Virginia Beach Real Estate News For Buyers And Sellers

\"Surf to Sunsets\" – Chesapeake, Norfolk, Suffolk, and Hampton Roads Homes, Foreclosures, and Condos For Sale

  • tel (757) 343-4949

What You Should Offer for Virginia Beach, Chesapeake, or Hampton Roads Real Estate

filed under: Buyers, Main category posted on December 18th, 2007

When you are on the path to buying a new home in Virginia Beach, Chesapeake, Suffolk, Norfolk, or Hampton Roads, one of the first things you’ll notice is the seller’s asking price for the home. However, if you’ve made it to the point in your home-buying process where you are ready to make an offer on real estate in Hampton Roads, it’s important to know that you can provide a different number than what the seller is asking. So, how do you come up with the right figure that you could use during your negotiations?

There are a number of things you should take into consideration when determining the offer price that will be taken to the negotiating table. Of course, the figure you provide should be well thought out and not just a random number thrown together over breakfast. Determining your real estate offer in Hampton Roads is a three step process and consists of the following.

First, you will want to look at recent sales of similar properties in the area to come up with a consistent price range. Is the real estate water front or oceanfront?

Once you’ve come up with the average selling price of similar homes, you’ll want to analyze the condition of the home you are interested in buying, improvements made to the property, current market conditions, as well as the conditions of the seller. These particulars will aid you in coming up with a fair price that you can negotiate with.

After you have determined the price, you’re ready to submit an offer to the seller.
When looking for comparable sales, or recent sales of homes located in Virginia Beach or Hampton Roads that compare closely to the one you are looking to purchase, you’ll want to pay attention to a few things. For example, you will want to compare selling prices of homes that are similar in square footage, number of bedrooms and bathrooms, garage space, lot size and type of construction, oceanfront, or on water.
There are three main sources that you can use to get comparable sales data, all of which are easily accessed by a Realtor®.

Gathering this information is a bit more difficult for the general public, so it’s best to work with a real estate agent to get this valuable information. Two of the most obvious sources are the public record and the Multiple Listing Service, or MLS as it’s typically called.
Gathering information from the Public Record is typically easiest and much more accessible than the MLS. When someone purchases a home it’s deeded from the seller to the buyer. This information is always recorded at the local county’s recording office. This office combines sales data with information already known about the property so that they can access property taxes correctly. The information contained in the public record is generally correct regarding sales price, square footage and numbers of rooms.
However, accessing public record information can be a time-consuming task since requests for information tend to take anywhere from six to eight weeks.

Real estate agents, on the other hand, can gain access to this information right away through title insurance companies. Title companies either compile the data directly from the county recorder’s office or purchase it.
The Multiple Listing Service is a private resource available to real estate agents. Realtors list their properties available for sale on the MLS network. Once a property has sold and the transaction is closed, the selling price is posted to the listing in the MLS. Through time, the MLS has become a very valuable resource and a huge database with information on past sales.

However, this information is only made available to Realtors who are members of the Multiple Listing Service.
It’s important to keep in mind that the most current information is the most valuable to you during your negotiation process. A sale that occurred a few weeks ago is worth more to you than one that happened six months ago. Just be sure to look for ones that have been deeded already and are not still in pending sale mode. Prices that have not been closed and that are still considered pending will not show the selling price on the MLS. The reason for this is because it protects the seller in case the sale falls through. It would give an unfair advantage to future buyers if they already knew the price the seller was willing to take!

However, if a Realtor has a reason to know the sales price, he or she can often find out through professional courtesy.

posted by Dennis Blackmore

This entry was posted on Tuesday, December 18th, 2007 at 9:44 am and is filed under Buyers, Main category. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

Leave a Reply