Seller carryback (closing costs)...

my developer was able to negotiate 15% off asking.

segelini - absolutely possible. For example, you can ask for the 500k purchase to include 15k toward closing costs. Essentially that means your purchase price is really 485k and 15k paying your closing costs. Youll be financing it. In the end the sponsor only gets 485k but it is recorded as a 500k sale. Which condo? We may be offering $2000 in addition to whatever the seller might be willing to pay. sunny_hong@countrywide.com

It depends on how serious the seller is about selling, but you can definitely negotiate with the seller on paying some of the closing costs. We found this out on a property we were interested in last year - the seller's broker actually suggested it. We had the same question, but didn't dare suggest it ourselves. Go for it and good luck!

shong,

I am aware that these types of arrangements occur frequently with respect to closing costs on houses. Howwever, is there some limit to how far you can push this without the bank saying "No". Suppose I am trying to sell my apartment and all potential buyers feel like it needs a lot of work and they will need to do a ton of renovations. So, in order to entice them to buy I say let's keep the original purchase price (let's say $1 million for a 1 bedroom) but I will give you $100,000 at closing for you to do renovations. As a seller it is cash flow equivalent to me (as opposed to cutting purchase price by $100,000), but it allows the buyer to finance their improvements rather than pay completely out of pocket for them. Putting aside for the moment that the property would need to appraise at this higher purchase price to get the mortgage (let's assume it does appraise at $1 million -- let's [retend its 2006), I would think a bank would balk at essentially financing say 80% of buyer's imrpovements if they knew about this arrangement between seller and buyer.

Banks will generally allow up to 6% seller's concession. You can email me outside if you have any specific scenarios. You always have the option of just giving the buyer 100k. Also you have to consider the appraisal not coming in at value if you say there are renovations needed. Although the 1M range is excessive for the program, we have renovation loan programs as well. Up to $729,750 on single units. Thanks. sunny_hong@countrywide.com