No you didn’t, you can’t make the price, you made an offer. The seller can never make the price. The buyer sets the price. You proved my point when you said you bought the houses for 70K when you thought they were worth 100K each. You set the price with the bank, the bank agreed. If the bank thought they were worth more, they would have wanted more or they wanted to unload them. Remember the buyer has the money and the buyer decides what stuff is worth. That is business 101.
But if the seller does not agree then there is no deal!!!
True. But the buyer will always set the price. If you put one of your REOs on the market at 100K and a buyer agrees and purchases that home for 100K. At that moment, the buyer believed your price was right and set the price on that home at 100K. If you are in a hot market and many buyers are bidding on your home. A buyer usually will set the price higher than what you are asking. Let’s say 110K, the buyer still set the price. Now let’s say a major company closed it doors and layed off 25K employees and interest rates jumped to 8%. Other homes are selling at 60K, but because yours is a REO, a little less disreable, the buyer offers 50K. If you accept it the buyer still set the price at 50K even though you wanted 100K. The buyer has the money or credit. If you refused the offer, and you later receive a simular offer, you either have to try to rent it out (might be tough if people are leaving the area) or try and hold it for a better market. Or just sell it at the loss.
Remember the buyer sets the price in any transaction. They have the money. Some don’t realize what bargaining power they do have and listen to their RE Agents. I have never listened to a RE Agent about what to offer.
It is like any other market in the world. Supply and Demand. Demand is generated through the natural flow of people looking to own homes, people moving into an area, interest rates, ease of obtaining a loan, and so forth.
The power of price will tip to the seller when Demand is greater than supply. The power of price will tip to the buyer when supply is greater than demand.
If you lived in an area where houses were 100k-200k and you put yours up for 500k, it would most likely sit because the demand for 500k homes in that area is at 0 and supply is at 1. To sell, you would be forced to lower your price until you reach a demand level or hold on to your home.
An appraisal is simply an estimate as to what the property is worth at the present time. This is based on the demand of said property, land value, materials, and some other factors.
If you have a home in say Las Vegas that now appraises at 500k and last year was 400k, what has happened? The materials did not gain in value, they got worse. Nothing new came to the area either. What happened was the demand for that area rose above the supply. The more “weight”, the higher the increase. Of course inflation happened too.
Imagine if you will a town surrounded by mountains and one road out. The town has 100 homes and no more can be built. On an average year 5 people put a home up for sale and 5 people look for a home. The market would be flat with possible appreciation due to inflation. Now imagine one year that the town generates a buzz and 100 people come looking for homes but only 5 are available. What do you think happens? Prices skyrocket because the demand, in this case, would exceed the supply by 20 fold.
This is why you should know what the supply level is for the area you are looking at. Right now in Las Vegas there are 71% more homes on the market than this time last year. There are not 71% more buyers. We have an over-saturated market, thus it is a buyers market right now. Appreciation has cooled to normal levels now. Some people don’t know this because they are still looking at 12 month figures. When will Las Vegas see another spike? When our supply goes down and gets in line with demand.