Creating the perfect real estate purchase offer

Deciding how much to offer a seller for a home you'd love to own is rarely easy. Ideally, your offer price should not be above what you think the property is worth or what you can afford, but tempting enough to the seller that he can't refuse to accept. Arriving at that perfect offer price is harder in some markets than others, and it depends on a lot of factors that are beyond your control. For example, in buyers' markets where there is a lot of inventory, you may find more realistic sellers who understand that they need to be flexible if they want to sell. In sellers' markets where there are more buyers than sellers, you may have no choice but to offer more than the asking price if you hope to be the successful bidder. The first step to arriving at an effective offer price is to find out how much properties similar to the one you're interested in have been selling for recently. Look at the relationship between the list and sale prices of each listing. Did they sell for more or less ...