Last year, 10 percent of REALTORS® complained about receiving low-ball offers on listed homes — offers usually submitted by the buyer for 25 percent or more below the list price, according to a National Association of REALTORS® survey of its members. But that number has dropped drastically.
According
to a survey this March of 4,500 agents and brokers, no REALTORS® complained
about low-ball offers. The main problem nowadays: The sudden drop in inventory
of for-sale homes has led to fewer homes available to sell.
For
home buyers who still think they have a chance of hitting it lucky with a
low-ball offer, they’re finding in many markets that their offers are more often
being rejected or countered closer to the original asking price, the Los Angeles
Times reports.
West
Neal with Prudential Olympia in Olympia, Wash., recalls a buyer who came in
recently with an offer of $150,000 for a home listed at $250,000. Eventually,
they negotiated a final sales price of $230,000, but it took a lot of
negotiating on the agents’ parts to get the buyer higher.
"Low-ball
offers are down a lot because we're seeing more homes come on the market that
are more realistically priced," Neal told the Los Angeles Times.
Source: “Low-ball Offers Decline in Some Housing
Markets,” Los Angeles Times (April 22, 2012)