Thought process when buying a house?

[rafiki]

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[ConnieB]

We looked at houses every weekend for over three months when we were looking for our first house....of course a lot of it was the price we could afford back then and not wanting the fixer uppers that this amount could buy.

 

Our other houses we have definitely looked at more than 4-6.....but we had a better idea of exactly what we needed/wanted so the realtor did narrow down our choices and we spent a lot more time looking at MLS photos than we did actually looking at the physical house. Because we were looking for a house in move in condition, like you say yours is, we didn't need to see them as much as when it was a fixer upper. We were more interested in looking at floor plans and whether we could use the existing rooms for our needs (being a homeschooler we didn't want a formal dining as much as we wanted a large school area, etc).

 

Personally I think a lot of the problem with selling houses right now is the economy.....housing prices are so low in our state and there are soooo many of them (and probably half are bank repo) that obviously it's a buyers market. I am a little confused by the fact that your house is newer and has upgrades but the realtor thinks you should be priced lower than older homes without upgrades. But, you also said the builder is currently building the same base model, so perhaps your competition is really the brand new models he's selling.....so why should people buy a two year old "used" house when they can buy the same model, brand new, and therefore pick their own paint, carpet, upgrades for the same price. It's one of the pitfalls of buying a house in an area that is just starting to be developed.....there is so much new housing around you that no one wants "used" when they can get "new" for the same or very close price.

 

All that said, however, if you feel that your realtor is pressuring you to lower the price (perhaps for a quicker sale so she can get her commission sooner with less open house work)......then that is a definite issue to deal with. Are YOU in a hurry to sell, or are you willing/able to wait for the right buyer to come along for your price? What is the average length of time between listing and sale for your area? 90 days around here is a drop in the bucket....even before the recession started making headlines it could take half a year or longer to sell a house, mostly because this area has so much development happening that there is more property available than buyers.

 

If you're not positive that your realtor has YOUR best interests in mind, consider asking another realtor to assess your property for you. Around here most MLS contracts are 90-120 days so if that's the case for you, your contract could be coming up for renewal and it might be a good time to jump ship and get another realtor. We've bought and sold enough houses over the years to know that the realtor is extremely important....if you get one that has too many properties already listed, they don't have the time to give your home enough exposure.....some realtors are a bit more aggressive about seeking out buyers, rather than waiting for them to come to her....and some have very creative ideas about marketing that can be either very helpful, or very wrong for your house. We had a realtor here that advertises on TV guaranteeing that he'll sell your house for full price within some specific amount of time.....he's very aggressive and he apparently prices them competitively to begin with. A local TV station investigated his claims and found that if he couldn't sell them, he'd buy them....and while he did own a few properties, most of them he sold. I joked with my DH at the time that it's too bad he wasn't around a few years ago when we were trying desperately to sell a house for more than 6 months, lol.

 

You have a contract with your current realtor (I presume) so you'll want to read it carefully before contacting another realtor to be sure you're not breaking anything in the contract.....but it would seem that getting a second opinion shouldn't be against a contract.

 

Good luck to you!

[Karen in CO]

We looked at probably 50 houses - I had very specific things I wanted - large yard, flat sidewalk, cul-de-sac, open space behind it, near park, near trails, lots of trees, 4 bedrooms, double-paned windows, a warranty.... Years later, I still see things that i overlooked and could have skipped the house because of, but I had lots of factors besides just price.

 

It is a really tough market here. There are houses that have been for sale for a year and longer. I don't think price is the only factor. Instead of lowering price, have you considered maybe increasing the sales commission, offering money toward closing costs, offering a one-year warranty other creative financial things.

[Guest Alte Veste Academy]

How much negotiating do you assume there is?

 

Say you wanted to spend no more than 150K. What price range would you enter when you browse listings? Do you consider anything over 150K? How much over?

 

If I wanted to spend no more than 150K, I would search from about 100-150K. No, I would not look at houses that were over that. I'm not a big fan of the idea of chewing my nails and fretting over whether I can talk someone down 5-10K so I can get myself in a house I had no business looking at in the first place.

 

That said, I also don't look at the price of the house so much as the price of the monthly mortgage. With several little towns here, property taxes in this town and the next few did play into our decision, so look at that too. I did originally want to spend $200 per month less on our mortgage but when I saw what was available in that price range, we increased our limit to get into acceptable neighborhoods. We're still only spending less than 15% of DH's gross income on our mortgage though, so I was really just being a penny-pincher. It wasn't about scraping pennies.

 

How would you narrow down which houses to see? price? pictures? descriptions?

 

Neighborhood. Lots of good pics and yes, a good description in the listing. Size of house. Layout. Size of lot. Not price, assuming I already searched within my comfort parameters.

 

Would you look at homes under 5 years old in addition to homes 15 years old?

 

Yes, and would actually prefer newer. When we bought our current house, I thought I would prefer older because you get more space for your money but we ended up buying new after looking at so many older homes that were in terrible condition or (UGH!!) not clean and kept up. You're in a bit of a tough place though, given that your house is only 2 years old. You're stuck in the space between the people who want the old house where you get more space for the money and the people who just want to buy new right from the start.

 

How many houses did you look at before buying yours?

 

Around 10, and we were in a very big hurry to buy and move in.

 

I'm curious because our realtor is trying to tell us the average buyer only tours 4-6 houses and goes by price point alone.

 

That's just crazy talk! If it's true, people wouldn't even need to see houses in person at all. I can tell you that if you're trying to decide about lowering your home (for example) from 154,900 to 149,900, then yes, I would definitely be likely to look at your house if I was looking from 100-150K. In the end, we bought this home because of its layout and location. Only a couple of the houses we looked at were more expensive, so it definitely wasn't about price point alone.

[Guest Alte Veste Academy]

Instead of lowering price, have you considered maybe increasing the sales commission, offering money toward closing costs, offering a one-year warranty other creative financial things.

 

Yes! Financially this might be tough for you but this reminded me that yes, our seller (the builder) did pay all the closing costs. This is a big, big deal to people!

[patchfire]

I went into buying our first house (current home) assuming there was all this negotiating room. We did negotiate the price down, but not as much as I thought. We're currently looking and I really *hope* there's some negotiating room in this current buying climate, but I still haven't looked over our upper limit. I don't want to fall in love with a house that we simply cannot afford.

 

We looked at location to the highway (important for the length of dh's commute), number of bedrooms/bathrooms, and then, yes, pictures. Descriptions are so often misleading. We've ruled out most newer homes simply because they tend to be slab construction, unless they're a basement. Also because with the area we are in, new construction would be double our price range for the size we need.

 

I must have looked at at least 25 or 30 houses when we were buying this house. That was in 2004, and most houses didn't have a lot of pictures online! This time, we've looked at just four, driven by another five or six, and ruled out at least twenty that met the price & bedroom requirement, but failed either on distance from the highway or something on the pictures. Oh, including not having a flat lot.

 

So, yes, we're going to have only ended up touring that 4-6 houses this time (we know which one we want *crosses fingers*). We go by layout and availability of both a formal dining room AND a schoolroom, though, so I'm sure we're unusual buyers. :)

[Doodle]

I've been in the selling/buying mode since February 2008. Our selling Realtor said if there were no offers after 2-3 weeks, you are priced too high. She priced us competitively based on other house sales that were very recent. She sold our home in 2 weeks. This was after being on the market for one year with a different Realtor.

 

Price, pictures, location, room dimensions are all important info I liked to have before I made appointments for a showing as a buyer. The more information I could get online, the more likely I was to view the home. Lack of info makes me think there is something you don't want me to see/know. We have looked at homes of all ages. I browsed listing of house up to 40K more than we wanted to spend. According to our buying agent, an offer of 10% under listing price is reasonable. We've been house hunting since selling/moving in April 2009. We've looked at a lot more than 4-6 houses.

Edited October 31, 2009 by Doodle

[mama2cntrykids]

Watching this thread as we are trying to sell our house too! We're in a hurry to do it so our family can be together again. My dh works out of town all we as his job is two hours away. After being laid off for four months, it's a God sent to have this job, we just want to be together now!

[rafiki]

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[rafiki]

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[rafiki]

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[Mommyof4ks]

We looked at houses as high as 50,000 over what we wanted to spend and we ended up with a much bigger, nicer home because of that (the payment is not a big deal really considering the interest rate we were able to get).

 

Our house is 25 years old, one of the oldest homes in this neighborhood, but it was very well cared for and it has a new water heater and a new fancy air conditioner/heating unit. The only thing that is old is the kitchen, but I re-did the kitchen in our previous home that was only 3 years old, so re-doing that here is not surprising lol. Being move in ready goes a long way.

 

The market is just down right now. Even in our area that has not been hit very hard the housing market has slowed.

[Guest Joanie]

My dh and I are first time buyers and have looked at just over 20 places in the last two months. Whew! And we are still looking and have not made an offer yet. We have been looking up to about $20,000 above our price range.

There is one place that we like that is in that range above our price range, and we have been watching it like a hawk to see if the price will come down. It has been on the market for just over three months and the price was lowered 5K in that time. Interestingly though, and unfortunately for them, they bought the house one year ago, and are now listing it for the price they paid for it, so they are going to lose money, and I can see why they would not want to lower it further. I think that the market has come down though, and that it really is listed too high now. I wonder if this could be the same for you since you have only been in your house for two years.

So we are still keeping our eyes peeled for new listings as well. We are too late to get the $8000 tax credit unless it is extended, so there is not quite as much pressing motivation (though if it is extended, we will likely be in more of a hurry again!) The housing market in our location is very stable compared to others, but I do see that some prices have come down some in the last year, and even more so this fall (is this because it is considered the "off season"?). Perhaps you could consider a small drop in price like 5K, just to show that you are motivated to sell. Though I also agree with the previous poster that if you are not in a rush, there is nothing wrong with just waiting...we may eventually make our offer on that house I wrote about as well!

I agree with a previous poster that we consider the monthly payment, in which we factor taxes, and utilities, if we can get utility information. We are also very big on the layout and "flow" of the home. We also strongly consider whether a house is move in ready. We are not afraid of some work, but there is nothing wrong with everything already being nice! I really think that pictures go a long way to generating interest and there is no such thing as too many pictures. We also look at location, location, location, which means the distance from my husband's work, the neighborhood, the traffic, the noise levels. We are looking at all styles of houses at any age. I hope this helps from a buyer's perspective!

[gingersmom]

I looked at over 100 houses before buying the one I am in.

 

I only looked at houses up to my price range. I had no intention of going one cent over my budget.

 

Homes in my area tend to sell really fast or sit on the market for months or a year or more.

 

Are you in a good school district? Good location?

 

Are you priced well below the price of a new home in your area?

[Jeanne in MN]

 

How much negotiating do you assume there is?

 

We don't assume how much negotiating there is, until we make a bid. Then we can tell more about how they'll negotiate.

 

Say you wanted to spend no more than 150K. What price range would you enter when you browse listings? Do you consider anything over 150K? How much over?

 

We may browse homes on-line above our price range, but will not go see them. What's the point when we are not willing to pay more.

 

How would you narrow down which houses to see? price? pictures? descriptions?

 

All of those things determine what we will see. Make sure the on-line descriptions are done well. I had one friend whose bathroom was pictured twice in the real estate ad, but no pics of the living room or dining room!

 

Would you look at homes under 5 years old in addition to homes 15 years old?

 

Age doesn't matter to us as much as price and layout do, but we also aren't in any position to buy homes as young as that either. .

 

How many houses did you look at before buying yours?

 

Our first home we bought after looking at 4-5 houses. Our acreage took us two years to find-but ones choices and budget are more limited there. We are back in town now and know what we want in a home. We've looked at probably 30 houses. We are not willing to settle for less than what we want.

 

I'm curious because our realtor is trying to tell us the average buyer only tours 4-6 houses and goes by price point alone. She thinks we need to lower our price because we are competing against lower priced, but over 10 year old homes. They are about $10 a square foot cheaper. Dh and I toured dozens of homes before buying this and while we had a price range, we decided based upon how the layout of the house fits us.

 

Everyone is different. Price point is important for us, but it's not the only thing to consider. Layout is equally important. My personal opinion is if it's in the same neighborhood, I would expect houses to be similarly priced. I wouldn't think to look at the exact age of of the home as one pretty much knows what decade the houses in that area were built in. But again, I don't have experience with homes that new.

 

 

Something else we do, is check the records to find out what the home was purchased for last and what the tax value is. That gives us a starting point as to it's worth. It may not reflect it's true value, but it will generally be close.

[rafiki]

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[rafiki]

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[missmoe]

We have bought quite a few homes and we have always looked at lots and lots of homes. Even when traveling out of town to look at homes, we manage to fit in 20-30 homes. I look at the work that needs to be done, the neighborhood, layout, size, ect. Price per square foot is not the be-all, end-all. Something we have done with realitors is offer a different percentage according to how much the home sold for. If you want the house to go for more than 150,000 perhaps the percentage is 7%, but if it sells for between 135,00-149,000 the percentage drops to 5 1/2%. Of course it all depends what is customary where you live. We have found the adjusting percentage to be quite a motivater for realitors that want to keep dropping the price.

 

After saying all of this, I have to add that we have a home that has been on the market for about 1 1/2 years. It is in move-in condition, beautifuly staged, at a good price point for the street it is on, ect. It is just a bad time to sell a home right now.