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Advice on negotiating price for a first time home buyer

First time home buyer attempting to buy the house we are currently renting from our landlord.

The landlord is asking $156k. She is offering it to us first. It was her mom’s house and she lives over an hour away and has no other properties in the area. They are selling because it just is an outlier and insurance prices have increased. Her mom bought in 2008 for 97k so likely not much left on the mortgage. Talking with people who know the real estate around here, the general consensus is that $156k is a high ask, but not completely unreasonable. When we first talked with her about buying it she said looking at the comps in the area it would be around $148k-$156k and then when I texted her what her asking price was she said $156k. We had an inspection done yesterday, I haven’t gotten the full report back, but there are some major repairs that will need to be done.

Gutters are in awful condition and it has caused drainage problems throughout the house because they’ve been bad for a while. We actually had one gutter get ripped off by a storm we had last night. Fascia will need completely redone throughout the house as well. The roof is very old and will need to be redone sooner rather than later. No leaks right now, but will need to be redone within 2-5 years. The sunroom has warped floor because of improper drainage and the floor is honestly constantly wet in one corner. We will need to rip up the flooring and subfloor and maybe even to the studs to replace the floor and then also fix the concrete patio outside that’s causing the issue. It’s looking like it would cost $25,000+ to fix these issues and that’s not even including some of the cosmetic work that will need done inside because it’s outdated inside as well.

Since we are first time home buyers we don’t have a lot saved up for repairs, our goal would be for her to give us a repair credit on closing so we don’t have to take out another loan after just taking out a mortgage. Would it be reasonable to start our negotiations at $132k and work our way back up to meet somewhere in the middle? We are okay with paying up to $152k if she gives us a repair credit and she covers closing costs. She would be saving money by not having to go through a realtor with us and would make the process a lot easier since she wouldn’t have to search for a buyer.

Thanks for any input! We are complete novices in this area and the last thing we would want to do is offend her with a low offer, but we also have to look out for ourselves and our future. We really don’t want to move and think this house would be a good investment at the right price, if she’s willing to negotiate.

submitted by /u/cheeseburgercity_
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source https://www.reddit.com/r/RealEstate/comments/1jcggmi/advice_on_negotiating_price_for_a_first_time_home/
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