our new begining

our new begining

hi all
this is our first attempt at blogging our REI story.
we knew very little about real estate except for the house we have lived in for 30+ years, but watching Dean one night i felt that i had to try this. so i ordered the books and over the course of last winter read and dogeared and took notes even though i wasn`t sure that my wife would go along with it all, but sure enough after a while she became more and more interested and excited about our new career. now we have been students of the sucess Academy for a few months now working our way through the program..we`ve learned tons so far and have tons more to go. last week we put in our second and third offers and recieved our first counter offer on both properties. we`re not sure how to play this offer/counter offer game. we made a cash offer for a REO house with a FMV of $110k and we offered $40k..it needs to be completly gutted, new walls, ceilings, and floors, kitchen cabinets, replacement windows...we`re getting some contractor estimates soon..but it`s a great location in a great central new hampshire town..(tourist destination for new englanders), so anyway the bank countered with $69k...it looks like that`s about the amount they got stuck with on this property. We also already have a tenent buyer ready to do a lease option on this house,...soooo we`re wondering if we shouldn`t counter too quickly so as to not too anxious..it`s been on the market a long time...i guess because it`s a mess, but our realtor says someone else was going to look at it soon, but isn`t that just an old used car salesman line?..sometimes i wonder about the motives of our agent...monday we`ll run all of this by PMI..still..if anyone has input we`d appreciate it.
thank you.......bo & becky

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