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Is there any way to make sure you're the first to see a home in a neighborhood? There's a community I've really wanted to live in for a long time. Yesterday, a house that looked perfect went on the market in the morning but I didn't notice it until the evening and it was sold by then. I'm so bummed out. Do I have to just check every hour if I don't want this to happen?
many areas of the US have online services that tell you as soon as home lists, that can go a long way. But many an agent can convince a seller that they can get them the best price or have a buyer that will pay "top dollar'.
the truth is 9 times out of 10 you are better off exposing the home to the full market and getting the client the absolute best package out there.
The agent is incentivized to close deals not to get the best price, they make almost the same about of money if the home sells within a couple of % of the full value. But the homeowner might find 10/15% of their profit is in the less couple of %...
interests are not truly aligned despite what so many agents say.
It is my view that unless the home is selling well above "full value" agents should be forced to put the house on the true open market for at least 3 days. Maybe that would need tuning, but this nonsense of selling before listing and then listing for a few hours to meet requirements should be ended.
And yes i do understand that there are plenty off MLS deals, i do them from time to time, but if it is off the MLS it should not be allowed to list because that provides cover for dodgy deals.
forcing them to list for 3 days, might not be the exact solution ,but work needs to be done to limit these things. I have seen dozens of these over the years and almost everyone one of them could have gotten a better price on the full open market. A few were out right theft, yet the agencies processed the deals and pretended not to notice....
I wouldn't say the home was sold before it was listed. My house last year was in a hot market, we put it on at about 11 am that morning and at 12 we had our first showing. He left and immediately made an appointment for later that day to look again with his wife. We had several other showings that day and one after the first guy's second showing and the later also wanted to make an offer but heard an offer already had been given (not accepted as yet) and apparently didn't want to get into a bidding war. The first guy offered full price and decision by the next morning. We accepted.
In a hot market realtors should be on top of things and notify you immediately upon seeing a listing not have you find it and if you do see a listing just going up jump on it and get out there within the hour because even if an offer has been presented it might not have been accepted.
I think you're right that it was briefly on the market. I'm going to list the timing of events below and ask if you think this means the realtor let me down.
-7/11: House is posted on realtor.com in the morning
-7/11 at 6 PM: I notice it and text my realtor.
-7/11 at 7 PM: She gets back to me saying OK she got my message and at 8 PM she says she will check the showing instructions.
-7/12 at 7 AM: She asks me if I can see the house at noon today and says that she will check if that time works for the seller.
-7/12 at 8 AM: She tells me the seller accepted an offer at 11 PM yesterday.
I'm thinking she didn't contact the seller until this morning and they didn't even know I wanted to see the house when they accepted the offer last night. Is that a reasonable inference and would you find that unacceptable?
I think you're right that it was briefly on the market. I'm going to list the timing of events below and ask if you think this means the realtor let me down.
-7/11: House is posted on realtor.com in the morning
-7/11 at 6 PM: I notice it and text my realtor.
-7/11 at 7 PM: She gets back to me saying OK she got my message and at 8 PM she says she will check the showing instructions.
-7/12 at 7 AM: She asks me if I can see the house at noon today and says that she will check if that time works for the seller.
-7/12 at 8 AM: She tells me the seller accepted an offer at 11 PM yesterday.
I'm thinking she didn't contact the seller until this morning and they didn't even know I wanted to see the house when they accepted the offer last night. Is that a reasonable inference and would you find that unacceptable?
Was it a FSBO???
To me, this ^^^ is unacceptable. Like I said, if it went on the MLS, she should have had you in that house by noon the day it was listed.
If your agent doesn't have a sense of urgency, it won't matter how many questions you want to ask the sellers because you'll never get that chance.
We loved a house and the owner chose another buyer who felt good emotionally to them. I wrote a note (nowadays, text and email and call...do all) the owner's realtor and told him nicely how we loved the house, wished all well, let us know if it doesn't work out because we are serious. Have to let them know you're not talking idly. Six months later, we got a call to write our contract. And by this time the owner was in foreclosure and we got it for a good deal less.
We were realtors relating to the seller's realtor. So have your realtor stay in touch with the owner's realtor just in case.
As far as other homes...have your realtor ask if they want to sell because he/she has someone who lost out on soandso's house down the block.
Hmmmm. I'm wondering if I need a different realtor. She knows I want to live in this neighborhood but has never contacted me about a house going on the market. I always find them and contact her. (There have been about 4 or 5 in this community - one of which I had a deal on but it fell through after the inspection.) She had me on a search but I was getting too many e-mails and I stopped using it. I know that's my fault. I should have told her to narrow the search down but I figured I could just check the websites like Zillow and Realtor. I learned the hard way. She did say she could make sure I'm on a search and could make it more narrow. That said, I wonder if I'm a low priority of hers. I know she sells houses that are much more expensive than my range. Also, we looked at a decent number of houses before I knew what I wanted (before the 4 or 5 in this community). I wonder if she's lost a little patience with me. There's no hint of any of this from our interactions but I can't help wondering.
However, the main reason I'm reluctant to go to a new realtor is that I feel comfortable with her. She knows I have a long list of questions I want to ask sellers, and she's never complained about asking all the questions. Maybe that's just her job though. I would feel a bit guilty if at this point I picked someone else. If she puts me on the proper search, is that good enough or do I need a new realtor?
it doesn't sound like your realtor has done anything wrong. why would you replace her?
Sometimes when they put in the request to show, they do not get instant response. It is hard to tell from your timeline if that was the case or if she waited until the next day to request. I think things are just moving fast in some areas right now and it is a very tough market.
When we were looking earlier this summer, I was checking MLS every few hours even though I had instant alert set up. I found in some cases, the automatic notifications were sent quickly after a new property listed and in other cases it took a little while so I just made sure to save my search parameters, dislike homes I knew we werent interested in so they stopped showing up in the search and kept the list manageable so I could quickly see anything new without it being buried in the search results.
Our neighborhood is a hot market like that, and it helps when you (and your agent) have to know people who live there who can give you a heads up about upcoming listings.
Your agent should have called YOU within the hour of it hitting the MLS if they know the market is like that.
If her agent even knows to do so. Put in a back up offer. You never know.....plus then your agent knows exactly what you are looking for and that you are serious.
It was probably 'sold' before it hit the market. This is where a good agent comes in- sometimes they know what is about to go on the market before it goes live.
I totally agree with this comment. I've missed two properties now that were ideal - but by the time they showed up on the listings (internet), they were already sold. The internet listings are useless for finding a for sale property I've come to find out. Apparently, what appeals to me, also appeals to other potential buyers (which I find surprising). Reasonably priced real estate in good condition is getting snapped up the day it lists. That says "buyer working with agent." So, now, I'm looking for a good agent, one that has a "heads up" on the market, and won't pester me with stuff I'm not interested in. This is very important in the market I'm looking at which has some great houses, and a lot of clunkers.
Last edited by TwinbrookNine; 07-12-2017 at 07:10 PM..
I totally agree with this comment. I've missed two properties now that were ideal - but by the time they showed up on the internet listings, they were already sold. The internet listings are useless for finding a for sale property I've come to find out. Apparently, what appeals to me, also appeals to other potential buyers (which I find surprising). Reasonably priced real estate is getting snapped up the day it lists. That says "buyer working with agent." So, now, I'm looking for a good agent, one that has a "heads up" on the market, and won't pester me with stuff I'm not interested in. This is very important in the market I'm looking at.
Well, the realtor told me the offer was accepted at 11 PM, which was after the listing appeared. Maybe an offer was made before it went on the market though and the paper work just wasn't finalized until then. It's hard to say.
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