back on the market

Is it turning to a Buyer’s Market?

by John Rice

Short answer: It depends on the house.

Long answer: I read an article this morning asking this same question. It had all the usual data in any article related to the nationwide real estate market. Average days on market, Average sale price compared to previous years, the number of listings compared to previous years……blah blah blah.

None of that really matters. Why? Because no two houses and no two markets are the same. There is no average house. Average means a composite of all data. It does not look at each house individually. Do you know who does look at each house individually? Buyers do.

A buyer looks at every house within their budget and decides which one they want to buy. Let’s say they look at 10 houses. They are only buying one so they pick the best one. Do you know what else happens? Usually every buyer in that same price range also picks the same best one. That means we have multiple buyers competing for the best houses on the market. Meanwhile, the rest of the houses sit there and dilute all those averages so the media can make illogical conclusions to share with the world.

I have been a realtor for 20 years. It was a Seller’s Market when I started. Then a Buyer’s Market. Then an EXTREME Buyer’s Market. Then a stable market. Then it slowly built into the strongest Seller’s Market ever. Now, more than ever, we sort of have two markets. If you want the best house in the best neighborhood, you better be prepared to go over the list price and be flexible on anything important to the seller. If you are not picky, make a low offer on one of those houses that nobody else has wanted. After 20 years of this, I can tell you that when you go to sell whatever house you decide to buy, picking the best one will always have been the wisest decision. The best houses will always be worth the most, be the easiest to sell, and will have the broadest appeal.

Backup offers are a bad idea except for this 1 reason

by John Rice

Backup offers.

They seem appealing to buyers who missed a house they wanted.

However, they are 99% of the time, a bad thing to do.

Why?

  1. It ties you up. You have an accepted contract on a house contingent on the primary buyer’s contract falling apart. Should another house come on the market that you want to make an offer on, you have to rescind your offer IF you have verbiage in your contract that allows you to do so. If you don’t have that language in the contract, you are stuck. You are missing out on houses you could get right now in hopes that the sale of one you previously missed will fall apart. This is a recipe for never getting a house.
  2. You are really helping the seller more than yourself. Think about it from the seller’s perspective. You are putting them in a spot where they have two people wanting the house. If the primary buyer asks for repairs after a home inspection, the seller is just going to say “Look, I’ve got a backup contract. If you want this house you’ve gotta do what I want you to do. If not, walk away and I’ll just let the other buyer have it.”
  3. You are going to pay a premium. The seller has no reason to accept an offer less than the primary contract they already have. If you’re a seller with an accepted contract for $400k on your house, would you bother with an offer for $390k? This means you are most likely going to have to make an offer stronger than the offer they currently have with the primary buyer.

When is that one single time when it might make sense? If the house is 110% exactly what you want and you are not going to be happy with any other house. If that’s they case, make that backup offer. Pay too much for it. Give the seller all the power. Pray the sale with the primary buyer falls apart. Then wait and see what happens.

If the house is just a really nice one that you liked a lot, just keep looking. Another one always eventually comes on the market. Oh, and remember, the best way to not have to make a backup offer is to have been the strongest offer the seller got when it was on the market. Beat the other buyers when you have a chance. Be that primary buyer that another buyer hopes will not be able to close the deal.

A good realtor is like using the Waze App

by John Rice

I’ve seen a few sellers lately make some bad decisions.

I get it. Selling your home is something you only do so often and I don’t expect them to understand the market and all the obstacles between sticking the sign in the yard and the closing. All they know is that the market is hot and selling your house is easy.

What they don’t know is that keeping it sold can sometimes be a lot of work.

I recently had a friend decide to list with some less experienced agent who was going to reduce the commission. I was going to reduce my commission to ZERO since this person was a friend and they had some circumstances that required them to move, guess I should have told them that sooner. I had been giving advice and working towards getting this done for close to a year. To this seller, all they were thinking about was saving money. Well, you only realize that savings when you close the sale. The house sold and is back on the market. Usually when a house comes back on the market, it doesn’t get the same attention from buyers. Most buyers in the market have already seen it and either said no to the house or made an offer that obviously wasn’t the best one or they would have gotten it the first time. This is where experience is worth every penny, even though I wasn’t planning on getting any pennies from this sale.

I am currently working hard to keep a deal together for a house where the buyer went to do the final walk through before the closing and found the ice maker had been leaking and has caused $12k in damage to the house. I know if my listing goes back on the market, we will never again catch such a fantastically qualified buyer who was the highest bidder, so I better put on my thinking cap and get this done.

These are just a couple of current examples of where experience can make or break a sale. The goal is to get to the closing. I am thinking about the entire process, not just the beginning. Not just the next step.

As I was making my second cup of coffee and thinking about writing this post, it reminded me of the early days of GPS. You’d enter the destination and take off. I think that is how most sellers view this process…….”I’ve got a realtor and they just stuck a sign in the yard. It’s all downhill from here!” If nothing goes wrong, then that is very true. But how often have you had your GPS take a crazy route or not know about construction, wrecks or other annoying delays? It’s the same with real estate. A lot of inexperienced agents don’t know what to lookout for along the way or don’t know how to negotiate. Sometimes you have to take an alternate route. Sometimes you need to change lanes along the way. A good realtor is more like the Waze app……not only are we watching out for delays, we are looking for speed traps and doing it all in real time as we get you to the final destination, which is the closing.

Why I knew this house would come back on the market

by John Rice

I showed a house a couple of weeks ago.  It was a great house in a desirable location.  The price was sort of low for the neighborhood due to it being a bit outdated and having some expensive deferred maintenance items.

I told my people I thought it would need a new roof soon, that the disclosure said the HVAC units were original and we could clearly see the wood rotting on the windows.  I also told them that I didn’t think it was that good of a deal.  By the time you got all that addressed, you would have in it what a better one on the street was worth.  That’s just not worth it unless the property has some unique feature such as a fantastic lot or the perfect floor plan.

I gave all this feedback to the listing agent to help him out.  Within an hour or so, I saw that the house had sold.

I remember thinking to myself “I bet it will come back on the market after the home inspection.”  Sure enough, it came back on the market.

It is easy for most buyers to fall in love with a house only to be heartbroken by the end of the home inspection.   Most buyers don’t know how long a roof lasts, how long HVAC units usually last, how much windows will cost.  A lot of realtors out there don’t think about this either.

I can see the buyer for this house walking in for the home inspection, excited to again see what they were expecting to be their new home.  They have a big smile on their face.  The inspector begins reviewing the report.  The big smile is now a grin.  The inspector keeps going.  The grin turns into a blank expression.  The inspector gets to the end of the report and the buyers now have a frown.

Then the buyer has their agent write a huge repair list that the seller refuses to do.

It all ends with the buyer looking for a much better house and the seller hoping to find another buyer.

I try to prevent this outcome for my clients.  It wastes time, money and even more so, is emotionally draining for the buyer.