The "hard" evidence that sellers can use like weapons to defend their asking price sometimes overwhelms and intimidates buyers. Be prepared to let seller's defenses roll off your back withoutCompromising your position. Willingly, sellers will bring out appraisals, market-value estimates by real estate agents, computer printouts of homes sold in the neighborhood, and cost receipts of improvements that have been made.
Be prepared to attack as follows:
An Appraisal: No matter how expert the appraiser, he or she can't put a price on your home. No one can ever understand all the factors that are important to you. An appraiser judges what's important to him or her.
Market-Value Estimate by a Real Estate Agent: Giving free market evaluations is the way real estate agents get business. It's a device to butter up sellers and entice the sellers to "come list with me." As such, agents wanting to ingratiate the most give maximum, sometimes outrageously high, market-value prices.
Computer Printouts of Homes Sold in the Neighborhood: Interesting. Worth looking over. Usually these lists are limited to homes sold by real estate companies, not by owners. Sometimes homes on the list are carefully selected to justify a higher price.
Cost Receipts of Improvements Made: Again, interesting. But not necessarily suited to your needs. I know buyers who paid more for a home without the extra finished room. They didn't want to have to keep up the extra space.
