If your max budget is 130k...

[thatgirl2478]

140 - unless a realtor has a VERY good reason to suggest something higher (like it's way way over fair market value)

[KaraOrNot]

I would say maybe 140-145k max. To avoid disappointment, we didn't look that much higher than our max budget.

[Muddled]

The worst that can happen is they say no...

[bunch]

Give it a shot. I sold my flip for much less than I ever thought I would to a cash buyer who agreed to take it as-is.

[kwynn]

Here's the house that interested me at first glance:

www.pittsburghmoves.com/property/details/190690/MLS-927992/1050-Connor-Road-Bethel-Park-PA-15234.aspx?StateID=44&RegionID=0&IsRegularPS=True&IsSold=False

[Balki.Bartokomous]

I thought your sister needed to be on the other side of town. Did something change?

Bethel Park is nice, but it's far.

If I'm paying that much more than my max, I would at least buy something in the area I wanted to be in.

I really think you need to go look at some of these places. I feel like you're making this more difficult than it needs to be, and I'd be willing to bet that you've excluded a few perfectly good places because you're being super picky when in reality maybe you don't need to be.

[kwynn]

Feb 14, 2013 2:07:13 GMT -5 Balki.Bartokomous said:

I thought your sister needed to be on the other side of town. Did something change?

Bethel Park is nice, but it's far.

If I'm paying that much more than my max, I would at least buy something in the area I wanted to be in.

I really think you need to go look at some of these places. I feel like you're making this more difficult than it needs to be, and I'd be willing to bet that you've excluded a few perfectly good places because you're being super picky when in reality maybe you don't need to be.

It's within 30 minutes of where she works...that's pretty much my radius.

My family has seen over 30 houses for me already to try to narrow it down...they just saw three tonight that were in really bad shape. It's very, very hard to tell from the photos.

I am going to Pittsburgh next week and there is not *one* single house that my family or my real estate agent can recommend I should see (so a second showing).

I do think maybe I'm being picky---I want at least 2 bedrooms, 1.5 bathrooms, structurally sound, not a total gut job on kitchens and bathrooms, and in an average area within 30 minutes of 15131, 130k budget.

That's it--like I don't care about a garage or room size or closets or off-street parking or anything like that. I spent 5 hours today and looked at every single house from 70k-160k in Westmoreland and Allegheny Counties online.

There's just not a ton of inventory right now.

Everything I've ruled out, I did it for major unchangeable reasons--like the one house tonight, we were so excited about---except the bedroom ceilings (it was built as an add-on dormer above the kitchen) were literally 6 feet tall. My sister was brushing the light fixture with her head and she's 5'7". The roof cannot be raised. Like that obviously has to be ruled out, in my opinion. Just major things like that, like where the floors were crooked, etc.

I'm just out of stuff to see. My realtor says a lot of this stuff on the market for over 200 days is just overpriced and that they must need to get that much since they haven't come down yet...there's a few houses I'd consider if there were major price drops due to the amount of work needed.