"100% of people who do not save money do not have any!"--Dave Ramsey

[redpoint5]

My comment about offering 1/2 was just in general. There's a lot of people trying to sell used furniture for new retail price. There's people trying to sell an 8 year old washing machine for $1,000. I'll offer 1/10th or less in those cases.

With real estate, people generally ask closer to the market value, so you probably won't be able to get more than about 5% less than list. The list vs sell price is tracked in markets and it's used as a proxy to see if it's a buyers or sellers market.

[JSH]

Originally Posted by Xist

What would it take to make any 520-square-foot house nice?

The same as any other house. What is wrong with a 520 sq ft house for one person?

[Fat Charlie]

It's a tiny house in bad shape in a market that hasn't hit bottom.

1. Get preapproved for a mortgage.
2. Figure out what you would pay for a house like that in good shape.
3. Figure out what it would cost you to put that house in good shape.
4. Make an offer based on that math instead of his asking price.

[JSH]

Originally Posted by Fat Charlie

It's a tiny house in bad shape in a market that hasn't hit bottom.

He didn't ask about that 520 sq ft house. He asked:

Originally Posted by Xist

What would it take to make any 520-square-foot house nice?

On the other hand there is this:

https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/2...08275690_zpid/

A commercial shed already turned into a tiny house for $22,000

[oil pan 4]

People that want like new prices for old stuff are on drugs.

[Xist]

Okay, but is that better or worse than a $1,500 a day Fabergé egg habit?

People ask outrageous prices for used cars, even when they aren't running.

Somehow they think that this house is worth $125 a square foot when several bigger houses sold for less.

They weren't necessarily in worse shape.

They are asking $65,000 and I say that it is probably worth closer to $31,200, 48% as much.

The realtor wants a good price for it because of her commission. Let's take a trick from one of those wholesalers. Unfortunately, I think that it was the annoying one.

Offer 55% of the asking price directly to the selling agent. She would get 10% more than if someone used their own agent to offer full price, so hopefully the realtor encourages the seller to come down further.

One complicating factor, how much is the land worth?

Everything the chain link touches? Including the shed and camper?
The old shed is too new for Google maps?

The lot looks big, but I am pretty sure that it is just long and narrow, it is 6,534 square feet, so they are asking $10 per square foot of dirt.

Twenty lots were sold in the last 192 days. I drew a circle around Show Low. Apparently not all of those huge tracts of land are actually in the city. One was 40 acres. Let's remove that one, although $650 an acre pretty close to town sounds good to me!.

Three more vary between .97 and 2.14 acres. We vote you off the island! Two are actually in the next town and have higher price-per-square-foot prices than the ones in-town. You're out!

That leaves 13 properties in-town between 4,791 and 22,216 square feet and $1.68 and $6.48 per square foot, but those seem to be outliers. The rest are between $2.01 and $5.57, so eliminating the high and low, the average shifts 8𝇍.

So, here in Show Low, dirt is worth around $3.53 per square foot, indicating the lot is worth $23,071.15.

Guys? Lots seem to be worth more than houses!

I pulled up my spreadsheet of sold houses and just calculating price per square foot of the lot it averaged $3.01.

I was going to make a more detailed list of what is wrong with the house, but that was already more work than I wanted, apparently there were a number of newer responses, and some children on YouTube were engaging in ad-hominem attacks.

When one of the people that I follow post a video I ask the first question that comes to mind to start a discussion. Often I get nothing or just trolling. This time it was straight insults.

Nice!

[redpoint5]

Originally Posted by Xist

Okay, but is that better or worse than a $1,500 a day Fabergé egg habit?

...I ask the first question that comes to mind to start a discussion. Often I get nothing or just trolling.

It might be because the question sounds like trolling.

If I were to take the question seriously, I'd say that drug habits are often seriously detrimental to the individual and those around them. Never heard of, say, my jetski getting stolen because of someone's Fabergé egg habit.

[Xist]

That is relevant to a completely different thread, JSH!

What stood out to me from that listing:
"Electric and phone lines are right across the street."
I wouldn't be surprised if it cost five or ten thousand dollars to connect those lines. Why didn't the owner?

"Owner Will Carry Option, terms negotiable."
It is good to have options.

"Please present all offers."
Tree fitty!

Another response already!

RedPoint, that was a Simpsons reference. However, when Kevin posted a video I asked "How much more is a property worth if it has a larger lot than the neighbors?" and people cursed at me.

Classy!

[JSH]

Originally Posted by Xist

That is relevant to a completely different thread, JSH!

Yes, you have spread your life story over many threads. I can be hard for the rest of us to keep it all straight.

Originally Posted by Xist

What stood out to me from that listing:
"Electric and phone lines are right across the street."
I wouldn't be surprised if it cost five or ten thousand dollars to connect those lines. Why didn't the owner?

They didn't run the phone because nobody uses a landline anymore. They did run internet because that is an essential service.

Electricity? My guess is that this is either :

1. A property were the owner lives in an RV. I have some friends with a similar vacation property in TN. They sleep in the RV but have a large outbuilding that provides more living area and has a real kitchen. They also have an outdoor shower - which is FANTASTIC by the way.
2. The owner planned to live in the shed while they built a house but the plan has changed

You are correct that it costs thousands of dollars to run utilities to a property. That is one of the reasons why small houses cost more per square foot. The price of the land and expense to run the utilities are spread over fewer sq ft of house.

Originally Posted by Xist

"Owner Will Carry Option, terms negotiable."
It is good to have options.

That means the owner is open to carrying the mortgage. You would draw up a contract and make payments to them. When the agreed upon payments are made the title would transfer to you. That tells me the owner isn’t in a rush to sell this property and doesn’t need to the money.

https://www.investopedia.com/article...-financing.asp

[Ecky]

I hadn't looked at the price per square foot of land for my house before. We apparently paid $3.67 per square of dirt, and it came with a 4 bedroom house, a garage and a swimming pool (above ground, promptly removed). Vermont is notorious for having regionally very expensive land, all else being equal.