New poster....I'm feeling very discouraged

JuliaBride2006

Hi there, I'm new although I have been lurking a while. My husband and I have been searching for our first house for about 6 months now after taking a few years to plan and save. We have lined up financing, have a 25% down payment, and have identified 5 different neighborhoods where we would want to buy. The problem is that we live in Los Angeles and there is no inventory in the areas we want to live in (and due to work and our friend's locations we do not want to stray from the areas we have identified). We see a house in our price range (up to mid 500,000 max) that we want to further investigate about every 2 weeks. I don't think we're that picky. I want a yard and lots of light, but we'll take either a fixer upper or finished home. We have put 3 offers in and have lost bidding wars on all 3. The last house went for $100,000 over asking. A few weeks ago I called our realtor to see a house that had been on the market 2 days and she called back to say the house already had 52 offers. Ugh. I just have to vent. 

kaylie622

Wow, I thought we were in a tough market! You're right to stick to the areas you originally identified - it's too important a decision to settle. We were in three bidding wars before we got our house, and we didn't even win the one for our house! We were the back up offer but the couple that won got in a fight and called the whole thing off.

Does your agent think things might be less competitive closer to the end of summer or beginning of fall? This is peak season here and things are flying off the market in a matter of days but it dies down once the school year is closer since people are less inclined to move then. 

kaylie622

PS - the house we ended up with is way better than the other two we didn't get and we're so grateful that we didn't win those bidding wars. Keep your chin up - sometimes this stuff happens for a reason.

JuliaBride2006

Thanks, that's what we keep trying to tell ourselves. Our agent keeps telling up that she hopes things will pick up soon, but has not projected anything. The funny thing is that we see the same people at every open house, and we fit the demographic: professional hipsterish couple, early thirties, no kids.

JuliaBride2006

I feel like Veruca Salt, we've waited so long to get to this point, I want it now!

kaylie622

Our agent was sort of the same way - I think it's how they manage expectations. It seems like things caught on fire here on January and inventory was and still is very low for the size/price we wanted. The house on the street behind us that is the same size but 10 years older and less updated was under contract within 24-48 hours for 10% more than what we paid. A house down the street went on the market yesterday and I'm betting H that it's under contract by tomorrow.

We kept seeing the same people too! Actually when we saw this house we saw another right before it and there were three families there in addition to H and me. All three came to this house afterwards. We kept a poker face when we came out . 

 

dapotato

sorry, that's the market here. i have friends that have been looking seriously for over a year and still haven't gotten a place. we've also got lots of investors and buyers from overseas with cash offers.

we found a place within 4 months, but we also bought in our 2nd/3rdish choice neighborhood. we are also not in LA proper but another large city in LA county that is a little bit easier to buy in (still crap inventory, but slightly better prices). i also did not have a full-time job at the time we were intensely house hunting so went out with our agent 4-5 times a week as soon as listings hit. we saw something like 60 houses in person. we offered on 3 before getting this one.

we ended up getting our house through a pocket listing. our agent is VERY well-networked in the neighborhoods we were looking, and she found a house that was perfect for us before it hit the market. 

stick to your guns. stalk the neighborhoods you like. hang in there. it'll work out when it's meant to. but yeah, it really sucks to house hunt in LA even if you have millions to spend.

kaitylin

We are in LA too and it's hard. What areas are you looking at? When we bought our first place we were also looking under 500K in West LA and never found a house or townhome we liked in our price point and ended up in a condo (but in our absolute ideal neighborhood) so we were happy. Now, we need more space so we are moving to South Bay area (DH works down there now so it's actually more convenient. Don't love the location as much but we can get WAY more for our money.) LA market is hard and prices are so high for what you get. I've seen 800K houses that look like falling down dumps.

LoveKiss

{{{{Hugs}}}} The wait for the right house can be very frustrating and disheartening. Mr. LK and I definitely poured our sorrows into a pint of Ben & Jerrys on more than one occasion. Just keep reminding yourself that the wait is worth it. It sucks when the inventory that meets your criteria is virtually non-existent, but eventually the right place will come on the market. We've been hunting for 17 months, and I think we are finally under contract on "the one". Was it 17 months of fun? Heck no. But watching things fall into place on this deal really tells me that it was 100% worth the wait.