Jenny in Florida Posted January 27, 2021 Share Posted January 27, 2021 (edited) Update: We have so far put in official offers on three houses and lost all three. We have seen a good number more, although I have lost track of how many at this point. We are broadening our definition of what would constitute an acceptable location and demoting items from the "must have" list to the "nice to have" list. We saw a house last night that: Isn't in a great location for us. Is two stories, with all of the bedrooms except the master on the second floor (meaning we would need to go up and down stairs repeatedly throughout the day to reach our offices and crafts/exercise spaces). Does not have a screened patio. Does not have a fully fenced yard. Despite all of those things, we came within an inch of making an offer, because we liked it okay and it has been on the market for long enough that we figured it wouldn't involve a bidding war. Fortunately, before the realtor could get the paperwork together, we talked about it again and decided we wanted to continue looking at other options. We saw another house this afternoon that, once again, I love the look and feel of and checks almost all of our boxes. They are apparently booked solid with viewing appointments through Saturday, and our realtor predicts it will go for well above the asking price. We're trying again, with as aggressive an offer as we can manage, not just in terms of actual pricing but also tweaking whatever other terms we can manage. At this point, though, I'm becoming convinced that, if I like a house, everyone else will, too. And I am not a person who thrives on this kind of stress and competition. Original Post: Or, I should say, attempted home-buying, at this point. Granted, we've only seriously started looking in the last couple of weeks, but so far it's disheartening and stressful. For a variety of reasons, we just never got around to buying a house, but we're not thrilled with our current rental and also trying to think ahead and set ourselves up for retirement. Interest rates are low. We can get our hands on a decent down payment. So it seems like as good a time as any to forge ahead. Thus far, the process has been: Repeatedly interrupt work throughout the day to check Zillow and/or Redfin, to respond to a call or email from the realtor or to look at whatever my husband has found online. Spend some period of time perusing Google Maps check out the immediate neighborhood and the house's proximity by car, bike and foot to things such as parks, walking trails, shopping and restaurants. (I walk for exercise. My husband hates to drive.) Dismiss this house and force focus back onto work . . . OR Hurriedly negotiate a viewing time with the realtor and then rearrange work schedules to attend said viewing. Discover that house is completely unsuitable for some reason that was not apparent in all of the online research and discussions with realtor. OR Make offer only to be told we are too late or have been outbid by a crazy amount. Repeat steps 1-4. I should hasten to say that we are being prudent about what we're looking to spend. The credit union has outright told us we would qualify for more loan than we are willing to take, and we are trying to look at houses that have asking prices below that pre-approved budget, specifically so we have some headroom to bid up a bit. However, as an example, the first house we tried for had two other bids on the table by the time we got our offer in, two of which were for a significant amount more than the expected appraised value. This puts us in the ridiculous position of needing to love a house enough to be willing to buy but not enough to break our hearts if we don't get it. I hate this. Edited February 5, 2021 by Jenny in Florida 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PeterPan Posted January 27, 2021 Share Posted January 27, 2021 Buy an RV? 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jenny in Florida Posted January 27, 2021 Author Share Posted January 27, 2021 4 minutes ago, PeterPan said: Buy an RV? We considered that in the past, but have now decided that we just plain need more space in order to be comfortable for the long run. Each of us is working from home indefinitely, and each of us has hobbies that require some space. Plus a dog and two cats. Plus adult children whom we hope will visit us. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vonfirmath Posted January 27, 2021 Share Posted January 27, 2021 (edited) Things were not selling quite so fast when we bought this house (Though we did "lose two houses" between setting up viewings and actually GOING to the viewing. But when searching for houses, we put together a list of house to go view and I had already travelled to the location of those houses and seen what I could from outside -- plus evaluated HOA codes when they were in HOAs and I could find it. Before we ever went to a viewing inside. Basically trying to find reasons to strike houses --and getting a better feel for the areas we might be living in. And yes, we did a viewing day where we took off a day of work and went to see several houses in one day. ETA: Are you working with a realtor? I gave our realtor a list of the houses we were interested in after doing our culling and they put together the day of viewings, includig discovering that two houses left the market before the actual day of. SO I was not doing that negotiation myself. Edited January 27, 2021 by vonfirmath Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
scbusf Posted January 27, 2021 Share Posted January 27, 2021 Same here. The market is crazy right now, which is great for when we list our current house. But buying is nutty. There should be lots more coming on the market soon. Spring is the biggest time. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Acorn Posted January 27, 2021 Share Posted January 27, 2021 We intended to buy last spring but haven’t toured one since last March. The few that list in our area sell crazy fast. Fast decisions and being able to coordinate schedules are not our strengths. I hope it’s less stressful for you. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Plateau Mama Posted January 27, 2021 Share Posted January 27, 2021 (edited) Most homes go up for sale on Thursday & Friday. Plan for those to be your looking days. Redfin typically has the home up long before Zillow. When we were looking last year I looked when I got up (5am Pacific time and again around 9 or 10am) and made my plan for the day. I checked again in the evening but rarely did anything show up. I would tour first thing in the morning and if I loved something I would immediatly make an appointment for hubby to go look. In a hot market you have to look the morning it goes up or you are too late. We lost 2 homes because we hemmed. Well we lost one for hemming, the other we tried to make an offer immediatly after doing the video tour but it was already pending. Looking back I am glad we didn't get them but it was sad at the time. The house we ended up buying already had an offer on it but we were able to get our offer in before they accepted the other offer. Edited January 27, 2021 by Plateau Mama Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jenny in Florida Posted January 27, 2021 Author Share Posted January 27, 2021 17 minutes ago, vonfirmath said: Things were not selling quite so fast when we bought this house (Though we did "lose two houses" between setting up viewings and actually GOING to the viewing. But when searching for houses, we put together a list of house to go view and I had already travelled to the location of those houses and seen what I could from outside -- plus evaluated HOA codes when they were in HOAs and I could find it. Before we ever went to a viewing inside. Basically trying to find reasons to strike houses --and getting a better feel for the areas we might be living in. And yes, we did a viewing day where we took off a day of work and went to see several houses in one day. ETA: Are you working with a realtor? I gave our realtor a list of the houses we were interested in after doing our culling and they put together the day of viewings, includig discovering that two houses left the market before the actual day of. SO I was not doing that negotiation myself. Yes, we are working with a realtor, who has been extremely helpful. We don't seem to have the luxury of grouping viewings on a single day, because houses are selling faster than that. There just plain aren't a lot of houses on the market that meet our criteria (or even most of them), so if we wait until there are enough to schedule more than one back-to-back, they will all sell before we even get a chance to see them. Same with doing a pre-viewing drive-by. If we waited to arrange viewings until after we had done all of the research, any house we liked would be gone. Hence the heavy internet research and mapping/virtual "walking" of neighborhoods. We've actually stricken many more houses than we've tried to see just based on such info and discussion with the realtor. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jenny in Florida Posted January 27, 2021 Author Share Posted January 27, 2021 3 minutes ago, Plateau Mama said: Most homes go up for sale on Thursday & Friday. Plan for those to be your looking days. Redfin typically has the home up long before Zillow. When we were looking last year I looked when I got up (5am Pacific time and again around 9 or 10am) and made my plan for the day. I checked again in the evening but rarely did anything show up. I would tour first thing in the morning and if I loved something I would immediatly make an appointment for hubby to go look. In a hot market you have to look the morning it goes up or you are too late. We lost 2 homes because we hemmed. Well we lost one for hemming, the other we tried to make an offer immediatly after doing the video tour but it was already pending. Looking back I am glad we didn't get them but it was sad at the time. The house we ended up buying already had an offer on it but we were able to get our offer in before they accepted the other offer. We do check both Redfin and Zillow first thing each morning (as well as throughout the day); however, it seems the realtor still gets things first. He has sent us emails about two or three houses that are decent fits for us that I can't find listed on either of those sites until much later. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Plateau Mama Posted January 27, 2021 Share Posted January 27, 2021 1 minute ago, Jenny in Florida said: We do check both Redfin and Zillow first thing each morning (as well as throughout the day); however, it seems the realtor still gets things first. He has sent us emails about two or three houses that are decent fits for us that I can't find listed on either of those sites until much later. That is a good realtor. Our realtor never told us of a listing, we found everything ourselves. Redfin and Zillow update at certain intervals, so they will always be behind what a realtor has access to. By how much is the question. Realtors also have acess to the coming soon listings and they talk with other realtors and know when something is coming up. 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jaybee Posted January 27, 2021 Share Posted January 27, 2021 Our realtor (2 ½ yrs. ago) knew about the house we bought before it went public. We had seen quite a few, which all looked much better online than in person. We were only really interested in two of the ones we saw; this one and one that was really too small. It certainly can be discouraging, especially as time passes and nothing works out, but remember (now I'm going to get philosophical) that looking for a house can be like looking for a spouse. You only need one to come along that works out. Try to be patient. Patience can work in both situations. 😁 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Katy Posted January 27, 2021 Share Posted January 27, 2021 It’s tough. We had a similar experience when we moved here a year and a half ago, but because a rapid expansion at DH’s workplace had driven demand up and s flood several months prior had driven inventory down. He was flat out told he’d probably need to expect commuting up to an hour. After three offers (twice outbid, once someone bid lower but offered cash with no inspections), our 4th was accepted less than 30 minutes after we submitted it. And it’s only a 20 minute commute (when DH isn’t working from home). Be patient but keep looking. You’ll find the right place. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Carrie12345 Posted January 27, 2021 Share Posted January 27, 2021 We’re having the same issue. And now, on top of that builders are buying up lots, so even our building options are getting fewer and fewer. Today I found the sale price of the first and best house we’ve seen. The sellers took a cash offer. For $2,000 less than our offer. And still took 7 weeks to close. I could spit nails right now. 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Scarlett Posted January 27, 2021 Share Posted January 27, 2021 My niece in the Houston area just bought a house. She heard about it from a friend who knew it was about to be listed and they made a full price offer before it could get listed. The market is tough right now. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BusyMom5 Posted January 27, 2021 Share Posted January 27, 2021 It sounds like you have a good realtor. The only thing I can think of is to spend your weekend driving all the neighborhoods in areas you are interested in so that when a house comes up, you have a better idea what that neighborhood is like. I realize in large places this might be really hard, but just driving around can help you find areas that have the things - besides the house- that you are looking for. You may also be able yo cross certain areas off. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Harriet Vane Posted January 27, 2021 Share Posted January 27, 2021 I'm honestly confused about the reliance on Redfin and Zillow. My realtor sent me listings from her office as quickly as they popped up. I told her our parameters and her system just boots them out immediately. We knew about houses the instant they hit the market. We were the first people to look at the house we currently live in--we had looked at it and made an offer before anyone else even saw it. The realtor handling this house for the seller actually canceled almost twenty showings because we snapped it up. Zillow and Redfin are slower than the realtor's resources. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Carol in Cal. Posted January 27, 2021 Share Posted January 27, 2021 I find that realtor.com has listings up faster than Zillow. I’m not all that familiar with Redfin. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PeterPan Posted January 28, 2021 Share Posted January 28, 2021 2 hours ago, Carrie12345 said: We’re having the same issue. And now, on top of that builders are buying up lots, so even our building options are getting fewer and fewer. Today I found the sale price of the first and best house we’ve seen. The sellers took a cash offer. For $2,000 less than our offer. And still took 7 weeks to close. I could spit nails right now. The terms may have been better. My mother got her house by agreeing to take it as is. If they’re paying cash they can do that. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jenny in Florida Posted January 28, 2021 Author Share Posted January 28, 2021 2 hours ago, BusyMom5 said: It sounds like you have a good realtor. The only thing I can think of is to spend your weekend driving all the neighborhoods in areas you are interested in so that when a house comes up, you have a better idea what that neighborhood is like. I realize in large places this might be really hard, but just driving around can help you find areas that have the things - besides the house- that you are looking for. You may also be able yo cross certain areas off. We've lived in the Orlando area for more than 20 years, so we're pretty familiar with the various parts of town. We did get caught off guard by one house we went to see yesterday, because it was advertised as being in a particular neighborhood (when it was, at best, adjacent) and the Google street view images hadn't been updated in a couple of years. Another house we turned down was one we more or less knew based on the online photos was not going to work, but we were seeing another one in the same area and figured we might as well take a look. Mostly, though, it would be impractical to try and research every part of the Orlando metro area that might be acceptable to the degree required to save us time later. Two houses in the same neighborhood might still be far enough apart that the location of one would work and the other would not. We are not tied to a specific part of town -- or even to "Orlando," for that matter. As long as the specific house checks off most of the items on our must-have list (reasonable commute in case my husband ever does go back to the office, places for me to walk, four bedrooms and at least two baths, single story, access to either a community or private pool, screened outdoor space and/or fenced yard, decent-sized kitchen, lots of light inside) and is within our budget, we'll consider it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Carrie12345 Posted January 28, 2021 Share Posted January 28, 2021 1 hour ago, PeterPan said: The terms may have been better. My mother got her house by agreeing to take it as is. If they’re paying cash they can do that. We didn’t ask for a single thing and offered a huge escrow. However, our lender would of course require an inspection, so I guess I’ll just tell myself there must have been a major hidden problem that they didn’t want discovered and I dodged a bullet. Eh. Not helping so far. 😆 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ottakee Posted January 28, 2021 Share Posted January 28, 2021 It is tough. The house I bought before this I saw listed at 6am, called realtor at 8 and we got the first showing at 11. We made an offer by 12 noon and it was accepted by 1pm. That was a full price cash offer. My current house was just listed for sale by owner and was on the market a few weeks but I had a cash offer so got it for a great deal....mainly because it wasn't with a realtor so it didn't get much traffic. The house I sold, I sold for a cash offer above asking 3 days after it was listed and before our first open house. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
klmama Posted January 28, 2021 Share Posted January 28, 2021 When I tried using Redfin and Zillow, I ended up asking about houses that had already sold and hadn't been removed. I had better luck with homesnap.com. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheReader Posted January 28, 2021 Share Posted January 28, 2021 That exact scenario is what led us to build our house instead of just buy. We didn't do a custom build or anything, just a build in a being-built neighborhood, but this way we didn't have to go through the whole "we love this house, put an offer, oops, too late..." business. It really stinks and is so frustrating. Ours was compounded by the fact DH was still traveling back/forth to Brazil at the time, so he'd be gone for 2 weeks of every 6 to 8, leaving us only roughly one & a half weekends a month to house hunt in person (we were living an hour away from our target area at the time). We did the math on how long it would take to find something, get an offer accepted, get through closing.....building didn't take that much longer at all. Maybe that's an option for y'all? 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hippymamato3 Posted January 28, 2021 Share Posted January 28, 2021 11 hours ago, Carrie12345 said: We didn’t ask for a single thing and offered a huge escrow. However, our lender would of course require an inspection, so I guess I’ll just tell myself there must have been a major hidden problem that they didn’t want discovered and I dodged a bullet. Eh. Not helping so far. 😆 Our lender doesn't require an inspection. I didn't think any did - it's just for the buyer's information and bargaining purposes. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lecka Posted January 28, 2021 Share Posted January 28, 2021 (edited) Our loans have required inspections. We got lucky (we bought our house over the summer) basically bc we bought a dirty house. It was also listed with a big note saying the owner would not make any changes — and it came across like it had something wrong with it. It turns out he just meant he wouldn’t change the carpet out. We got really lucky. Everything else in our price range and desired number of bedrooms was going really fast and with multiple offers. Here right now — if a realtor isn’t sending you listings before they hit Zillow, there is no time to make an offer, for a lot of houses. That’s not a usual thing at all, though. Our realtor also showed us pictures of houses before they were listed that she just happened to know about. It would have been great for us if any of those had worked out. But our house was actually on the market for 14 days before we made an offer, and was straight-up dirty. To include dead bugs and cobwebs in the kitchen cabinets. It has been a great house for us and doesn’t have any real problems 🙂 The kitchen cabinets looked like someone smeared dirty hands on them — it all came off with Murphy soap and I am happy with it now 🙂 My husband wants to update the kitchen and bathrooms but everything totally works and is clean for now. Edit: and all the remodeled houses we looked at have flat-bottomed sinks that I already know my kids will allow things to sit and dry onto the bottom of the sinks, so I am happy to have an older bathroom with a sink that drains well. Edited January 28, 2021 by Lecka Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lecka Posted January 28, 2021 Share Posted January 28, 2021 We looked at building a house in a neighborhood but we got a much better price with our house. And the house design options we looked at were not a great fit for my family. They would have been a lot better for someone without younger kids. We went once and there was a retired couple looking and I thought it looked perfect for them! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jenny in Florida Posted January 28, 2021 Author Share Posted January 28, 2021 4 minutes ago, Lecka said: We got lucky (we bought our house over the summer) basically bc we bought a dirty house. It was also listed with a big note saying the owner would not make any changes — and it came across like it had something wrong with it. It turns out he just meant he wouldn’t change the carpet out. We are looking at one today selling "as is." Our realtor did some research and discovered that the house has polybutylene pipes. There have been no issues with them thus far. Apparently, the homeowner didn't even know they had them or that there was a problem until a sale fell through when it turned up on the inspection. They have had a couple of estimates done that suggest it will be approximately $5,000 to re-pipe. Given that the house has everything else we want and is priced at $15,000 under our budget cap, we could absorb that expense and still wind up ahead of the game. 8 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jenny in Florida Posted January 28, 2021 Author Share Posted January 28, 2021 1 hour ago, TheReader said: That exact scenario is what led us to build our house instead of just buy. We didn't do a custom build or anything, just a build in a being-built neighborhood, but this way we didn't have to go through the whole "we love this house, put an offer, oops, too late..." business. It really stinks and is so frustrating. Ours was compounded by the fact DH was still traveling back/forth to Brazil at the time, so he'd be gone for 2 weeks of every 6 to 8, leaving us only roughly one & a half weekends a month to house hunt in person (we were living an hour away from our target area at the time). We did the math on how long it would take to find something, get an offer accepted, get through closing.....building didn't take that much longer at all. Maybe that's an option for y'all? We're not averse to the idea of new construction and have discussed it with our realtor. Unfortunately, there don't seem to be any developments happening in any of the areas we're interested in that aren't much more house (with a much higher price tag) than we want OR that have options for single story four bedroom homes. (They like to build them two stories here so they can squeeze more living space onto smaller lots.) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lecka Posted January 28, 2021 Share Posted January 28, 2021 (edited) Good luck on the house you look at today! I have had some conversations with my childfree sister..... I DO like how the remodeled houses and new houses look right now. I think they look beautiful. It's not that I don't like how they look At All. But I know my kids and I know a lot of the beautiful design features are things that my kids would just leave so, so dirty and I would have to have a lot of conflict with them or else just clean behind them or else just let their bathroom always have dried toothpaste in the bottom of the sink. I already know this. We are much better off to have older bathrooms with some cracked tile in one place, but the sink just naturally drains while they brush their teeth and we don't have conflict over disgusting toothpaste residue not rinsed out of the sink. My husband was even an offender with not making sure he rinsed thoroughly after shaving. I don't know if something was wrong with our last house or what! But we could tell they had remodeled the bathrooms to sell, and I don't know if there was something wrong with the models they chose, but at this point I will never have flat-bottomed style sinks again. Anyway -- the older bathrooms we have got now are totally working for us! There is cracked tile in one place, and we also should have sparkles on the tile in places that have worn away and look a little odd, but it stays clean and I have no problem with it! We will remodel at some point but either my kids will be older and cleaner, or we will be able to remodel in a way that is very functional for us. Edited January 28, 2021 by Lecka Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jenny in Florida Posted January 28, 2021 Author Share Posted January 28, 2021 Sigh. We just heard from the realtor that the house we are going to look at today has nine offers on the table already and viewings scheduled into the weekend. 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheReader Posted January 28, 2021 Share Posted January 28, 2021 1 hour ago, Jenny in Florida said: We are looking at one today selling "as is." Our realtor did some research and discovered that the house has polybutylene pipes. There have been no issues with them thus far. Apparently, the homeowner didn't even know they had them or that there was a problem until a sale fell through when it turned up on the inspection. They have had a couple of estimates done that suggest it will be approximately $5,000 to re-pipe. Given that the house has everything else we want and is priced at $15,000 under our budget cap, we could absorb that expense and still wind up ahead of the game. oh, this sounds promising! hoping it goes well. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheReader Posted January 28, 2021 Share Posted January 28, 2021 1 hour ago, Jenny in Florida said: We're not averse to the idea of new construction and have discussed it with our realtor. Unfortunately, there don't seem to be any developments happening in any of the areas we're interested in that aren't much more house (with a much higher price tag) than we want OR that have options for single story four bedroom homes. (They like to build them two stories here so they can squeeze more living space onto smaller lots.) ah, that does make it trickier. I get that. 31 minutes ago, Jenny in Florida said: Sigh. We just heard from the realtor that the house we are going to look at today has nine offers on the table already and viewings scheduled into the weekend. oh, I saw this after I posted....wow. :sigh: it's so ridiculously hard. perhaps the other offers are lower, to accommodate the repiping, and your offer could still beat those....? Or is it not even worth going to get into the fray at this point....? 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lecka Posted January 28, 2021 Share Posted January 28, 2021 Okay, your area is definitely more competitive than where we live!!!!!!!!!! Good luck, I am sorry it is hard! It was really stressful for us, and I think it sounds like we are actually in an easier area than where you guys are living. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lecka Posted January 28, 2021 Share Posted January 28, 2021 We were hearing about there being 3-4 offers already, 9???????? Wow. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Carrie12345 Posted January 28, 2021 Share Posted January 28, 2021 49 minutes ago, Jenny in Florida said: Sigh. We just heard from the realtor that the house we are going to look at today has nine offers on the table already and viewings scheduled into the weekend. I’m REALLY sorry. We have appointments with two builders coming up, but I’m seriously considering hitting pause until 2022. It’s the second to last thing I want to do. The last is to settle. Again! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hippymamato3 Posted January 28, 2021 Share Posted January 28, 2021 1 hour ago, Jenny in Florida said: Sigh. We just heard from the realtor that the house we are going to look at today has nine offers on the table already and viewings scheduled into the weekend. I'd still go! You never know! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fairfarmhand Posted January 28, 2021 Share Posted January 28, 2021 You have my sympathies. My cousin moved to your area last summer and they're renting a condo right now. She's so frustrated with the house buying process. Everything gets snatched up SO quickly. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jenny in Florida Posted January 28, 2021 Author Share Posted January 28, 2021 1 hour ago, TheReader said: it's so ridiculously hard. perhaps the other offers are lower, to accommodate the repiping, and your offer could still beat those....? Or is it not even worth going to get into the fray at this point....? We're willing to negotiate up a bit. We do have some headroom on our pre-approval. But the problem is the house may not appraise much higher than the asking price, which makes the mortgage thing trickier. We're going this afternoon anyway, just in case. However, I've also been continuing to look for alternatives. 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jenny in Florida Posted January 28, 2021 Author Share Posted January 28, 2021 4 hours ago, hippymamato3 said: I'd still go! You never know! We went, and I love it. This house is literally everything we asked for. We happened to run into the sellers while we were standing outside talking to our realtor, and they even offered to make us a deal on the pool table my husband coveted when he saw it in the photos. Apparently, the situation may not be quite as dire as I thought: I misinterpreted something my husband said, and it turns out there were nine people/groups signed up for viewings and also "multiple" offers on the table. However, we don't know exactly how many other offers there are or what the other offers might be. Our realtor just submitted an escalatory clause that automatically ups our bid to beat others up to a certain amount. At this point, I feel like we've done what we can on this one, and now it's up to fate. 16 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hippymamato3 Posted January 28, 2021 Share Posted January 28, 2021 Just now, Jenny in Florida said: We went, and I love it. This house is literally everything we asked for. We happened to run into the sellers while we were standing outside talking to our realtor, and they even offered to make us a deal on the pool table my husband coveted when he saw it in the photos. Apparently, the situation may not be quite as dire as I thought: I misinterpreted something my husband said, and it turns out there were nine people/groups signed up for viewings and also "multiple" offers on the table. However, we don't know exactly how many other offers there are or what the other offers might be. Our realtor just submitted an escalatory clause that automatically ups our bid to beat others up to a certain amount. At this point, I feel like we've done what we can on this one, and now it's up to fate. I will keep my fingers crossed for you! We are under contract on our dream home now and we were similarly concerned about competition 🙂 6 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lecka Posted January 28, 2021 Share Posted January 28, 2021 Good luck, I hope you get it 🙂 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheReader Posted January 28, 2021 Share Posted January 28, 2021 Oh, I hope you get it! Fingers crossed. Hopefully the connection of meeting you face to face will help, along with the escalatory clause; that's very cool! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ottakee Posted January 29, 2021 Share Posted January 29, 2021 2 hours ago, Jenny in Florida said: We went, and I love it. This house is literally everything we asked for. We happened to run into the sellers while we were standing outside talking to our realtor, and they even offered to make us a deal on the pool table my husband coveted when he saw it in the photos. The fact that the sellers met you AND your dh wants the pool table....that they no doubt do NOT want to move or hassle with, might help sway their vote. 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vonfirmath Posted January 29, 2021 Share Posted January 29, 2021 5 hours ago, Jenny in Florida said: We went, and I love it. This house is literally everything we asked for. We happened to run into the sellers while we were standing outside talking to our realtor, and they even offered to make us a deal on the pool table my husband coveted when he saw it in the photos. Apparently, the situation may not be quite as dire as I thought: I misinterpreted something my husband said, and it turns out there were nine people/groups signed up for viewings and also "multiple" offers on the table. However, we don't know exactly how many other offers there are or what the other offers might be. Our realtor just submitted an escalatory clause that automatically ups our bid to beat others up to a certain amount. At this point, I feel like we've done what we can on this one, and now it's up to fate. FANTASTIC! Having met the sellers may be just the thing that tips them over to you. I know when we sold my condo in Washington one of the things that decided who I sold it to between the options we had was she was a single lady in the same shape I was when I first bought the condo -- and plans to improve the kitchen. I felt she was going to live in and love the house rather than rent it out. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
katilac Posted January 29, 2021 Share Posted January 29, 2021 On 1/27/2021 at 3:23 PM, Jenny in Florida said: Granted, we've only seriously started looking in the last couple of weeks, but so far it's disheartening and stressful. I really hope you get the one you're bidding on, but if you don't, recognize that this is no time at all in House Buying World. We looked for months, and it wasn't even a hot market when we bought. Now, we weren't sure about what we wanted at the beginning, so that took time. Being on a budget and being a first-time buyer both tend to lengthen the process. Speaking of which - did y'all look into first-time buyer programs? If you don't get this house, you might want to. They did so, so much for my parents when they bought their house. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hjffkj Posted January 29, 2021 Share Posted January 29, 2021 On 1/27/2021 at 4:32 PM, Jenny in Florida said: We considered that in the past, but have now decided that we just plain need more space in order to be comfortable for the long run. Each of us is working from home indefinitely, and each of us has hobbies that require some space. Plus a dog and two cats. Plus adult children whom we hope will visit us. Don't rush it and don't get attached to a house. Treat it as a business transaction. The market right now is on fire. Things are down right crazy. Rates are so low that people can afford to pay more for a house and with low inventory there are bidding wars. It is certainly not a buyer's market. With all this in mind it is very easy for people to get desperate and make bad decisions. I watched from the sidelines over the summer as a sibling got caught up in the craziness and ended up paying way too much for a house that ended up having tens of thousands of dollars worth of work that needed to be done. Stay sane. It isn't fun buying a house. It is stressful Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jenny in Florida Posted January 30, 2021 Author Share Posted January 30, 2021 Realtor just called. There were eight offers on that house. We came in second. 9 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Annie G Posted January 30, 2021 Share Posted January 30, 2021 I’m sorry. Honestly hearing I came in second would upset me more than if our offer came in like 7th. Your house is out there. Hang in there. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
klmama Posted January 30, 2021 Share Posted January 30, 2021 That's disappointing. I hope it works out next time! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jenny in Florida Posted February 6, 2021 Author Share Posted February 6, 2021 I've lost count of the number of offers we have made -- I think it's either four or five. The latest one just got rejected. The sellers had 21 offers in about two days of the house being listed. We just let the realtor know we're taking a few days off, because we're getting frustrated. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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