Can't make any meaningful comments without knowing the general location of the property...California, Arizona, Florida, Ohio, New Jersey?

Also, the comps you gave don't mean much today. The real estate market changed about the third week in July '07.

/tricia

you need more info on those other houses before you can figure out how they should influence your decision

Size of each home
condition of each home (structural--roof, how good of repair; mechanicals--how old is the furnace, etc.)
quality of the condo & its association (cash reserves, maintenance schedule, etc.)

VERY definitely, that extra full bath has an effect on the price

As an aside, wow, do you all see the market slowdown? And the effect that the much lower price had?

Yes, location would be helpful, wouldn't it? We are in a suburb of Toronto, Ontario. I'm not sure if any of you are familiar with it - I don't think we are experiencing much, if any slowdowns up here.

All the houses are in the same townhouse complex, so they should be pretty comparable. Of course there are layout differences and definitely the condition will vary. It's a bit hard for us to find out about that on those houses though...

They are condo townhouses though, so outside elements are covered by the condo board, right?

I think we've got a couple Canadian posters but I'm not one of them...nice place though. I've visited a few times & enjoyed the area.

Hopefully, somebody will come along & offer some assist.

Wishing you fair winds & safe harbor.

/tricia

When we were comparing comps to our condo in our neighborhood, I was pleased to see that they did not stay on the market long at all. It looks to be the case in the ones you're looking at.
Talk to your rea, she should know more than I, but, just based on the limited info I have, I doubt it will be on the market long. I'd suggest getting rather close to asking.

Good luck!

~Christina

Do you have an agent? If so, ask them to pull up the MLS sheets if they can for the ones that sold. Hopefully there will be photos to support what the interior looks like / what shape it was in.

A few that sold here similar to our house had no photos meaning the inside wasn't great.

Knowing what has been shared above, I'd offer $215k. That seems like a good number to me, they can counter... Ours is listed at $339k and we got an offer at $295k which we countered... I don't think any seller minds a reasonable offer. I don't think the one we got was reasonable but maybe in 6 more months I might...

Good luck

I don't think we need to know the town you're in so much as the physical comparison of those houses to yours. I guess Canada makes a difference bcs the dollar is different (If I say "you can get decent enough appliances for $1,000, that may not be true there)

The market is slowing in your neck of the woods. But prices *seem* relatively stable.

So the asking price seems sort of inline w/ recent sales. First, what *can* you afford?

For $220k in some neighborhoods, as a seller, I wouldn't think you were entitled to a fancy kitchen, and I might argue that it didn't *need* to be redone; it's not falling apart, it's in decent condition, and it's not THAT out of date, and if you want it "fresher" or "newer," that should come out of your hide, not mine). I wouldn't expect you to ding me on the price for older kitchen appliances (depends how older, I suppose)

Where Olga lives is important Tally Sue. $225 might be a shack in your New York but for that you get a heck of alot in other parts of the country.

Olga where do you live in Canada? No one can offer you advise without knowing that because prices are different all across the country just as here in the US.

olga_d I'm rather surprised you can get anything decent in the 200s in a Toronto suburb. How far out will you be? You're on the right track figuring the comps. What does your agent suggest? Are there any other units on the market in that area in the same price range? Have you looked at those? Does the market traditionally slow as we head into winter?

She stated in her next post that she resides in a suburb of Toronto. weird to see our Cdn $$ higher then the US $$. Too bad I withdrew my Cdn RRSP's a few years back when I moved to the USA, ouch,lol

yes, but much more important is what the other similar shacks in the neighborhood are selling for.

Bcs "a suburb of toronto" could be "a crummy suburb of Toronto" or "a really nice, expensive suburb of toronto." She will have trouble being more specific, and even if she named the suburb, most of the rest of us have no clue what that means.

NYC is well-known and talked about--but even in NYC, there are variations on neighborhoods that someone who doesn't actually follow our real estate wouldn't know. "a neighborhood in Queens" can make a huge difference--Woodside vs. Jackson Heights vs. Forest Hills vs. Elmhurst vs. Douglaston--HUGE difference.

Ãnd believe it or not, there are other parts of the world that are nearly as expensive as NYC--and NYC is a stupid thing to compare anything with anyway, bcs it's such an oddity. If you don't live in either city, do you really know what the diff. is between Dayton, Ohio, and Toronto? Why would be on the internet be that knowledgeable?

She lives in a part of the world where condo townhomes similar to the one she wants are selling for $207k to $235k. That's much more important than the city or the state/province.

For those of you who are in the area, we are looking at Ajax. It's a small, quiet town that is within commuting distance of Toronto, via the GO train. The west suburbs are more expensive, this one is on the east side, and one of the reasonably priced ones. FWIW, when DH and I were looking for a detached house earlier this year, nice ones could be found for around or a bit under 300k (this house is for my mom). I have been told that the market does slow down around the winter, especially during the holiday season.

I should clarify about the kitchen - it is the original kitchen from the builder (home is approx. 15 years old) and does not look like some of the other houses we have seen in this price range. The cabinets are your regular white plywood, and some of the doors don't quite line up with each other. But it's not something that needs to be torn up before you move in.

There is another townhouse in this complex that is up for sale, however we haven't been able to view the inside because they aren't showing it "until further notice" for some reason. It's listed at $214,900. The agent suggested making an offer of $212,900 with the aim that we would eventually meet in the middle. I'm wondering if we should start a bit lower though, which is why I wanted to ask you folks.

My advise to you is to make an offer that you feel comfortible with and see what happens.

Get your feet wet! If you are turn down you can always counter with a higher offer too if you really like the property. But you can wait till it around 50 days and then make your offer too!

Does not really matter on the price as long as you are comfortable with the amount! If it too much; then you will be in financial difficulty.

Good luck!

Just wanted to post an update since, after a couple of delays, the big day was today. We offered 207K to start with, the sellers came back with 219K. We countered with 211K, they with 216K. At this point we said 214K was our final price and they accepted it.

So the deal is done, now we have to get the financing and inspection taken care of. We're happy, but I don't think it's sunk in yet. One of the things that helped was that my mom (who this house is for) quite liked it, but if it didn't happen she was okay to walk away. Our agent thought each of our three prices was too low and tried to talk us up - I'm not too happy about that, but I'm glad we didn't listen.

Thanks for the advice everyone!