Hey All,

I am an unexpected first time home buyer. We've been renting a single home in NJ for 4 years, and our landlords told us over the weekend they plan to sell the place ASAP. We expressed interest in buying the house and they said they still plan to put it on the market, but would give us "preferred" treatment.

They said they plan to list it at 350k. Their brother-in-law is their realtor (how this isn't a conflict of interest, I don't know), so hopes of asking to buy directly seem very slim but we're still going to ask. Similar listings for this range offer larger homes w/ modern updates. My house is pretty basic with no true updates in the last 5 years except a new roof (which I know is a lot of $). Taxes are high because we're in NJ, but not insane.

I personally think this is wildly high for my house, but this market is insane and I guess they get to do insane things. They said they'd put the house on the market and then let us know what their highest bid is and then we can decide to match that amount or not. They wouldn't ask us to pay more than the highest bid. We were hoping it would be in the 325k range and were even willing to waive inspection since we live here and know of its quirks (we'd still get an inspection done for our sake, tho). Now with a higher starting point, I don't know if it's worth the gamble to waive inspection.

We're good tenants, never missed a payment, hardly ever ask for anything. We keep the house in really good condition.

Am I insane for feeling slightly bitter by this entire thing?