first time buyer

Telling people what they need to hear

by John Rice

Back when I was so overweight, I dreaded going to the doctor. They would always tell me all the ways being overweight would affect my health. It’s not like I didn’t know that. I just didn’t want to accept it.

A lot of buyers are in the same situation today. The reality of what it takes to get a home seems overwhelming. It is easier to just hope somehow it will all work out and you’ll get a house somehow if you submit enough offers.

Reality checks are never fun. One day I accepted everything the doctors had always told me. Once I did that, I knew what I needed to do if I didn’t want to have health issues as I aged.

I sold a house over the weekend to a new client who had lost several houses previously with their last realtor. I didn’t really do anything special. I did my usual good job in trying to make our offer the most appealing to the seller. The hero of this story is the buyer. I was just like the doctors telling me the reality I didn’t want to here. He took in all the information and chose to do something about it.

Like all houses these days, it got several offers the first day on the market. It is normal to go over the list price these days so we did an escalation clause up to a certain amount. The buyer was a little anxious about going that high. I explained that odds are we would not need to go that high, but that he would have hated to have lost the house by just a little bit. He agreed.

Once the offer was sent and I told the Seller’s Realtor a few things, I got a question about not having an appraisal gap waiver. I knew this meant that our offer was one being seriously considered. If we were not the best or one of the best offers they had, why would he ask about it?

I told my buyer this good news. He didn’t really want to risk having to put out more cash should the house not appraise for the sale price. I told him that this is getting more and more common with every house I’ve sold. If we didn’t do it this time, odds are we would be in the same situation on the next house when prices and interest rates might be higher. He agreed.

A few hours later I got a text that he got the house!!!!!

The hero here is my client. All I did was tell him the reality of what would most likely happen just like all those doctors did for me. My client accepted the reality of today’s market. He realized he wasn’t going to magically escape some of these uncomfortable things and end up winning a house in multiple offers. Once he saw that, he knew what he had to do just as I saw what I had to do.

My Dad always said “Living in reality is never fun, but what other choice do you have?” to which I will now add “Plus living in reality with a house is better than not doing so and waiting for the next new listing to hit the market and do it all over again and again.”

How to make a good choice in a frenzied market

by John Rice

It used to be real estate was all about “Location, location, location.”

Today real estate seems to be more about “Finishes, finishes,finishes.”

This disturbs me. Why? Because one day there will be enough houses for sale that a buyer has a choice on location. Right now, with so few houses for sale, buyers are considering ANY house in their price range. When you only have one or two choices, you can’t afford to be picky.

Something else that disturbs me are all the houses that have been extensively renovated and are selling for twice what a similar non-renovated house is worth in the same neighborhood.

I am not sure why this is but I suspect it has to do with the speed of the market. Nobody has time to do a market analysis and see what the house is worth compared to other recent sales or see if it is overimproved for the neighborhood

This is what I tell my buyers:

  1. Location is still important. Any house can be updated but you can’t easily move a house to a better location.
  2. Only buy at the top of the neighborhood’s price range if there are several other homes equal in finishes and value. You do not want that $400k house that looks like the reveal at the end of an HGTV show and is surrounded by $200k houses. In a balanced market, or even worse in a buyer’s market, potential buyers will love your house but will not buy it. They will be in a $400k price range and expecting a $400k neighborhood. They won’t like the cheaper houses around it. Remember when you buy a house, you are also buying stock in the neighborhood.
  3. Don’t compromise on the lot. Right now nobody cares. Buyers are just excited about any house in their price range. You don’t want the house with the tiniest or oddly shaped lot in the neighborhood. Remember neighborhoods are about conformity……fitting in among the rest of the houses. It’s okay to have the biggest or best lot in the neighborhood of course, but if most of the lots in the neighborhood are flat, you don’t want one that isn’t. If most are large, you don’t want the smallest one. Avoid driveways that are pretty steep. It is better to have a lot where the backyard slopes downhill away the house verses sloping uphill.

Basically, the best thing to remember as you frantically are trying to decide how much over the asking price you want to go is that one day you will be selling the house. The market may not be as tight. You won’t know whether the house you picked was a good decision or a bad one until it is your time to sell it.

So, always go into a purchase being mindful of your exit plan.

What would it take to crash the real estate market?

by John Rice

A lot of people subscribe to the “What goes up must come down” theory on markets. I don’t. I tend to just use that one when describing gravity.

For real estate, we have only really ever had prices go down twice in the history of tracking such stuff. Once was the Depression which caused ALL markets to go down, and the other was the Great Recession which was largely caused by bad mortgages that were toxic to the stock market. Neither time actually had anything to do with just the real estate market.

Today’s market is probably the healthiest it’s been in a long time. Prices are high due to supply and demand. Sure, low interest rates help but not as much as you would think. People acclimate to interest rates. I remember bragging about getting 6.625% on my first home when all my homeowning friends were over 7%.

When people on Youtube or those who write for the news look at the real estate market, they tend to not look at the whole picture. I am sure you have seen headlines about how all the people in mortgage forbearance would crash the market once they got foreclosed. Didn’t happen. All those people who needed to sell had enough equity to sell and avoid foreclosure. What about all the Baby Boomers who would leave a huge void in the real estate market as they sold their homes and went into retirement homes or to reside on the other side of the Pearly Gates? No mention of the youngest generation of buyers entering the market who would keep the wheels of the whole market greased so everybody can move. Years ago I described this like a baseball game where the bases are loaded. The Player on 1st base wants to run to 2nd. The Player on 2nd base wants to run to 3rd. The Player on 3rd wants to run home. What needs to happen in order to keep all those Players moving? For the Batter to hit a home run. The first time buyers are the most crucial element of the market. Without them, no homeowner can part with their old house in order to move up to their next one.

Everybody knows how Supply and Demand works, right? Let’s apply it to real estate. Most people involved in selling or buying will be doing both. Most sellers are also buying. Most buyers are also selling. That means there is no net gain or loss in the supply/demand ratio regardless of the market. This is why the supply/demand ratio got so bad during the Great Recession-You had so many foreclosures where the previous owner did not reenter the market as a buyer. Other than in such catastrophic times, the only people who are doing one side of a sale are first time buyers or those who have passed away or are going into some form of assisted living. Historically there have been more first time buyers than there are those who are exiting the market permanently. (I am excluding those well off enough to purchase second homes since that is a smaller market and we are not in a big area for that like Florida or any other vacation destination.)

So then, what would it take to tank the real estate market if it has nothing to do with real estate? It would take something terrible to happen with the economy…..meaning something bigger and broader than just the real estate market that is like a Tsunami and wipes out everything in it’s path. Let’s hope that doesn’t happen any time soon!

I took my own real estate advice and bought a car

by John Rice

I’ve been wanting to get another car for a while now. Anybody that knows me knoooooows I am a very sensible, practical guy in all aspects of my life other than when it comes to cars.

This year was probably my worst. I mean, I should probably make a YouTube channel about the stupid decisions I make when it comes to cars. I don’t keep them long. I spend a lot of money fixing them up then get bored and sell them for cheap.

I sold a newer Porsche that just didn’t do it for me anymore. I was thinking of getting one of two BMWs since BMWs are my all time favorite cars. One was practically new. The other was an older one. I tend to like older cars better so I went with the older one. After doing some modifications on the car, the engine blew up. It was worth nothing. Meanwhile, used car prices have been going crazy. The other car that was on my radar earlier this year was now worth at least $10k MORE! I really wish I had just bought that car back then. I would have saved the money wasted on the one that blew up and also saved on the other one too…..but no, I took the most foolish route because for some reason I throw out all logic when it comes to cars.

All of this has been really upsetting to me. I mean, I wish I had just bought earlier. I don’t like the current prices of the car I now want. They are hard to find. I don’t even know if now is a good time to buy since who knows what the market will be like next year. Will prices go up? Will they go down??

Then it dawned on me.

I was doing the same thing a lot of home buyers are doing, which was just being paralyzed with confusion and being mad that I should have done something sooner and can’t seem to get what I want now.

What do I tell my buyers who are in this same place? I tell them yes, you could have or should have bought sooner but you can’t go back in time. Yes, it is a frustrating market but it is the only market there is. Yes, prices could go up or down but in addition to usual market issues like supply/demand and interest rates, we now have inflation to think about. Let’s say prices drop. If you have a mortgage, you are paying that loan back with deflated dollars due to inflation so it’s sort of like you are also paying less and less over time. If prices go up, you are also still paying back that loan with deflated dollars so you are coming out ahead.

So, for the first time in my life, I have taken my own expert advice and pulled the trigger on a 2020 BMW M2 in my favorite BMW color, Alpine White. (Sorry for the picture. The dealer is putting on new tires and getting the car cleaned up for me so I don’t have it yet……which feels even more like buying a house since I have to wait to actually get possession of it!)

Here’s why you’re not winning in multiple offers

by John Rice

Some offers are better than others. Some people think it is all about who makes the highest offer but there are other things to take into consideration.

Here is the hierarchy of offers:

  1. Cash offer.
  2. Conventional loan with large down payment.
  3. Conventional loan with smaller down payment.
  4. FHA/VA loans. (Because the appraiser for these loan types does a minor assessment of the house. If the condition does not meet minimum standards set out for each loan type, the Seller HAS to do the repairs in order for the Buyer to get their loan.)
  5. Any loan with down payment assistance where there are two loans that have to go through two different underwriting guidelines.

Then there is the offer amount:

  1. Offer over list price.
  2. Offer list price.
  3. Offer less than list price.

Then there is the home inspection. Three choices there:

  1. No home inspection at all.
  2. Buyer does home inspection but won’t ask for repairs. Will either accept the house or walk away.
  3. Buyer wants to negotiate repairs with Seller.

Then there is the appriasal:

  1. Buyer will cover any possible gap between sale price and appraised value in cash.
  2. Buyer won’t cover any possible gap between sale price and appraised value in cash.

Then there is the Buyer’s lender:

  1. Buyer will use a local lender that every realtor knows does a good job.
  2. Buyer will use a non-local mortgage company.
  3. Buyer will use a local lender that every realtor knows preapproves any buyer with a pulse.
  4. Buyer will use a bank that begins with the letter C that everybody knows will be difficult to work with and that it is unlikely to close on time.

Then there is the closing date and when the buyer can move in the house:

  1. Buyer’s realtor found out when Sellers want to close and put that date on the offer.
  2. Buyer’s realtor doesn’t know to ask this and that it can really help make their client’s offer more attractive.

Then there are contingencies:

  1. Buyer has no contingencies.
  2. Buyer needs to close their old house first in order to buy the new one.
  3. Buyer needs to sell their old house first in order to buy the new one, meaning it currently may not be on the market and definitely doesn’t have a contract on it.

Then there are closing costs:

  1. Buyer will pay their own closing costs.
  2. Buyer needs Seller to pay some of their closing costs.
  3. Buyer needs Seller to pay all of their closing costs.

What are your numbers? If you are a 1 in all of these, go out and make your offer. You will probably get the house. If you are a low number in any of these, best of luck. If you are the bottom of any or all of these, then you are wasting your time. Sorry, but you are. You are not going to get a house making an offer less than list price with an FHA loan, wanting to negotiate repairs with the Seller and needing to close or sell your old house.

Now that you know all the things a listing realtor is thinking about when they process all the offers, do what you can to make your offer the best it can possibly be. If you are doing a conventional loan and think you are going up against other cash offers, maybe waive the home inspection and offer to let the seller stay in the house briefly after the closing? If you have to close on your old house to buy, make your offer the highest one they get (realize too that moving twice costs money and it might be cheaper to pay the most for a house verses paying to move twice, live somewhere temporarily and then look for another house which will have gone up in value while you wait.)

When I moved in 2012, I was up against 4 other offers. Two of them were cash. That was unheard of back then but common today. I knew I couldn’t compete with cash so I went a little over the list price, waived the home inspection and offered to let the Sellers rent back from me until they found their new house. This was appealing to them since they had not found their new house yet.