How low can you go
Limbo is a game, the game is how low can you go. And no matter how often I write about the subject of lowball offers, it seems that some buyers want to go even lower. While no one should have to pay more than they want when buying Charleston real estate, if you go too low, the problem is that you won't be buying but simply writing offers.
Most (but not all) sellers rely on the advice and counsel of a Charleston real estate professional to determine the value of their property when listing it for sale. If their real estate agent has prepared a comparative market analysis (CMA) and the seller offers their property in a reasonable range based on what other properties have recently sold for, an offer that comes in substantially below that price will not be accepted and in many cases, won't even get a counter offer but be simply rejected as inadequate. And this is especially true during the time period immediately following the listing.
I'm certainly not suggesting that you should have to pay full price for a home that has just come on the market considering current market conditions but your buyers agent should also prepare a CMA for you to see whether the listing price is realistic or not and that should be the basis for your offer, not just throwing some number out there to see whether you can get it or not.
Now, after the home for sale has been on the market a while and if no offers have materialized, the seller may lower their price. And you have a much better chance of offering somewhat less than list price at that point or quite a bit less than list price if they haven't taken a price reduction. So while days on market doesn't really matter when it comes to whether there is something wrong with a house (the most common question that buyers have is always, "how long has that house been on the market"), days on market does matter when formulating a price to offer.
Photo courtesy of Flickr by the justified sinner