Palm Beach Real Estate and Loans

In a previous article I listed several factors that impact what you should offer when looking to purchase Palm Beach real estate.

Here I will expand on the items that I'd mentioned:

- Is this the Palm Beach home you HAVE to have, or you just looking for a bargain? 

If you are just looking for a bargain, an investment that will appreciate with time, you may want to try a low-ball offer at first if it's accepted, great - if not there are quite a few other properties to look at.  However, if you've found the home of your dreams you are going to need to offer something close to the listing price - you want the Seller to accept your offer quickly as opposed to them wanting time to wait for better offers to come along.

- What is the condition of the house?

If for some reason the house or the property is not in top shape, the Sellers would probably be more eager to snap up a lower offer just to get rid of it.  There's nothing wrong with a 'fixer-upper'  - you have the chance to get a bargain AND redo the property the exactly the way YOU want.

- We'll look at the most recent comparable sales.

There really not that hard to find especially when your talking about golf/country club communities like BallenIsles, PGA National or Ibis - because within each subdivision all of the units are very similar, avoiding the necessity of making a lot of adjustments to the pricing.  You'll see what each home sold for and use that as a guide to what the property that you are interested in is worth.

- I'll show you the pricing history on the property.

We need to review the pricing on the home.  Has it been going down, which shows that the Seller is getting more and more eager to get a Buyer?  

Has it stayed the same for a long period of time?  This indicates stubbornness on the part of the Seller - they insist on getting their price and they won't move no matter what! (In the short term that's not necessarily bad, but I just saw 2 homes - 1 listed for over 415 days with no price drop the other for OVER 760 days with no price drops - that's not stubborn, it's stupid.)

Has the price gone up? This might make sense in a Sellers' Market, but in the current Buyers' Market it's a sure sign that the Seller and / or their Agent is not the brightest bulb on the tree.

- Are you paying cash - or if you are going to need a mortgage, how much will the house appraise for?

Don't get me wrong - I'm not saying that if you're all cash that you should over-spend.  But If you absolutely HAVE to have a particular home, you might care less about the possible appraised value then someone who needs a home loan.  When you start looking for homes you will, of course, make sure that you are pre-approved for a mortgage - that way you will know what the maximum is that you can borrow.  When we look at homes I will have a good idea of what they will appraise for and you can make your offer based on that.  People can ask for high prices, but if the property won't appraise, they'll be waiting to sell for a looooong time.

So with all of that in mind we will work together to make your initial offer - if that isn't accepted, we'll consider the counter-offer and go from there.

It's definitely an art, not a science - but if you're properly prepared, it's not that difficult!

Related Posts