Help!!!! First time home buyer in Cali

[MikeyC]

Originally Posted by fxpose

Don't believe what they tell you. Never offer more than the asking price. In fact, offer less and they will counter.
Of course, this all depends on the region and market conditions.

The part that I bolded is a HUGE caveat. Listen to your realtor. They know the actual market conditions better than your local newspaper, TV news broadcaster, next door neighbor, uncle Fred, or whoever else you may poll. Your realtor will guide you as to the value of the property you are interested in and what the current market conditions are so that you can come up with an appropriate amount to offer that will give you the best chance not only to get the house but also for the least amount of money.

While there is a lot of good advice on here take it all with a grain of salt. Your local market conditions will likely be different than many of the people who offered advice. Also, keep in mind that many of the people who responded in this thread are not real estate professionals. People will learn a lot during the process of buying/selling real estate during their lives. But doing one transaction every 3, 5, or even 10 years does not make you as expert as a professional who goes through 10 or maybe 20 transactions every year.

The best advice I personally can offer you is to find yourself a trustworthy (not all are unfortunately), hard working, and intelligent realtor. While an agent of this type is not always easy to find (and is often NOT the guy who does the most business ironically) if you can find one their services will be invaluable. Plus, if CA is anything like MA, the seller pays all the agents commissions and so it will cost you nothing. Many people will say to you "don't get your own realtor. Go direct and get the listing agent to reduce his commission. This will reduce your expenses." In my experience 9 out of 10 times those people end up overpaying for the property. So, getting the commission reduced in the end saved no money.