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If you are looking for a champagne location and a beer house, you are competing with investors.
If you are going to have a shot at those, then you need to really be on top of new listings. Are you on top of new listings.
Also, we don't have a lot of pools out here so you'll have to excuse my ignorance, but can't you remove them or fill them in with dirt? I mean if you found a great prospect and the only deal breaker was the pool why wouldn't you consider removing it?
Here is a fixer upper in Tampa for 499k. It is stuck in 1963 (except for the kitchen, which is stuck in 1982); nothing else has ever been updated; from the floors to the electrical, to you name it. The roof is a disaster. I could go on. It probably needs 100k in renovations, at least.
It's in a great neighborhood but it is on a busy street. That is the dealbreaker for me:
And as far as filling in a pool, that is a great question. I am looking into what that entails. I am not so much concerned about the cost of getting rid of the pool as I am about future grading/drainage problems.
And yeah I am on top of new listings (I check hourly and get emails etc), but the rare, few good ones have been snatched before I ever got to them. I need to get quicker.
Here is a fixer upper in Tampa for 499k. It is stuck in 1963 (except for the kitchen, which is stuck in 1982); nothing else has ever been updated; from the floors to the electrical, to you name it. The roof is a disaster. I could go on. It probably needs 100k in renovations, at least.
It's in a great neighborhood but it is on a busy street. That is the dealbreaker for me:
And as far as filling in a pool, that is a great question. I am looking into what that entails. I am not so much concerned about the cost of getting rid of the pool as I am about future grading/drainage problems.
And yeah I am on top of new listings (I check hourly and get emails etc), but the rare, few good ones have been snatched before I ever got to them. I need to get quicker.
Just for reference - my IL's had an inground pool and filled it in with dirt. Now it just looks like a normal yard and you would never know there was a pool there. I have never heard them talk about any problems so it might be a good option for you.
I have to post a reply here. Short answer: For us, a year and a half of looking. With the same realtor (bless her).
We have been looking for a house (in South Fla.) since summer 2007. During that summer, we owned a house but were planning to move. At that time we asked for help from a realtor to show us around the area where we were moving, just to give us an overview of what houses and neighborhoods were like. She did that gladly.
During the next few months we made a few trips to the new area, with our realtor, to go through houses to see their condition and what we would be getting for our money. We considered this homework both into relative value and neighborhoods. From there we narrowed down our location and also found that, in our opinion, housing prices were still crazily inflated. And - after careful review of finances - we dropped our maximum house price, which affected which houses we were looking at.
We then sold our house in December 2007. We looked very hard for a house to buy but felt that prices were still too high for what the houses were worth and for what was affordable. We made four offers, some of them nearly $100K below asking. We figured it could not hurt to lowball, and we were offering what we could afford. All the sellers dropped their prices significantly but we could not meet in price. So we decided to rent.
We have rented for more than a year and gotten to know the area very well from new friends, neighbors, and businesses. Our realtor has worked for us diligently in that time. We have kept looking. She has kept showing. We have kept offering. Our criteria for a house have remained the same! The prices for houses have NOT. We see the same houses selling now that were selling for more than 100K a year ago! And they are still on the market.
For our realtor, this has been a learning experience too. For example, when she first started with us, most realtors would not touch foreclosures or short sales or FSBOs. Times have changed. She has grown to know our area well and has shown us everything - regular listings, FSBOs, foreclosures, auction houses, relocations, and short sales. She is very well informed now!
We are finally closing on a short sale house in a few weeks. It is exactly what we have been looking for, and for the price we wanted. Everyone told us it was impossible (champagne taste on a beer budget, blah blah blah). Well it wasn't. Thanks to patience, careful watching of the market, and a hardworking realtor who was willing to jump on fire sales and get us in the door, we have succeeded in our house hunt.
So how long is too long? For us it took a year and a half. We are reasonable people. Maybe some realtors would not consider us so! But if you know what you want, you are informed, and you are patient, you should be able to find what you're looking for. Or, over time, you may find your expectations and wishes-versus-needs changing, which will certainly affect your purchasing decision.
I agree that much of the inventory now is crap. Overpriced listings stay around, and the good ones get snatched. Your agent is probably getting impatient.
I agree with what other people said. If you have been looking for this long, you really should know enough about areas and properties that you don't need to see very many. I can tell a lot by a listing after looking for a year, a drive by further eliminates most of the rest. Going to open houses is also an option. This will save your agent time.
Finally, you can always write the offers. If they are within comps, then it is worth it to write them. Low balls tend to get rejected, and you will get frustrated, but if your agent is game, it can be worth a try.
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