Buying A Home
BriarRose84
member
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Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
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Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
Buying a House Frustration...
I've been lurking on here for the past few weeks. My DH and I have been trying to buy a house for a little over a month. We have gone through about 4 houses that we have wanted, 2 of which we put offers on but didn't get them. The others, we didn't even get the chance to put an offer on when the seller already made their decision about which offer to go with. It doesn't seem like that big of a deal but the houses were only on the market for 2 days! I have been getting frustrated because we go to see them, start the paperwork to put in the offer on the same day, only to find out that the seller already accepted an offer. Why wouldn't they tell our realtor that when he calls to make the appointment for us to see the house? Anyone else experiencing these frustrations? We are going to see a couple more houses tomorrow after work but I am worried it will be the same problems all over again.
Re: Buying a House Frustration...
We've gone through similar situations as well. We lost a home we desperately wanted in a bidding war. Four other houses we were very interested in were gone before we could even get a showing. One had a contract within 6 hours. Our REA did call the seller's agent prior to viewing to find out what the interest had been in the house, if there were any contracts being reviewed, and if any previous offers had fallen through and why. We always knew beforehand if a house had an offer on it or not, even if it wasn't accepted quite yet.
What we are doing is keeping a blank contract in the car to sign. If something we are really interested in comes on the market, we are going to see it within the same day (as early as possible) and then putting an offer on it at that time. In Texas, we have an option period where for 10 days, you can back out of the contract for any reason by paying $100 to the seller(s). If it's a house we are REALLY interested in, we'd rather go ahead and make an offer and then backout later if more research into the home shows its not what we want.
Good luck!
Yep, we're in the same situation. The school district we're looking in is low on inventory and anything that is priced well goes within days.We just put our third offer in last night and the house had only been on the market 24 hours. Fingers crossed, but neither of us are feeling optimistic at this point.
Similar to pp, our agent has signed blank paperwork for us that she just fills in the details for and faxes in within 20 minutes of us seeing a house. We also have a really good mortgage person who can generate a pre-approval letter in about 10 minutes.
I find that it's hard to get excited about the houses anymore. If I like one, it's almost a bad feeling because I just think "yep, probably not gonna get it".
Try to keep pushing on and seeing the houses. I know some people take breaks from it when they get frustrated, but I think keeping at it will eventually pay off. More houses will come on the market in the next couple of months since a lot of people like to list in March or April so that they don't have to move during the school year.
To the point about the listing agents not telling your agent about the interest, according to our REA, they really don't like bidding wars. The agents have to work together and a bidding war always leaves people pissed off and not wanting to do business in the future. Not that those agents not giving yours the full story shouldn't piss him off, but that's what I've been told on the multiple offers thing.
Yep - we've experienced this with a couple houses - where we didn't even get a chance for the buyer to consider us :-(. We actually have a contract in place to be fist in line with one house in case the current contract falls through. We love it so much that our realtor kept nagging the seller to get the contract in place :-) It's a long shot, but I feel better doing all that we can.
This house was at the top of our personal price range (we can take out more of a loan, but we're not comfortable doing so) and it's proven very tough to find anything at this price that measures up to this house, especially in terms of location. It bummed us out more than I ever thought house hunting could.
I'm a Realtor in CA and so I thought I'd share a few of my experiences.
We are definitely seeing multiple offers again and a very competitive sellers market. For instance, there was a property in town that received 38 offers just a week ago. Amazing!
From a listing agents stand-point, often times if you have a lot of interest on a home, things happen very quickly. Even when you are trying to keep all the interested parties updated, things can change instantly. Many buyers agents don't mention that they are writing an offer until it is done and in hand. Many buyers agents request disclosures but never write an offer. Many times an agent will say they are going to write an offer but the buyers back out when it comes time to put pen to paper. It can be very difficult to truly gauge the activity and potential interest.
I had a home on the market in December and I had people calling to request disclosures right away. We had set a date for offers and I had about 8 disclosure packets out. 3 Realtors seemed to have the absolute most interest, the others were keeping their distance. It was a full time job just notifiying the other Realtors of the activity each day (thankfully everyone was quick on texting!). I was also reaching out to the other 'luke warm' Realtors to see if they were going to come to the table. On the day for offers, I knew I had 3. At the last minute, a 4th came in by email. Personally, I try to be as accurate and up to date as I can with any potential buyers agents but I can't keep them posted on everything. And many things are beyond my control (ie one coming in by email at the last minute or conversely, if someone never shows up).
I'm sorry, I know it is very difficult. My best bit of advice is to talk to your Realtor about why you are losing out on the offers that do get presented. Look for areas where you can strengthen your offers in any way (shorter time periods, more money down, getting Pre-Approved etc). Your Realtor may also be able to get some feedback from the listing agents about why your offer wasn't accepted.
Then, just hang in there. Keep up the good work. When you find the next one, you will be ready to win it!!!
Lighthouse State Beach, Santa Cruz.
Have you seen my monkey?
I'm actually really freaked out by the number of cash buyers in our market. We went and saw a townhouse that was nice - 4 beds with a finished basement and a great kitchen. We were told that no one could see it until the open house, but somehow someone got to see it the night before. It was under contract before the open house and there was a lynch mob of irate buyers outside - two of whom had come with cash offers in hand. Holy crap.
Good luck - I'll cross my fingers for you!