Submitting an Offer on Short Sale - Need Advice

[Kyle Steiner]

I'm planning on submitting an offer on a short sale and I wanted to get the community's advice on the best strategy for getting the offer accepted while not going over my budget.  I made a conservative estimate of what I think may be needed in terms of repairs and upgrades and based on my desired profit, my max offer is about $50,000 lower than the list price.  My assumptions are really just shots in the dark because I haven't seen the property in person and there are no interior photos of the house.  So it's possible that I could offer more if the needed repairs are less than my assumptions.

$50,000 less than the listing price is a significant discount over a house that is already listed about 10% less than comparable properties.  

If you were to make an offer on this property, would you submit an offer higher than you were actually willing to pay and then request seller credits once the inspection report comes back?

Or would you submit a conservative number in the hopes that it gets accepted and you don't have the back-and-forth that comes from requesting seller credits?

[Aaron K.]

If this property is in Orange County it is probably already very competitive, so I would recommend submitting your best price the first time if you want to have a chance of getting it accepted (in general for CA depending on property price; $50,000 under list price isn't going to cut it)  Also if this is in Orange County and at a reasonable price they likely have many offers with no contingencies that they could easily accept and move forward with instead of giving you seller credits.