Best Way to Negotiate an Offer Subject to Inspection?

[Wes Blackwell]

Let's imagine you had a property that you're interested in, and the seller or listing agent is asking for offers subject to inspection and doesn't have any interior pictures of the home or won't let you in to view it before making an offer... and the property is waaaaay overpriced.

How would you approach the situation? Should you try to negotiate immediately and make a lower offer upfront? Or just write an offer for full-ask and then negotiate afterwards?

I have a property I'm working on for a client, and the home is WAY overpriced, by at least $75k which is a huge deal in this price range (sub $300k). I have the comps to prove it, am trying to discern whether I should bring them up now before writing the offer, or wait until after the inspection to present them along with additional findings. 

If we were closed on price I'd probably just offer ask and then negotiate down, but in this case we have absolutely no intention of paying anywhere near asking price and don't want to give off that perception to the seller. 

How would you handle a scenario like this?

[Wes Blackwell]

@John Thedford -- it's pretty typical out here, especially for 2-4 multifamily properties. In part I think it's just lazy agent syndrome, but sometimes sellers don't want to disturb the tenants unless it's a serious buyer. And to them we're only serious if we're willing to write an offer subjection to inspection without seeing the interior. I understand that they don't want a bunch of tire-kickers and wannabe investors, but I agree with you that the whole thing is pretty ridiculous and just makes the proceeding all the more complicated. Frankly, I think proof of funds and perhaps a letter of intent should be enough, so perhaps I can try that.