I’m all the time getting questions from my clients about certain houses or neighborhoods……Like, “Hey John, what do you think about the house on such and such street.”  If you ever see me pulled over on the side of the road or standing in the isle at Wal-Mart, odds are I just got an email with a similar question.  I try to point out things my clients may not have thought about which could affect their enjoyment of the property and/or its resale potential.  Here are some replies that I cut and pasted.   Thought it might give you a vibe for what it is like working with me.  I’ve removed the names of streets/neighborhoods that were in question since I don’t want to get hate mail from residents in those areas 😉

Here we go:

“That is a nice area, and you do occasionally see some houses go for more, but they tend to back to the wooded area I told you about, or have a pool, or some really unique feature.  The problem with that area is that once you get up around $350k, you start competing with other neighborhoods is that part of town that are in Dunbar High School or Rosa Parks Elementary. (Beaumont, Palomar, Firebrook)”

“I think the absolute ceiling for that house is in the low $400’s.  I don’t see how anybody could buy it for near the asking price, make improvements, and not end up being upside down on it.”

“You know this one has a rear entry garage, which makes the front look pretty but also means your backyard is the driveway and it making fencing a nightmare……and people who want a fence won’t buy the house when you sell it.”

“I think ******** hasn’t sold because it is a $135k house.  The listing agent is just comping square footage without making any adjustments for windows, ages of systems, attractiveness, etc.  ******* is an area where you can get the same square footage in poor shape for as low as $110k or as much as $160k if it is fixed up nice.”

“This end of this street was an infill project.  It is surrounded by a neighborhood of less expensive older houses.  It is about 100 feet from that same railroad track that is near ************.  This particular house backs to some tiny rental houses.  The other side of ******* is preferred.  Also, these newer houses on ******* have always struggled to sell.  I think it is because most buyers wanting newer houses want to feel like they are in a newer area.  This area feels like somebody randomly decided to build some nice houses.”

“It had been listed with another agent and expired.  The people did some painting and carpet and put it on with another agent.  I showed it last summer.  It is a nice house.  It feels like an extremely outdated house that has had just enough updating to make you think it isn’t as outdated.  The deck is nice.  The backyard has power lines running across the back, right at eye level with the deck.  The basement is disappointing.  It feels like the basement of a church where a youth group would have a lock-in.  It too is over-priced if nobody has bought it in this popular neighborhood yet.  Nice ones that are priced realistically move fast.”

“Very nice area.  I am pretty sure that house has a siding material called “Exterior Insulation finishing System”, also known as EIFS. It is a material that caused many houses to rot since it can trap moisture.  I typically advise clients to steer clear of it since it can be hard to resale a property with it. If it is maintained correctly, there is little risk of having a problem. Few people maintain it that well and when people hear the word “EIFS”, they assume the worst.  Google it if you like. I am sure there a videos about it.”

Why am I under a crawl space taking this picture?

Let me give you a little background of how I got here.  I just started working with a couple that will be first time home buyers.  Like many of the people who find me, they had been working with another agent that just wasn’t offering them much other than opening doors.

While they were checking out the place, I started looking around for things that could turn up on the home inspection.  I try to use my background in drafting, building materials, construction estimating and managing my own properties so my people will know if the place is a dump BEFORE writing the offer.  There is nothing worse than seeing somebody post pics on Facebook and tell their friends/family about a house they are buying and then to not buy it.  I don’t want that for any of my people, especially first time buyers.

So, one of the things I do when checking out the condition of a house is to push my foot down around the toilet.  There is a $2 thing called a wax ring that serves as a seal between the toilet and the flange in the floor.  When they deteriorate over time, you end up getting the subfloor wet every time you flush.  Replacing a section of subfloor and maybe sistering a joist to one that is rotting isn’t that big of a job, but jacking up the finished floor in the bathroom is a pain.  It is almost like a mini-remodel job.  This house had tile flooring.  When I showed the people it was soft, they could see the floor move under my foot (Okay, I’m big, but the problem was the floor, not me!)

So, to prevent my people from writing an offer and paying for an inspection before finding out how bad this was, we made another appointment to see the house wearing what my parents called “After school clothes”.  When we got to the spot under the bathroom, the picture is what we saw.  The subfloor is gone and both joists on either side of the toilet are rotting at the top.  BTW, the seller disclosed that the toilet had leaked and the floor had dried.  Sounds simple, huh?  That is why I always take anything the seller says about their house with a grain of salt.  I mean, they do want to sell it to you, right?

After this and a few other issues I discovered, my clients decided this wasn’t the house for them.  I think they may have felt bad about the time I put into it, but I really didn’t think this was the best choice for them either.  The search goes on.  (Gotta give a shout out to my client for realizing the crawl space had no vents before I did-that is awesome for a guy who has never been under a house before!!)

On the way out, we did find these two old beer cans from the days when there were pull tabs.

“I’ve got a doctor that is relocating here and  HAS to buy a house this weekend.”

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve had another realtor, even ones I don’t know, that disclose something like this to me.  I don’t understand why they do it.  I guess they are just excited to know they are going to sell a house and have to tell anybody that will listen…..even if it is somebody they shouldn’t tell.

As a listing agent, this is what I hear when another realtor says something like that to me:  “If we make an offer on your listing, you can probably counter back for more money since my people are getting on a plane later today.”  I also hear “Don’t worry about having to do many repair items after the home inspection since it’s not like the buyers are going to be able to hop on a plane and come back to look at other houses.”

I work with a lot of out of town buyers, and I’ll tell you, I try to keep a lid on stuff like this.  It just compromises my people’s negotiating power.  I don’t even like to send the listing agent a copy of my buyer’s earnest money check because I don’t want the other agent to see an out of town address.

I shoot myself in the foot a lot, both feet sometimes.  It’s because I want to make sure my people know the whole story on a house.  I can’t tell you how many times I’ll be in a wonderful house with somebody and say something like……..

“You know, there is no pantry in this house, and I know you really wanted one.”

“With the garage on the back of the house, you’ll be a little limited in what you can fence in the backyard.”

“This house is vacant and looks bigger than it is.”

“No, there really isn’t enough room for an island.”

“Yeah, you can make all those changes, but you’ll not get it back when you sell since you’d be way over the top of the range for this neighborhood.”

“I don’t know if you’ll be able to really fit two cars in this garage since there is a staircase there.”

“Sure, this house looks pretty with all the fresh paint and updates, but all the windows are shot.”

It happens all the time.  A buyer walks in a house, gets all excited about what they see and forget to check on a few things.  That is why I tell my sellers we want to make their house look so good that buyers will focus on the bling and forget the obvious negatives.

I’ve had a lot of people thank me for passing on my insight.  I mainly just don’t want my people to have any surprises…..even if it means I have to keep showing them more houses until we find one that works.

I’ve been in a lot of multiple offer situations.  None of them are ever fun.  I usually win though.  Want to know how?

Well, in an offer, there are pretty much just a few things a seller cares about.  Price is the one that comes to mind the most.  Often overlooked but equally important are the inspection terms you do and the closing date.  What I try to do when I know there are other offers on a property is to talk to the listing agent and find out what is important to the seller.   Like, have they found a house yet?  If so, when will that one close?  Do they need to stay in the house a couple of days after the closing to make it an easier transition?

Here are the details of my first and most recent multiple offer deals:

The first multiple offer deal I ever had was back in 2005.  The market was super hot.  There was a great house on Grafton that would be perfect for my client.  The funny thing about this one is that I actually won the offer by making a mistake.  (It IS only one of two that I have made since 2005.)  On this one, I got up very early that day and we were writing the offer in a hurry late at night.  For the closing date, I meant to put a certain date in December, but instead of writing “12” for the month, I wrote “11”.  I was saying we could close in 2 weeks when I meant to write in 6 weeks in other words.  This was back in the days when the buyer’s agent would actually go to a meeting to present the offer.  It was the only time I have done this since technology has made that a thing of the past.  I went in, told the sellers what a great house they have, how much my seller liked it, and even how she used the same shampoo we saw in the shower.  The listing agent kept asking me over and over again if I was sure we could close by “That” date.  They took our offer because of “That” closing date.  The husband-seller worked retail and didn’t want to have to move during his peak season.  Now, the funny thing is that the loan officer for my buyer as well as the buyer were both fine with a November closing date, I was the only one in the dark.  They were fine with it…..and it got us the house! (I was awful green back then 😉

I just bought a new place for my family.  First day on the market.  Back to back showings all that day too.  I think everybody who saw it must have written an offer.  I suspected there would be cash buyers.  It is hard to win against them since the seller doesn’t have to be concerned about the loan nor the appraisal.  No hoops to jump through at all.  I was planning on writing my offer contingent on a home inspection, but I would not negotiate on any repairs afterwards.  I would take it or leave it.  I knew with all the offers, this wasn’t going to be enough.  I though to myself, well, I have bought enough houses and been on enough home inspections to know what to look for.  The roof wasn’t old and the HVAC was practically new.  Those are the biggest deal killers.  Also, as somebody who went to great lengths to stop water coming in the basement of my former home, I have a 6th sense for water/structural issues.  Soooooo, I bought it totally As-Is.  I’m sure it has the same $500-1000 in repairs that most houses need.  I’ll deal with that myself since this was the best house for my family and was priced below market value.   I also knew the sellers didn’t have a house picked out yet.  Where I am keeping my old house to rent, I didn’t have to be in the new one by any certain date.  I let the seller pick a time that worked for them.  Guess what?  I beat out a full price cash offer!!

I know not everybody can be as flexible as I was when buying a house, but if you want to win the house you want in a multiple offer situation, the key is to make it easy for a seller to say yes to you.  You do it by giving them the best combination of price, inspection terms, and closing/possession scenarios that you can do.