Negotiating for money off purchase price or repairs

How often do sellers negotiate vs. say forget it/house sold as is? I don't want to push our luck, but our report turned up some major damp patches, which were visible when we made our offer. The engineer told us it would cost about £3500 to fix, and we thought we'd ask for about £2000 off the purchase price.

Is the seller likely to say that it was obvious and house is as is?

Re: Negotiating for money off purchase price or repairs

Does the listing say that the house is being sold "as is," if not, then it's negotiable. Everything's negotiable as far as I'm concerned.

Re: Negotiating for money off purchase price or repairs

No it doesn't say "as is" and I thought the same - everything's negotiable - or at least worth a try. But my parents are selling my grandmother's house and their buyers report turned up a few things that he wanted fixed. Their real estate agent said Don't worry, we'll just say "as is"

I thought if it was "as is" it would have to be specified in advance. The only thing I'm worried about is the seller of the apartment DH and I are buying saying the damp was visible in the first place and her accepting our offer (which was only marginally lower than the asking price) reflected the damage. Guess we'll just have to ask.

thanks!

Message edited 12/28/2005 1:22:44 PM.

Re: Negotiating for money off purchase price or repairs

I would just ask anyway.. What do you have to lose, you know? Good luck!

Re: Negotiating for money off purchase price or repairs

I think asking for $2k off when you will have to shell out almost twice as much to fix the problem is reasonable, but it depends on so many factors. Regardless, it can't hurt to ask.

When we bought our house, our report turned up electrical problems and when we brought it up to the sellers they said the house was "as is" even though nothing we'd seen prior stated that. But they also accepted $15k less than asking, and had an offer that was $20k more after they took ours. In that case, it was in our interest to pay for that repair ourselves anyway.

If the seller has had the place on the market and is antsy to sell, and is afraid that you may change your mind, you may have a decent chance of getting them to pay for the repair.