patrick.net

It depends on your market. Certain areas are seeing furious demand right now, and any halfway desirable property is going to see enough interest that you might have a tough time pulling this off. I am sure that sellers' agents would love to do this, but I bet thay they all promise sellers a bidding war & a sale for above-asking-price, so they may be locked in to selling to a higher bidder, even if they get half of the commission.

If you try it though, let us know how it goes. It would be nice to get low-ball offers accepted!

You better bid over asking price if you want to get it. Competition is fierce right now in this country. You don't want to lose your dream home, and interest rates have never been lower.

Oh, wait, you said you didn't want to use a buyers agent. Sorry. ;)

Agent just lowered it $15,000 today... and it's not a dream home. It's a possible investment property.

Well, it doesn't hurt to try. Offer $15k less than the new price?

offer 15k!

Yeah,let's get rid of buyers agent. At least one less agent to deal with. LOL.

When it is time to buy this year I am thinking about doing this as well.

I know a good real estate laywer as well, which I think is the key to attempting to pull this off.

Should I have her write a contract to tender to the sellers agent? I was thinking of trying to include my lawyers fees (I guess 1k, 1.5k) in place of the buyers agent's fees (i.e. reducing the sellers agent's commision by the ammount of the lawyers fee).

Is that something that would fly?

tekkierich says

When it is time to buy this year I am thinking about doing this as well.

I know a good real estate laywer as well, which I think is the key to attempting to pull this off.

Should I have her write a contract to tender to the sellers agent? I was thinking of trying to include my lawyers fees (I guess 1k, 1.5k) in place of the buyers agent's fees (i.e. reducing the sellers agent's commision by the ammount of the lawyers fee).

Is that something that would fly?

Why even worry about the sellers agent's commission. Just tell him I would like to pay $X for this place. Make it work and you have a deal. Buy at the price you think there is value, nothing more.

Go ahead and try to contact the listing agent. You will be disappointed when you find out that there are people ahead of you there as well :)

In my area, the people that would be ahead of me are the flippers going all cash, giving the listing agent 6% commission, and promising to use them as their listing agent too after the flip.

The only time I was successful at this was when it was a short-sale. There's going to be a whole lot of pressure to buy regardless of what the bank will counter you with. If you try to negotiate, you will get dropped, and the property will be re-listed as short-sale approved.