Counter offer suggestions

[Troy Rasmussen]

Hey everyone! This is my first time posting in the forums and I’m a newbie investor.

I live in Syracuse, NY and made a 68k cash offer on a multi family property that had a 80k asking price. My offer was contingent on an inspection among a few other things. The seller was happy with the price but asked me to drop the inspection contingency.

I won’t do the deal without thoroughly looking through the property with my partner, but I’m looking for some advice on how I can protect myself in other ways without having an inspection.

Thanks for your help in advance!

-Troy

[Mike Alt]

@Aaron K. I have to disagree, to say "the inspection contingency is the only thing protecting you" is to assume 0 personal responsibility and a surefire way to end up with sour grapes.

@Troy Rasmussen Given the property is in Syracuse and they are letting it go for $68k you can rest assured there are a plethora of deferred maintenance and probably outright defects with the property.  I stopped writing "inspection" contingencies in most of my offers in Syracuse and instead write a blanket "due diligence" contingency that is either 7 or 10 days, depending on my schedule.  I also write in all units must be viewable for me to do a "contractor walk thru" during the due diligence period and I can back out for any reason in the timeframe.  I also write all my offers with AS-IS condition.  

For whatever reason, this has helped me get through to more accepted offers than I was getting previously.   Granted, the offer isn't fundamentally any different from the boilerplate offer.........

I do the same walkthru inspection I would have otherwise done.  

I can still back out or try to renegotiate offers, even though I agreed to AS-IS.  

What it does (I think) is frame the offer more aggressively as an investor who isn't going to dick around and I make sure my agent communicates the same.  I try to think of my offers as a piece of marketing material.  Write a strong offer that stands out and sound sure of the closing.

That said, I can virtually guarantee the inspection report is going to come back a complete turd at that price point if you're in the city of Syracuse or surrounding areas.  What you should be doing is making sure you don't get any unexpected surprises that you haven't budgeted or accounted for.