know buyers who paid more for a home without the extra
finished room. They didn't want to have to keep up the extra space.
This Homebuyers Tip was excerpted from:
Buying More House for Less Money,By Cecil Lohmar, Probus
Publishing Company, 1990
ISBN# 1557381623
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