Posted by John (KS) on December 10, 1998 at 08:37:26:
Why pay that much? If you go in there and act like you do this everyday, you can offer him $10 to hold it for two weeks. That’s what I did on my first deal. I had the seller sign an option to purchase contract and paid him $10. I had it sold in 4 days and doubled my money.
You can make any kind of earnest money offer with your option to purchase contract, I have even heard of doing $1 earnest money deals. You never know how little earnest money he may take till you offer it. If you act like you know what you are doing and this is normal practice, you won’t believe the deals you can get in on.