It’s an interesting market and I wanted to share our experience in the hope that it helps current and future buyers. Much of what I’m saying is general advice in buying a home and isn’t specific to this market.
Before we go into it, some disclaimers:
- We are in a high cost of living market (HCOL) area (Seattle) where buying is very competitive
- This is not financial advice, where/when/why to buy is a personal decision
- We are not looking at homes that are top of market or completely flipped. We avoided these for a variety of personal and financial reasons.
- We are not “dream home” people. Some people see the perfect home and must have it. More power to you if this is you. We’re just not those people.
That being said, this is what we experienced. We looked between 10/15 and 11/25 and just closed a few days ago.
It’s a buyers market..but some sellers have not caught up to reality
In more than a few instances, sellers had prices that were completely not competitive, but when we countered with more reasonable offers, they balked saying they could just rent it out, or they were in no pressure to sell, etc etc. Our house that we just closed on had this same scenario, lots of bluster about “we hold all the cards” but at the end of the day, it’s just not true.
Call their bluff, if they didn’t want to sell, why is it on the market? Why has it been up for 30+ days? Why is it not rented right now?
The reality is that it is a buyers market, but many sellers remain ideologically stuck in a market that died 6 months ago. Push hard on them and be prepared to walk away if they are unreasonable.
Shop around for a good rate + bonuses from your lender
Mortgage professionals are absolutely desperate for volume and business, you can play them off each other and get significant discounts. We shopped around hard and were able to get into a bidding war that resulted in credits being offered. We went from 160k closing costs to 145k in closing costs just by playing lenders off each other.
It’s a great time to buy…if you negotiate
Find a RE agent that is seasoned and knows how to negotiate. This is the time that they really justify their worth. Deals can be had and made, but not if you give them asking price. We got below asking, sellers credits, and some things fixed. Ask how they plan to structure the offer, how they negotiate with the seller’s agents, etc. This is really, really important because without this you’re paying someone for redfin basically.
Waived contingencies are dead, force the seller to fix things
This is a HCOL specific problem but historically in HCOL regions you are buying houses while waiving almost all contingencies, including inspections. I always felt this was completely insane. Do not, for a second, buy in this market without doing a full inspection first. If the inspection finds anything, get quotes and come back to the seller. Be prepared to walk away if needed.
This is huge and frankly unheard of in our area over the past 5-6 years or so.
Look for houses on the market 30+ days
We found a few really good deals by finding more desperate sellers. It’s not like 2021 where the only houses that hadn’t sold at crapshacks. Some houses stay on the market simply because they got the price wrong, and you can “correct them” through negotiation. Being on the market that long, sellers get anxiety and desperate.
Hope this helps, this is just our personal experience.
submitted by /u/perestroika12
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