What a great day. Negotiation at its best. We got the bank to agree to things that I never thought they would and almost did not ask. In fact we even learned a lesson on this negotiation so I figured I would past and pass it along.
Made an offer on a bank owned property last night and got a response this morning. We offered $269,000 on a $282, 000 list price. The property was newly listed and I did not think that would take a discount unless it had been listed for a few days. They countered our offer at 275K and we went back at 270K and they took it. They wanted 5K for a deposit and we offered 1K and they countered at 3K and we settled on 2K. Then we wanted to have time to test the Septic system and well and asked for 2 weeks and they granted us 2 weeks. Then we wanted the septic tested and asked them to pay for that as well as the re-winterization. WHat a one sided negotiation. We asked for everything and they gave it to us.
Keep in mind that this will not happen in every deal but you need to ask. In this case our agent was having good communication with the bank and the responses were fast and that is one of the biggest reasons that we kept asking for more. We figured they would respond quickly and say no and we could still get the deal. Remember as well that when you are in a very competitive situation you might not have the chance to ask for all that but when the seller has good communication you can take advantage.
Make sure you are out there making offers. We did not think that we would get this one but made the offer anyway. THe best part is after the septic inspection we can try another round of negotiations to get a little better discount.
