We are serious buyers. We have preapproval for significantly more than we are looking to actually spend, but a lot of flexibility.

We found 2 houses. They are essentially the same house. One is in much better shape than the other. Both are short sales.

We put in an offer on both, offering 10k more for the one in better condition. The one in better condition has 2 other offers on it. Last night the offer on the worse condition one was rejected by the bank saying we'd need to come up 20k.

My questions is this. We really want the nicer one. Is it unrealistic for us to tell our agent that we want to know what it will take to make it happen and actually get an answer? When asked what we should initially offer we got a response of "well, its pretty hard to say." so I had to guess. His response to my offer was "thats might be ok...", said in a non-committal way.

Is my agent just a tool and have no clue? Could a good agent tell me "offer this and its yours" without forcing me to blindly overbid the other people by 20k?

It is real easy offer the full price, no short sale and the house should be yours.

The agent has no idea what the bank will accept on a short sale. We had 3 last year that the bid was only 2000 under the full price ( short only 2K) and the bank would not take any short sale at all.

Full price is something like 75K more. That would qualify as overpaying. :)

I am not particularly concerned with what the bank will accept. I just want to be the offer that the bank actually considers.