You'd be surprised at how much you can get simply by asking. I'm not talking in the context of negotiation so much as in the context of making an offer to buy a property from a motivated seller.
How can you tell a seller is motivated? By making a low offer – over and over again. When you make an offer and the seller doesn't respond, that's a pretty sure indication that you won't be able to make a good deal, and you might want to pass on to another buyer. That statement might not be true in a sellers' market, but it is in a buyers' market such as we have in most areas today.
Look at things from the sellers' viewpoint: They have no way of knowing what the true retail value of their property is. Oh they can have it appraised or check the price against the MLS, but this isn't true retail value. Today, in many areas, the vast majority of houses are being bought at foreclosure sales, via short sales, or directly from REO inventories held by lenders who have had no bidders at their minimum bid at foreclosure sales. These comparable sales figures might be only half as high as comparable MLS listing prices.
I'm not talking about one or two sellers, but holders of billions of dollars in toxic assets (foreclosed houses and defaulted loans) who can't sell them to other lenders because they can't accurately value them in a rapidly falling market.
Making low offers is a risk-free game today. It can also be relatively effortless if you'll load a bid-form or purchase contract into your computer, then make offers by e-mail. You bid or offer should state that you will deposit $1000 earnest money into escrow with a title company of their choosing, or in the absence of this, of your own choosing by the close of business of the next business day following receipt of an acceptance of your offer. That's all there is to it.
Once you get set up to make offers, your only challenge is to find houses that you want to buy. In addition to expired MLS listings, there are websites where sellers, brokers, and lenders advertise their houses for sale. Many lenders have their own websites that do the same thing. You're only limited by the effort you're willing to put in to locate these websites and to make offers.
