Do sellers not pay closing costs anymore in NoVa now? (Burke: real estate, how much)

[JfromReston]

Originally Posted by JfromReston

I feel your pain - I was in the same place when trying to buy a home in 2002. It took a long time to realize how fast we needed to move in order to get a home. We were very reluctant to get into multi-party bidding wars or to offer in excess of the asking price. In the end we won our home in a bidding war and paid more than the asking price.

I just did a search of all homes (SFH/TH/Condos) currently under contract in 20191 (South Reston) and found the following:

12 properties went under contract in less than 2 days
29 properties went under contract in less than 7 days
24 properties went under contract in more than 7 days

Based on this information - the good properties are going fast and if you want to get one you will need to move fast too.

Since I posted this a few hours ago - 2 more houses went under contract at 4 days on the market!

[Haushappy]

I am already so discouraged in this housing market that I told myself if the house I really want is not available we will not buy. Everything I wanted so far sold the same day it came on the market and even so we were quick we only got an offer on the table once. And we have only been looking for two weeks. I wanted to buy so bad but this is no fun, I don't enjoy the process at all, in fact it stresses me. Our rental townhouse is spacious, beautiful and we do not have to move. If you feel stressed about it than don't put an offer in. Or make an offer and go with what you feel is best, you should not offer more than you are comfortable with.

[KM_W&M06]

Originally Posted by Haushappy

I am already so discouraged in this housing market that I told myself if the house I really want is not available we will not buy. Everything I wanted so far sold the same day it came on the market and even so we were quick we only got an offer on the table once. And we have only been looking for two weeks. I wanted to buy so bad but this is no fun, I don't enjoy the process at all, in fact it stresses me. Our rental townhouse is spacious, beautiful and we do not have to move. If you feel stressed about it than don't put an offer in. Or make an offer and go with what you feel is best, you should not offer more than you are comfortable with.

I hear ya, we've been looking since early January and have changed from searching for a SFH in Prince William to a nice townhome in Centreville/Chantilly (closer to work)...we do not HAVE to move either but our 1 bedroom + second room apartment has just become too small and not near big enough to comfortably have a future baby. I know buying a house is not supposed to be easy but it sure feels like there are so many externtal factors beyond our control in this area (low inventory, pent up demand, wealthy buyers, etc.) even though we've done everything "right" as young adults (no debt, excellent credit, +20% down payment savings, stable jobs)...

[Forehead]

Originally Posted by KM_W&M06

I'll admit I'm still a bit fuzzy on the appraising at list price, how is that calculated and what does it mean?

Originally Posted by kww

house needs to appraise at the contract sales price or you would be on the hook for the difference.
or you ask seller to reduce
or contract becomes void and you move on to another house

Maybe I'm a little fuzzy here as well. Supposing you own a two bedroom shanty that happens to be in the middle of Great Falls on some land. The value of the shack and land is no more than $500,000, but because of where it's located, you refuse to take anything less than 1 million for it since you know the buyer will probably just bulldoze it and build a dream home. Someone agrees and buys it.

Who is on the hook for the $500,000 difference, and why?

[djplourd]

Originally Posted by Forehead

Maybe I'm a little fuzzy here as well. Supposing you own a two bedroom shanty that happens to be in the middle of Great Falls on some land. The value of the shack and land is no more than $500,000, but because of where it's located, you refuse to take anything less than 1 million for it since you know the buyer will probably just bulldoze it and build a dream home. Someone agrees and buys it.

Who is on the hook for the $500,000 difference, and why?

The buyer. Banks won't lend more money than the house appraises for.

[Forehead]

Oh okay, thanks. I was assuming in my example that it was someone wealthy with money to burn who just wanted a prime location. I thought for a minute the buyer would be penalized for being willing to spend, or the seller for taking more money than it was technically worth, which would seem awfully un-capitalist to me.

Bank loans however, that I can understand.

[KM_W&M06]

Originally Posted by djplourd

The buyer. Banks won't lend more money than the house appraises for.

Ah, yes now it really makes sense...I was confused about "on the hook" because I was like "I know I'm paying for everything that I offer", in this case it would not be part of the loan.

[karen624]

We are looking for a house right now as well, and are doing it long distance which adds to the level of frustruation. I made one trip up after putting in an offer on a house (that was beat by a full price cash offer.) It is at least an 8 hour drive, so I can't keep doing this over and over. When my husband returns from his deployment, we will plan for a trip up of a week or so. Almost all the houses we saw the weekend we were up sold that weekend or right after. We went through this same situation when we purchased our first house 10 years ago, and I hate doing it again.

Very interesting to read about the polybutylene pipes. I had not heard about that before, so will educate myself a little bit now.

[Middlin]

When I read that I remembered when we bought a TH in Fair Lakes and there was an all cash offer on the table against our traditional financing. Our realtor seeing all the child proofing in the house and the toddler running around and a baby in the Mom's arms casually mentioned that I was pregnant and wouldn't that be convenient to have all that already taken care of. The sellers ended up going with us.

Frankly, I would have your realtor play up the deployment....you never know what might work in your favor.

[karen624]

He did. He wrote up a nice little letter about us and all that. Cold, hard cash talks in this case I guess. They did not even give us a- this is the other offer, what else do you want to do to sweeten your deal option.