This is a personal question. My wife and I found a house that we want to purchase and it is a REO owned by American Home Mortgage which I’ve been told is a division of Countrywide. Current list price is $399,000 and we’re going to offer $350,000 as-is. We’re just wondering how flexible Countrywide is. We’re also going to have a contingency stating that we have to sell our current home as well.
You’ll lose them with a contingency like that. You could be offering MORE than what they are asking and if you tell them it all pends you selling your current home they will reject your offer, or at least counter with that removed, and look for other buyers.
Other than that, if you are wanting to get the property for $350k your first offer should be lower.
GooD LucK! :beer
Thanks for the reply. You’re the second person that has told me to remove that contingency. I guess we’ll have to do that and just ask for a longer closing period.
Longer closing periods can get your offer rejected as well. I know you want, even need, to sell your current home before you can buy another one, but expecting an AM to hold a property is wishful thinking. Their job is to sell for as much and as quickly as possible. More often than not they will get more than one offer on a property so if your’s won’t work they’ll go with the next best one.
I suggest you sell your home first and THEN look for a property. Upon selling your home you can negotiate that you have 30 to 90 days from the time you close to when you need to be moved out. You may not have to pay rent for month number one, but past that the new owner will want something to pay the mortgage note with.
Timing will obviously be very important to you. From the time the lender agrees to your offer you can generally get 30 to 45 days before they will want to close. If you get your own home under contract and then accept their counter offer you might have better luck with the timing and not get stuck with two mortgage notes.
GooD LucK! :beer