All Forum Posts by: Christian Malesic

With all due respect, I understand your points and still stand by my comments.

Buyers and sellers (whether they are banks, companies, or individuals) must negotiate in good faith an arrangement that works for both parties. This is true for an ‘offer’ to reach ‘acceptance’ – thus becoming a ‘contract’.

I am emphasizing here, and in my previous post, that each of the terms of an offer can act as a see-saw against each other. If a buyer presents all terms seen as negative by a seller, the seller will not accept the offer. Thus, for all 'negative terms' there must be 'positive terms' that outweigh the negative.

Buyers, and sometimes sellers, often fail to recognize this point to their own detriment.

Terms to consider:
Property ‘as-is’ or with inspections and associated repair allowances
- Termite and pest inspection
- Radon inspection
- General conditions and repairs
Period of time until close
Mortgage contingency or cash
Insurance contingency
Who pays closing costs
- Deed preparation
- Recording Fees
- Realtor and/or attorney fees
- Title insurance
- Taxes (current and past)
- Liens and utility bills outstanding
Earnest Money
Contract Price
(there may be a few I am neglecting as I did this from the top of my head)

Therefore, if ‘contract price’ is low, which is assumed to be the case in this thread, it holds negative weight. It follows then that if Earnest Money is low and other terms are also negative that the offer will not be accepted.

Real Estate, as with all contractual relationships must be win-win for both parties. Of course, each party interprets ‘win’ differently.

Banks are requesting 10% of offer as an Earnest Deposit. You can put more, you can put less. Consider this one of the terms of the deal. Look at the whole package.

Here's another way of looking at it:

I will pay anyone here $1 Million if they agree to do a task for me. Any takers?

Not enough info, right? What if I tell you the task is to take my trash can down to the curb while I am away next week - great deal!

How about if the task is to rebuild all of the NY City sewers in a 6 month period - terrible deal!

The point of this exercise is - look at all of the terms of your offer.

If you are planning to offer asking price, or even above, then give low Earnest Deposit. On the other hand if you are looking to really slice the asking price to bits with your offer, up your Earnest Deposit and make sure your other terms are favorable to the bank.

"Never fall in love with Real Estate" - there is always another deal right around the corner.

Hello. I am glad we caught your attention. Tell us a little bit about yourself.

The Dems have been experts at the baby step approach. I WOULD be surprised it there was some sort of massive outright ban of the 2nd amendment. What I expect it a slow crawl toward communism.

Hello Allen and welcome.

There is nothing better for experience than real experience...

Having said that, you really seem to be doing your homework - bravo!

So many just dive in and learn from the school-of-hard-knocks.

We will save you a little trouble:

See these threads:

Realtor License?

and here

Don't Rely on Agents - Become One

and here

Would You Recommend Becoming an Agent?

You have come to the right place. Welcome.

We have almost exclusively replaced all other heat sources with BB heat. We just did 7 apartments this past year, leaving only 3 in our inventory not done.

Just 2 weeks ago, a tenant in one of the remaining 3 complained of no heat. We had a HVAC guy (whom we trust) go out and he replaced the starter for $168. One week to the day later, the tenant called and it was not working again, the HVAC guy went out and replaced another widget for another $200. After 2 more days, no heat.

Needless to say... we now have only 2 units that do not have BB heat. We just got tired of the nickle and dime stuff with no promise of long term operation with the HVAC unit. BTW, it was a gas furnance.

Grrrrrrr. Growl. Scour. Grrrrrrrrrr.....

Just kidding. Of course, we will be nice. We are glad you found us. It sounds as though you have some unique expertise (on two fronts) that you may be able to offer.

See you around the forums.