Thanks to Peter for sending in this sale that exemplifies how to get a good deal.

Someimes you can get lucky and the listing agent does the work for you – and you just need to be in the right place, at the right time. We already saw this one where an out-of-town agent listed way too low at $1,195,000 and the neighbor across the street jumped on it and paid full price – then did nothing to it and put it right back on the market for $1,595,000…..and sold it for $1,550,000 cash.

But the one above was even better.

It’s a 4br/3ba, 2,377sf house in Cardiff, and last summer there were comps that had the seller believing it might be worth $1,800,000.  Here are things from this case that you can look for when lowballing:

  1. Long-time owners who have a large equity position and have the ability to dump on price.
  2. Sellers who have refinanced ten times.
  3. Listing broker who announces they are closing their doors on August 24th.
  4. Listing agent who doesn’t get in the way.
  5. Pricing strategy that gives you hope.

The price reduction at the end of September put it on the range $1,549,900 to $1,699,900, and after three months on the market, all of the buyers were looking at the bottom number. Another month went by before they found the buyer, who by then had to be licking his chops. I don’t know how much the price was reduced after inspections (usually it’s a combination of low offer and more reduction after inspections), but however they got to $1,274,000 made it a great buy.

The buyer is a corporation and they financed their purchase with this fix-and-flip lender, so we should be seeing it on the market again soon!

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