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how long do you wait to make an offer?
hey-o...i'm a lurker on this board as i usually frequent theBump boards...
anyways, DH and i have been house hunting since January and hardcore hunting for the last month or so. we saw an adorable Cape Cod style home on Monday that we just love and are nervous that with the price and neighborhood, it'll get snatched up quickly. my issue is -- DH and i are very um...excitable?..people. we get an idea and all of a sudden it's the best thing ever until it's not. i don't want to jump the gun and buy this house because we like to jump in really fast. it's only been 3 days since we first saw it but it fits all of our requirements for a house plus the charm is an added bonus we weren't expecting. i want to put a contract on it now but HOW LONG DO YOU WAIT to do that so that you know it's the right decision? ugh. i don't want to make a decision too soon and feel stupid, but it looks good on paper and it looks GREAT in person. WWYD?
Re: how long do you wait to make an offer?
I would walk through it again. I understand you immediate excitement issues, I have the same problem. Try to go through with more meticulous eyes. Decide if it really does meet all of your needs/wants and if it does then make an offer.
Good luck. And it is ok to be excited if you find something you really do like!
It's really up to you. With our current house, we went to an open house at 1pm and had an offer in by 9am the next morning. But by then we had been house hunting for about 3 months and had seen a TON of places (and it was the 4th house we'd put an offer on) so by then we had a pretty good idea of what was worth jumping on.
This is different for every person and every market. Some people have the luxury of taking their time, but we didn't. If we really liked a house we knew we had to make an offer quickly because our market was hot. It took us three bidding wars to get our house, and we were the back up offer.
Have you been this excited about any of the other houses you've seen? If not, this very well could be the right house for you.
I love cape cods, but there aren't a lot where we are. Sometimes they don't have master bathrooms, so if this one doesn't I would definitely ask yourself if you can live without one. Small rooms and closets can also be an issue, so I would try to visualize the furniture placement and make sure it's large enough for you.
If it has all of your must haves and some nice to haves and it's in your price range in a nice neighborhood, it sounds great to me!
As a PP said, I would take the time to see it again. Every market is different the house might be there for months or gone tomorrow, it just really depends.
When H and I found the first house that we liked out of 20 I was pretty excited and wanted to offer right away. H, of course, was a little calmer about it and we ended up waiting nearly two weeks and seeing other houses before we made an offer. In the end, we didn't even end up with that house. If you like it, think its a good deal, have seen your other options and know what is available in your area - then I would say go and see it again and make an offer. We knew that the areas we were looking in there were a very limited number of houses that were in our budget and even fewer that we would even consider.
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thank you! i feel very encouraged after reading all of your responses. i think we're going to try to see it again tomorrow and if it's still our dream house then we'll make an offer on monday (it doesn't help that our realtor is on vacation as soon as we find THE house haha).
DH went back to see it yesterday to measure the garage and evaluate the storage space. those things "scored" lower in this house but we feel like we can make it work. we do see some flaws that make it not the perfect house, but there are so many things about it that we love and the big things we wanted are there. i definitely need to see it again to make sure the love is still there.
We looked at houses for months (in a situation where we didn't have to move, so we were able to hold out for what we wanted). We saw our house on a Saturday, second viewing on Tuesday (Monday was July 4th and it was a bank owned home so we knew no business would be done) and put in an offer that day. It was literally on the market 2 days before we saw it and it would NOT have lasted (nothing in our neighborhood is on the market long).
If this is the house, pull the trigger.
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We weren't even in our hardcore hunting stage yet. We were just browsing open houses and stumbled upon a house style we really loved. There happened to also be another of the same style house for sale a few streets over (oh the land of cookie cutter houses). We scheduled a viewing with our realtor to look at the open house home and the other home the following Wed. After going through with our realtor to original open house home we ruled out as it needed a lot of updates. The other home, however, was amazing. While the same layout, everything was updated and it was move in ready (which was what we are looking for). My husband was willing to put in a offer that week but we hadn't even been out with our realtor yet to see houses. So we decided to go out with our realtor that next weekend to see what else was out there. That whole week we were stalking the MLS and the house, my husband was really afraid of losing it. After seeing about 6 homes with the realtor, we really didn't see anything else that came close either in the features or the value. What really scared us is that we drove home past the house and saw people coming out of it with their realtor. That made us decide to jump and ask our realtor if he could set up a 2nd showing that day. We saw a second time and it just felt right compared to what we had seen previously. We left the house and went directly to his office to write up an offer.
My husband had always known this was the house but I've been very hesitant, wondering if something better will come to market or if it's the right choice but as we get further along in the process, I'm falling in love with it more and more.
For the first house we bought, we had been looking for a few months and saw a TON of houses. Over lunch one day (around noon) I looked at new houses posted that week and one had been posted on the MLS at 11am. From the pictures, I knew it was the house. We set up a showing for that night at 6:30pm and we put an offer in at 8pm.
I'm the same- I get very excited easily and want to make sure whatever I want is MINE right away.
That being said, we were lucky to be in a very slow area where houses haven't been selling for at least a year. We decided to see the house 1 or 2 more times (can't remember exactly) and started to put our emotions aside and look closely at things that we'd not be able to change, things that would need work, and so on.
We decided to put in our offer a few days after the second or third viewing. I honestly think if we were in a pressure (multiple offers possible), we would have put our offer in right away after seeing it for the first time.
We are looking at putting an offer in on a house this coming week, but we've been looking at this house for months. The reason we're making the move on it now is that a.) It recently became the model home for the neighborhood and they did some improvements to the yard and b.) We drove by it last night and they had taken the sign out from the front just to reseed the yard and we panicked that it had sold. When we realized how panicked we were about it possibly being sold, we knew we have found our house.
That's just us though.