Buying A Home
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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.
When did your agent show you a CMA or comps for a property?
Our agent had been been trying to convince us over the weekend to put an offer in for the house I posted about the other day with the small bedrooms. We had asked where we should go in with an offer and she she gave us a number which was about 5K under asking. She kept saying that the house was priced right, but she showed us absolutely nothing to back that statement up. I'm wondering if I am overthinking this too much and maybe she would of pulled information before she came over with the offer, but part of me feels like she wasn't. Her mindset was she wanted us to get our offer in first to try and avoid a bidding war.
TIA!
Re: When did your agent show you a CMA or comps for a property?
On the first house we made an offer on, we saw comps a few days before making an offer. On the house we are currently under contract for, we never saw comps. It was a new construction home with a base price. Our agent advised and we believed as well that because these homes were all selling before competition and because the builder only had a few lots for the size home we needed it would be best to go with list. We did and then asked for about 12 additional items to be added. They were willing to do all our little request (which included a 6 ft privacy fence in the backyard).
Your agent should be willing to show you comps for the property. If she believes the house is priced right, she should be able to back that up for you. How do you feel about the price? I know on the first home, we went in with the price we thought was fair. We had seen a lot of homes in the area and knew those prices. Also on this house we are currently under contract for, we were happy with the price.
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Two things concern me about your post.
First that your agent is pressuring you to put in an offer. Buying a house is a big decision and you should not be pushed into making an offer on a house you aren't sure about! Don't let her pressure you if you are truly not sure. (you don't really mention how you feel)
Second, I do think it is a problem that your agent isn't showing you any comps. When we expressed interest in our "final two" as we called them, our agent brought comps to the second showings. He did let us know that for the one house, that the comps were not good ones, since the house we wanted was quite a bit nicer than those houses. But he did help us by saying here are the comps, but they don't have X Y and Z like this house, so here is what I feel the house is worth on the market today. Even if the comps aren't great for the house you may want, I think it is still helpful to have them.
This. I've never had to outright ask for comps. When we got serious about a house, the agent automatically provided them.
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Our agent pulled comps and showed us printouts when we sat down to price our house initially, and recently when we dropped price she pulled recent sales again (because I was nervous about our appraisal).
For the house that we like the most, she pulled comps on her own and gave her opinion on the price when we asked.
Our agent knew we were in a time crunch and the houses we had scheduled to see she brought the comps with in the event we wanted to write an offer on the spot. Glad she did since we did put an offer in before leaving the property.
I had the sense before that you weren't *that* into the house, so I think it's odd that she's pushing you on it. I know my agent tried to push us a couple of times if she thought the house was a great deal, but we stood pretty firm.
Our agent never gave us comps, but I didn't ask for them either. We're in a market where if it's fairly priced you pay asking because if you don't, someone else will.
Our agent did not give us comps until we asked for it....then she finally did give us some comps, that weren't really comps at all (like, completely updated 4B/3B while ours is a 3B/2B that needs several updates). She is totally useless though, and the only reason we are sticking with her is because she showed us the house we are going to buy (and inventory in this area is really low, so just switching agents and waiting for another house to come on the market is a gamble).
I did my own research, and we based all of our offer prices off of that. We held firm to our max, and we eventually came to an agreement with the seller, 3500 lower than the price she had suggested would be a "steal" for the house, and about 8500 below what she said was a fair value for the house (*still not sure where she is getting those numbers, but our ending price was right where *I* personally think is good, we aren't getting a steal but we aren't overpaying either).
In fact, because I think it is a fair price that we agreed upon, but not a steal, I am actually still fairly worried about our appraisal, and that the house wouldn't appraise for our final contract value. Our house is well-constructed and well-taken care of, but it will need some major things in the next few years.
I would recommend doing some research in your area. If redfin is available in your area, we found that really helpful. You can search specifically for all houses that meet a specific criteria/price range and that closed in the time frame you input (past few weeks/months/year).