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I don't understand what this has to do with anything. The market for smaller homes is as fierce as anything.
Yep. Case in point, the house that we lost out our offer on yesterday against 11 other people was barely a hair above 1300 sq feet, around $280k in a downtown area. Market is insane pretty much all around.
People keep using the phrase "bidding war" but that's not really what's happening. Seller is picking the best offer. In this market when you put an offer on a house, if you can't reasonably stretch to what you think is even a sane offer (plus extra), you will probably lose. I can guarantee someone out there is putting an offer in that is going to be insane comparatively because they've lost out on several others and are losing their minds.
This is coming from a personal perspective. When you lose you start becoming far more creative with your offers because you don't want to lose again.
Yeah that phrase is really misused a lot. Unless you are buying a foreclosure at auction....you won't be getting into a "bidding war" when buying a house.
Bidding "war" implies back and forth "one-upping". On a multiple offers situation; each "bidder" gets one opportunity to give their highest offer. If they aren't the most favorable offer; they lose. There's no going back and forth about it. It's not Ebay.
Its honestly why my wife and I ended up buying new construction. Its such a sellers market the process of buying was not something we could handle...leaving work on a moments notice/bidding in high pressure situations knowing that if you don't do it that day you are most likely not going to get that house. Not something we wanted to be a part of.
And that's certainly a viable strategy as well. It probably makes for more $ or less "house" (size or lot size, or quality of construction), but there's a much better chance of getting a new construction home than a resale under $500K in the favored parts of Wake County
We have now decided to just rent when our house sells so we are there to look. See a,new listing we like only for it to be under contract that day or the next or go into a bidding war with 3 other buyers . A REAL HEADACHE. Being an hour and a half away we still have missed out . So now can you tell me a good apt, condo or townhome complex that might have semi retired, retired .
Thanks
as hinted at in an earlier post ....
Is your purchase contingent upon the sale of your home? If yes, then you're not going to find any resale worth having that will accept that contingency.
How many times have you met with your Realtor? What is your strategy? Does the Realtor know what you're looking for? Are you receiving immediate updates for homes that fit your parameters?
As someone who sold last year, I'll just say that if you go with an agent, do your research and pick that person wisely. With houses selling so fast, some agents out there are doing the bare minimum, if that. We had a couple of complications, nothing major, but it became clear that our agent was hardly paying attention to what was the biggest transaction of our lives. I still believe in RE agents and we'll use one to buy again, but what a disappointment.
this is VERY true. I would call ours a highly-fragmented market of agents. Yes, there are the obvious big companies, but we have more brokerages today than in 2006. A lot of people have jumped in to the market based on the ability to snag a few listings and rely on the speed of the market to cover up their lack of expertise.
I'd ask any agent I was considering 3 questions (Mike has a great thorough list, but this will weed out many, quickly):
1. Do you use professional photography? If not, show me your 3 most recent listings.
2. Are your listings syndicated to Zillow? (I know Mike will agree to disagree on this one, but it's too big of an elephant. No matter how hard I try, I still have clients that use it, and if mine do, I know the vast quantity of small brokers do).
3. Do you carry Errors and Omissions Insurance?
We lost four houses in multiple offers situations going in over list. We finally got this one and it was honestly where we’re meant to be so don’t get too discouraged - it just means there’s a better house out there for your family. And on those that we lost we went in well above asking each time.
I say this to my clients all the time! And it is very accurate!
Talk about interesting...I just had an agent bring me an offer with a $7500 due diligence fee!!! It was a good offer but her buyers wanted to close in May instead of April. So she compensated and...we are now under contract!
I mean, there are a whole lot of homes for sale in Wake County right now.
I would suggest that this is untrue. Many years, during the peak of the selling season, the Triangle MLS has contained upwards of 16,000 listings. Right now the number is less than 13,000.
There may be an abundance of listings in outlying areas that are 5+ years away from becoming viable, but in terms of resales in hot zip codes and desirable neighborhoods the availability is very poor.
My neighborhood has become a hotbed for buyers wanting to stay in the neighborhood (both upsizing and downsizing). The last 5 or 6 transactions that I am aware of were neighbors moving a couple of blocks away to get more square footage or to downsize once kids leave the nest. We have an agent who lives in the neighborhood who has successfully courted this business and in many cases she is participating in both sales. At least 50% of the homes that get listed on the MLS in my neighborhood are contingent when the listing is posted.
When we sold our townhome last June, the buyer that we ultimately chose offered a very large due diligence ($6000 for a townhome listing at $185900) with their offer. That really got our attention because they had a lot of stake in the game. They had a conventional loan, were our highest offer, and also signed an appraisal contingency.
I should add we also sold at the same time. Our buyer wound up coming in 15 over, all cash, 10k due diligence with a 30 day close and free rent back for two weeks. Waived inspections and appraisal too. But we had multiple offers.
We removed our selling contingency to seal the deal when we purchased. And gave the sellers a time limited offers that expired before their open house and at 15 over list.
These enormous due diligence fees are a trip. I cannot say that I personally want any house enough to hand people 10k just for the privilege of inspecting it to make sure it's not a money pit.
I could absolutely see that kind of money for EMD, but DD? Nah.
I'd go build a new house or just wait for something reasonable.
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