As the news has been reporting, the real estate market has been in a seller’s market the last couple of years. The lack of inventory, particularly at the entry level home price point, has sellers rejoicing and buyers scrambling to get into quality homes that are within their budgets. While sellers may be the obvious winners, here are some of our tips and tricks for buyers to be winners in this market too:
1) Homes are becoming more and more technology based; we have apps to control our heat, lock our doors, and robot vacuums!
One item many buyers forget, is that sellers may be listening when the buyers are touring the home. With nifty baby monitors and security devices sellers can view and listen to prospective buyers! We advise our buyer clients to refrain from making overly enthusiastic or disparaging remarks about the house or sellers while walking in the house. We also urge our buyer clients to not discuss their motivation for buying or their reactions to the house while inside. So, mum’s the word while touring a property until you’re back on ‘safe ground’.
2) Submitting a “winning” offer does not always mean offering the highest price.
Your offer could be structured in many ways, including: a closing date that accommodates the seller’s schedule, paying cash rather than complicating the transaction with financing, not requesting the seller to pay any portion of your closing costs, or simply not making the sale contingent on selling another property. Sometimes the highest price is the winner, but writing other favorable terms to the seller could make your offer a winner too!
3) What if price is the only decision item the sellers cares about?
Well, when we see multiple offers on a home, the question to our buyers becomes how much are you willing to pay for this home? We can look at comps and discuss the strength of the neighborhood, but the final offer price from our buyer truly comes down to, at what price would you walk away from this home? While this is scary for buyers, especially first time home buyers, we counsel our clients to be able to make an offer they are comfortable with.
The market may have been tilted in the seller’s favor, however, we ensure our buyers are “winners” in this market too!
