r/RealEstateAdvice

I work in mortgage assumption processing, and I’m interested in how buyers, sellers, and agents are putting a dollar value on assumable financing.

A recent situation, with rounded numbers:

Home listed at $785,000.

Buyer offered full asking price with no concessions.

Existing VA loan balance was approximately $725,000 at 2.25%, with roughly 24 years remaining.

Buyer was a non-veteran, so the seller’s used VA entitlement would remain tied to the loan.
Seller countered at $805,000.

The buyer was understandably frustrated: “I offered what they asked. Why are they asking for another $20,000?”

We slowed down and compared the financing options. At the original price, the gap between the price and loan balance was approximately $60,000. At the counter price, it became $80,000, before closing costs.

The low rate offered substantial potential savings. But whether those savings justified the extra $20,000 depended on the buyer’s alternatives, available cash, and how long they expected to keep the loan.

That left me with a bigger question: where did the $20,000 come from?

Was it compensation for the seller keeping entitlement tied up? A negotiated share of the buyer’s financing savings? Or simply a number the seller wanted?

I also rarely get to see the competing offers. If a seller accepts an assumption offer, what were buyers using new financing offering? Were their prices lower? Were they asking for concessions? How did closing timelines affect the decision?

For anyone who has bought, sold, or represented a property with an assumable loan:
How did you determine the premium, if any—and what actually happened in the negotiation?

I’m especially interested in examples with competing offers. What would a useful tool need to account for to estimate the financing advantage without overstating what it adds to the property’s market value?

My wife and I (early 30s, a toddler, and a newborn) own a house in Round Rock, TX. We want to move to Georgetown, TX (a bit farther north) sometime in the next few years, but I need help determining the best next step.

(My wife's entire family lives in Georgetown, about 30 minutes north of our current house, and we want our kids to grow up near them.)

Ultimately, I'd love to own a portfolio of single-family rentals.

Some background on our current situation:

• 2025 household AGI was $186k. I am self-employed (about $15k/month in revenue, before business expenses/taxes). My wife earns $65k gross on a W-2.
• We have a $50k emergency fund and about $180k in retirement accounts.
• After all of our typical expenses (mortgage, childcare, etc.), we usually have about $3k available to invest (which has, to date, largely been going to Roth IRAs and a SEP IRA).

Current House (Round Rock)

• Bought in 2021. We owe about $330k at 2.75%.
• It is worth about $350k today, which is below what we paid ($416k - Austin's housing market has really contracted). If we sell now, it's probably a wash after agent fees and closing costs.
• The payment is about $2,100/month, including taxes and insurance.
• I expect the house would rent for $2,000-2,100/mo today, which should cover most ongoing expenses except maintenance, I think.

THE KICKER: My in-laws recently gave us $65k toward a down payment, but we can only use it if we buy in Georgetown. (They didn't give us a particular timeline, though, and would be fine with us waiting a few years if we wanted.)

The Three Options (as I see them)

• Buy in Georgetown now and keep Round Rock as a rental.
• Buy in Georgetown now and sell Round Rock to avoid two mortgages.
• Stay in Round Rock for now and look to buy in Georgetown in a few years.

What should we do? Our current house was our first house, so I feel a bit paralyzed by the options.

This may sound crazy, but we’re starting to change our investing model.

I’ve been investing for about 10 years and we buy roughly 50–60 properties a year. (****WE ARE LOCAL AND BUY MOSTLY BLIGHTED/FIXER-UPPER/FIRE/ABANDONED/TEAR-DOWN PROPERTIES THAT HAVE NOT BEEN IN SERVICE FOR YEARS AND NO ONE WANTS.....WE ARE NOT A PREDATORY HEDGE FUNDS THAT IS DRIVING UP PRICES SO PLEASE NO HATE COMMENTS!)

From 2017–2021, we kept about 2/3 of our purchases as rentals and flipped the rest. Then the model shifted, and we started selling roughly 95% of what we bought.

Now… we’re starting to hold again. The rent-to-price ratio on new purchases is the best I’ve seen in my career. Rates are obviously higher, but the rent/price seems to justify taking out debt and holding.

A typical deal for us right now looks something like:

• $130k all-in basis
• $1,500/month rent
• ~7% debt

It seems like that still works pretty well as a rental even with high rates.

The way I see it, there are basically two ways this plays out:

1. Rates stay high → rents continue to increase over time.
2. Rates eventually come down → home values probably benefit, and we can refinance or sell at a premium.

The alternative is flipping the house, making maybe $15k, and paying ordinary income tax on the gain.

I’m starting to like the rental strategy a lot more.

For comparison, before this shift in the market, a $130k investment might have rented for around $1,250. Rates were lower, but the rent-to-price ratio was significantly worse.

what everyone else is seeing? I feel like there may be a pretty significant shift happening in the rental market, and we’re trying to get ahead of it.

I purchased a home in November of 2024 and since moving in I’ve had nothing but expensive repairs due to the failures of my inspectors and the previous owners hiding significant damage.

This has resulted in an additional $30K personal loan in addition to $10K savings being spent on other repairs and a remaining $5K in debt my excavator is generously allowing me to chip away at.

I had to move out of the house because it was no longer livable and insurance wouldnt cover anything since it was damage from the previous owners. It is now repaired and ready for buyers a year later but now I need to remain close to my second job that is helping me pay for the loans. I’m working 70-75 hour work weeks and im exhausted and miss my friends and family.

I had the house listed last winter but no one wanted it, so I took out the $30K loan to make a significant improvement. Now I’ve relisted it and two months later still no one wants it saying it’s “not worth the money” even though I listed it for the price I paid + the amount needed for the realtors (I just want to break even).

What can I do? Is a deed in lieu of foreclosure my only option? I have a 750 credit score because I have always been on top of my finances but this is a hole I couldnt dig myself out of… any advice is appreciated.

If you had 20k cash just sitting not being used, what’s the best investment you can do with this? Is 20k enough to get started with a small property ? Of course a loan and financing is needed but what can you do with only 20k today.

I don’t know if this is the right place to ask this or not.
Husband and I have a home that we’ve had on thr market for 6 months. We’ve received 3 offers. First was too low, second the buyers needed to sell first and couldn’t (we gave them 30 days to find a buyer but they never did), and third which is what we’re dealing with now. We’ve been in escrow for over 60 days, waiting on buyer to get financials sorted out, and we keep being told “probably by the end of this week.” We’re getting frustrated as we’ve already basically moved out of our home but are still paying a house payment and staying here to do basic upkeep.
We’ve have purchased property and are starting to build a new home (we purchased it outright but need a construction loan for the house). The plan was obviously sell this one first, then build.
For a bit of context- we have a $79,000 balance with 3.75% rate on current home, with the mortgage payment being $1000 monthly. Due to always paying more, we have just over 7 years left on this mortgage if we continue to pay the minimum, 6 years if we pay a little extra monthly. New
Home is estimated to cost about $425,000 to build.
BUT we are now trying to decide what the best way to move forward is. If we wait for the buyers situation to get sorted out, which we have no way of knowing how long it will take, we are essentially losing money because we’re paying a house payment for an empty house. We’ll get principal back but not interest. So here are our options:
1- continue to wait and hope the deal closes soon and sell house. Our profit would be about $440,000 which we would then apply about $200,000 to the new build and mortgage the rest
2- keep the current house, rent it for $2500/month (which is an about average amount for our area, there are definitely some that are higher) and put all of that toward the mortgage, which would mean paying it off an owning outright in less than 3 years. We would then have to mortgage the new house 100% which we’ve been told is doable because we use the value of the land ($240,000) as instant equity which requires no cash down payment. Then after first house is paid off within 3 years, we use that rental income to pay new mortgage.
3- keep the current house, rent it for $2500/month, continue paying the $1000 mortgage and using the extra $1500 to supplement our new mortgage payment for new house

What are we missing here? We’ve never been landlords before but also feel like we’re in a potentially lucrative situation to be able to keep the home we have and use it as passive income. But we don’t want to be naive about the risks involved with maintaining a rental house.

Put our house on the market on 9/10 after we moved out and now wishing we had listed over the summer. In the Philly suburbs in a great school district but on a busy road. We have already lowered the price by 20K and our realtor is telling me to me patient. But I'm so stressed about having the house still on the market through the winter. Any advice or reassurance? The market seems terrible right now.

Edited to add: It's a 4BR/2BA and is 2000sq ft w/ a 1/2 acre lot for folks asking for listing info.

Listing/selling my home soon and just found out the HOA the home is in will be charging about $1000 for various low- or no-value value services & inspections.

Are all of these legal or mandatory? Can I refuse or challenge any of them? I mean realistically or practically, not from a Reddit-addled mindset.

The breakdown appears to be the following:

-- Standard resale package is $340 (includes a resale certificate, and governing documents, which are available free on the HOA website).

-- A $250 covenant compliance inspection performed by the property manager. (My understanding is that part of their day-to-day job covered by my regular HOA dues is to ensure all properties are in compliance?)

-- A fee of $46 to a third party (Homewise) that facilitates processing of all of this. They noted Homewise may still charge additional fees...lol.

-- At closing I'll be charged $100 for "capital contribution."

-- At closing I'll be charged a transfer fee of $250.

Total = $986!

I inherited my home 6 years ago when my mother passed. There is no mortgage. My father, who never married my mother, also lives here and has lived here for 30+ years, but is completely financially inept. He always helped around the home and bought groceries here and there, but contributed zero dollars to the mortgage. He paid some bills but would often let them go overdue and my mom would pay the fees.

I am now married, my wife and I want our own space.

I have offered my father every single option there is.

Build an addition for him? No.

Divide the home so we have separate living spaces? No.

Sell the house and give him a large sum? No.

Take a loan against the house and give him the money to move somewhere? No.

My wife and I found our dream house and are now a few weeks away from closing on it. I gave my father one last olive branch- Pay me for the taxes/insurance (less than 800 a month for a nice home with 11 acres of land) and you can live here for as long as you'd like with no restrictions. His response? "I have no money. I can't afford to give you anything." He refused to discuss any finances, even when I offered to help him. His answer was basically "I can't afford to live here, you'll have to pay the taxes and insurance on the home." I'm estimating he makes about 1500-2000 a month from social security. His "retirement plan" was basically to hope that I lived with him till death.

He has made me and my wife's lives hell for months, and I'm finally realizing the hell he put my mother through while she was alive, so I have zero sympathy for him. Right now my main plan is to look into the dreaded "cash for homes" offers in my state, take a slight financial hit versus selling on open market, and wipe my hands of this by selling the home "as is" with a tenant. Is this possible? He doesn't currently pay for anything, but some of the bills are in his name. What should I do?

Thank you for any advice!

Going through divorce. My partner got all of their items from our house. I still live here while we are trying to sell it and finish the divorce.
We also have an ADU that we use as a short term rental. The buyers are offering us a full price offer, but they want all six appliances in my house, and all five appliances in the guesthouse. I own all of these. They also want my kitchen table, a custom shelf that I built, a prized spice rack, and they want everything in the guest house. The bed, the couch, the chair, the rug, the vacuum, the full kitchen, set up, the full bathroom set up. Art on the wall walls, everything.

Court says that we have to accept full price offers. If we sell, my partner loses no items. And I lose thousands of dollars worth of items. But as we are going through divorce, Court says that we have to take a full price offer. What do I do? My partner’s lawyers say that they will sue me if I don’t take this offer.

Edit since this has been said a lot: the realtor is seen on camera (these are mentioned in all of the agent notes, so please don’t come for me) not speaking to anyone on the phone or having a phone in hand, so discussing with a client over the phone is not possible. I’m not upset by her doing this, I was simply wondering if this was something that happened often as this is the first house I’m selling. The only thing that bothered me was the disregard of our ask for a one hour notice just for her to come an hour after she requested to come by anyway. Thanks to those who were kind in their comments, I appreciate you.

…

For context, my house has been on the market for a week. We haven’t had any showings until today, though we’ve had a couple of people reach out to my realtor to express interest (and struggling to set up times for showings because of their health care jobs).

Today, my realtor reached out and asked if it would be at all possible for us to allow a showing in about 20 minutes. Although we requested an hour notice, we quickly picked up because we’ve been keeping everything clean and maintained since going on the market. We left with plenty of time for the realtor and their client to get there without running into them.

We have a security system, and I was not notified that the realtor even opened the front door until an hour after they requested a showing, which would have been nice to know before since we rush cleaned to get out within 15 minutes. But also, it showed only one person on the cameras, the realtor, and no client. The realtor left her card in the house, walked around for less than 5 minutes, and then left.

My realtor asked for feedback and her response was “they liked it, but it’s not for them” which is an odd thing to say when there was no client present? Has this ever happened to anyone else?

Four years ago, out of the blue my wife's mother contacted us about a house that was newly listed for sale that day at a fair price. I was still rebuilding my credit from poor choices from a previous marriage. She offered to front the down payment for the house and put the house in her name.

At the time, before any decisions were made, the mother in law asked us if we could afford it (not only the mortgage, taxes, etc., but also paying her back the $47k down payment). We said yes.

For four years, we paid every payment for everything ahead of time. The repayment to her for her down payment was structured by her for us to have her paid back within seven years. At year seven (or sooner), the agreement was to buy the property outright from her at whatever the remaining balance of the mortgage was.

I was ahead of schedule on this, rebuilt my credit (score ~800), and around Christmas this year I planned on going to a local mortgage lender and getting the deal done.

But then 2 months ago she went to her doctor after having a bout with what she thought was food poisoning or something, only to find out a week later that she had stage 4 cancer. 11 days after diagnosis, she passed away.

Needless to say this was already sudden and traumatic enough for the family. And then things turned ugly when my brother in law and sister in law demanded that her will be read only 36 hours after passing. The brother in law is now in charge of her trust (which the house was already attached to).

The siblings immediately made it clear that they had plans for the assets, and started spending money as soon as possible on their own bills, home renovations, traveling, etc. The brother in law also made it clear that he would not honor the previous agreement of us buying the house as planned.

After us repaying over $35k back to the mother in law, paying the mortgage, taxes, insurance, etc., as well as replacing every single kitchen appliance, plus washer, dryer, water heater, furnace, upstairs and downstairs plumbing and fixtures, renovating and finishing the detached garage, renovating the driveway (new cement), and a host of other random things... The in-laws made it clear they do not care and will not honor the purchase agreement nor acknowledge our investment/equity/repayment or the terms we established from day 1.

I spoke with the lawyer in charge of the trust, and she said under the current circumstances, we were basically month-to-month tenants, and she couldn't comment on what the in-laws plans are with the property. Basically I was left feeling that best-case scenario, this could be a long and expensive fight with no certain outcome on at least recovering money that we already had into it, and worst-case scenario, we are S.O.L.

So in the interest of self-preservation, I started looking at other properties. My wife and I found something that checks all the boxes on what we want, so I made an offer, and we are closing later this month on it. I would like to recover the money from the down payment, and calculate reimbursement from the combined improvements/updates, equity (marginal), and there's also the ??? of what the home is worth now (property values in our neighborhood have risen 50% in the last 4 years). Worst-case scenario, we just walk away and lose what we put into it so far. The obvious frustrating factor in this is the way the other siblings immediately got greedy and even cheerful about their windfall as soon as mom died.

Anyone else been in a situation like this? Worst-case scenario I can afford the position I am in with this new home, but the idea of paying a lawyer to fight her family over this for an undetermined amount of settlement is daunting.

lender asked if I was working with a real estate agent. I wasn’t so he suggested one to me since this is all new to me and let me tell you… She is the WORST

At first she was actively texting calling me and sending me houses, I am specific with wanting at least 1.5 bathroom and 3 bedrooms. She is constantly sending me houses with one bathroom… it’s like she doesn’t even try to look with filter of minimum 1.5 bathroom. So I started sending her ones I like from Zillow. I think I’ve looked at about 20-30 houses so far and they have all been stuff I found on Zillow that she scheduled or if they have “open house” listed.. she tells me to go to them. I’ve put in 4 bids so far but we keep getting out bided since summer market has been crazy. She doesn’t even give us suggestions on how to look more appealing to the seller other than just bidding crazy high.

Last week it was raining and there wasn’t any houses I had sent in a while because it was a dry week on the market and she has the nerve to ask me if I’ve been looking like… ISNT THAT YOUR JOB. Then she proceeds to send me crappy houses that again doesn’t fit my non negotiables…

This weekend has been busy, I told her I was going to two open houses Saturday and two on Sunday and then we had one scheduled with her at 1pm Sunday since there wasn’t an open house. She texts me Saturday how’d they go, I told her I really liked one and she asked if I wanted to put a bid…. As if I wasn’t also going to look Sunday. i didn’t even bother texting her back because I wanted to see houses next day and if I liked over the one I saw Saturday, I’d put a bid on it. So now it’s Sunday, I go to two open houses and at 12:30 she texts me saying there’s an emergency so if I can reschedule our 1:00 showing to 5:30 that day. Don’t get me wrong I’m very patient and know stuff randomly happens, but this on top of all the other crap. I’m so over her

My contract expires on Halloween. Should I even bother looking at more houses with her, I feel like I should wait until I can find a new real estate agent…

So this home is in my name because I bought it in 2021 before ever meeting my husband and we have listed it for sale about a week ago because we would like to buy property to be able to homestead.

My husband is a 100% p&t disabled Vet so we would like to go through the VA for a loan but it seems that it would be over our budget to do what we want to..

What we would like to do is buy the land and build a modular home on the land. We haven't been finding much if anything that would be 'move in ready' because of the VA standards.

Our current income is around ~$4800 monthly and our main house bills are currently around $2000.

We don't have much for savings, have 2 kids with another one on the way.. we want to be able to raise animals and garden on our own land but I'm not sure about how feasable it is to do so..

Our baby is due by christmas.

I need some advice or at least how to figure out finances for the situation? He is so confident we can just 'figure it out' and make money from the farm + not be spending much on groceries due to farming. But being this close to our due date and than having to be in between houses(staying with family) is putting a LOT of stress on me to the point its hard to sleep most nights.

I do need to mention that this home we are currently in does need a lot of work as well (foundation repairs due to michigan basement coming in on one side, new roof, new AC unit..)

House 1 - backed out due to overwhelming amount of fixes needed for the house to be safe to live in (electrical, foundation, etc)
House 2 - backed out after finding out the city was developing homeless rehabilitation housing right next door and felt concern for our young kids safety
House 3 - current contract, sellers just released documents of home history that list multiple known issues, this is a flipped house so they are saying they don’t have knowledge as they don’t live there. Said it’s just part of their disclosure within 7 days. Suddenly feeling concerned about the quantity of issues (leaking, unseen damage, foundation stuff)

We are well within our legal rights to back out but anyone else feel like this disclosure after contract feels weird? Suddenly there are more concerns and issues. I’m also worried I’ll piss off my realtor. Plus, this house would really be great for us but I’m having total cold feet after reading all of the issues that are possibly wrong with it.

Selling our starter home. Fresh paint inside and out, new garage door installed, new roof. The only thing we can’t figure out is what to do with a few broken floor tiles. One in the kitchen, one in a bathroom, and one in the laundry room. We cannot find a good match for replacement purposes. They’re not just cracked. They are broken. Do we just leave it and take the hit during price negotiations? Or should we replace the broken tiles with something that doesn’t match? We have been to all Lowes, HD, and Menards. Also to local flooring stores. Nothing available today is a close match. What is our best option for not letting the tile situation keep us from selling?

House has been on the market 80days, agent said they haven’t gotten any offers on it so far. They listed the house for $599k after buying it 2 months before that for $285k- he didn’t put on a new roof or new windows those were done when he purchased it for the 285k but he did new flooring throughout, painted and new appliances in the kitchen and countertops and a new deck.
Taxes and fees for that particularly house are HIGH.
Anyways he has lowered the price to 524k and we were going to offer 430k - comps in that neighborhood support’s that. With 6% concessions -
It’s what we could afford and what we think the house is worth. Clearly no one thinks it’s worth the 524k still- as it’s been that price for a month and still no bites.
Thoughts?!

We recently put an offer in on a house, and I think we were patsies.

Background: There is a large data center going into our area, with buyouts in the range of $2-4 million per acre, with a few hundred buyouts. Unfortunately, this is driving up the real estate market here. It's far enough away that we didn't realize this was even happening, but close enough to affect us.

We put in a $1.3 million offer, no inspection as is, on a house listed at $1.4 million. This is a rural LCOL area, on a very nice house on acreage (50ish acres). The house was on the market for about 5 months, with no price reduction. Our offer was a conventional loan without any contingencies.

Prior to making the offer, the listing agent said not having contingencies is much more important than the price. We knew they had offers from data center buyouts, and had been put in awhile ago, but contingent on the buyouts going through in the next few months. We thought we had a very competitive offer. However, after putting in the offer, there was no counter offer, and they then accepted the contingency offer the next day.

I think we were patsies, and the other data center buyout client was swindled into a higher price. I think they had no intention of selling to a conventional buyer, and just needed a no contingency offer to drive up the price well over asking price. I know there's nothing I can do about this, but it's quite frustrating to fall in love with the house, go through the loan process, and get a pre-approval, only to have no chance at it in the first place

Just wondering what this sub thinks about it?

Edit for clarification: We, and the house we put the offer on, are about 20 miles from the data center. There is no buy out in this area.