Category Archives: Real Estate

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BUYERS ARE SHOPPING PAYMENT!

Image courtesy of ChatGPT

We keep clutching our pearls waiting for the next rate drop. Then we get insulted. A zero point two five ‘drop’?? Behind some heavy mahogany door, wealthy men are laughing. That’s the picture I have in MY head.

I did a quick check of a 400K home price (which reflects a first time buyer price here in the Triangle). At a THREE PERCENT interest rate, thirty year mortgage, zero down, the principle and interest payment would still be $1687. That does not include taxes, insurance and HOA. My advice? Download a loan calculator and LOOK at what your payment will be (approximately, but close).

The problem is overly inflated house prices! The days of frantic buying are over. I heard we’re 6 months (cognitively) behind reality. We are watching more and more inventory being flooded into a stagnant market, listings sitting longer and longer, prices dropping and dropping, and buyers languishing while shopping, with no sense of urgency. My goodness, what will it take for reality to settle in? We are still ‘whistling past the graveyard’.

Builders are offering rate buy downs? That’s the same as an adjustable rate mortgage folks, and one day that rate will ADJUST to a number you may very well not be able to pay. The wording is different, the result is the same…as in 2008. Ask questions: What will my payment be if the rate goes to 7%? See how you like THAT number.

Buyers, I’m saying this: You now have leverage. Finally, you are not over a barrel. Use your leverage, and as one YouTube creator said, “Be careful not to catch a falling knife”. An adjustable rate mortgage is not always a bad thing, unless you do not understand it inside and out. My first mortgage was an adjustable rate, but at a time when rates were in the stratosphere. Nowhere to go but down. AND I could refinance anytime after the first year, BEFORE the rate adjusted, at no cost to me. Use your mind and your leverage.

Want to chat about it? It’s free to call me. I’m Brenda with Premier Advantage Realty.

A Peek Behind the Real Estate Market

If you can believe Discover the Nation, rental markets in metropolitan areas are falling, as much as 12% in some areas. Grand incentives are being offered: rent credits, large gift cards, months of free rent to sign on, and still a lot of empty units sit empty, the windows staring out at what still looks like a bustling economy. It’s a matter of time before the truth breaks forth.

Air BNB homes are either empty or being switched to properties for sale. International investors are standing by, based on new laws, high prices and astronomical special assessments in some areas. For the first time in decades, “renters are back in control”. But are they really? Costs are rising faster than wages, free months worth of incentive notwithstanding, and people are giving up on ‘traditional’ housing like renting or buying. Well what else is there?

This is being called a ‘cultural shift’. More and more people are embracing ‘off grid’ types of lifestyle. More and more people are finding out that a life in under 400 square feet is pretty good when you’re not stressing about how to make a 5 figure house payment. According to Discover the Nation, “Housing markets don’t defy gravity forever.” Some of us watched a big correction in 2008: proof. We didn’t learn a thing, except that greed lives on, no matter what. I feel the effects of that greed looming.

On a side note and keeping the cultural shift in mind, remember that people in their 30’s are focused on setting roots…buying a home, starting a family. This market makes that impossible, and could be one reason young people are so angry these days. Their expected trajectory has been destroyed.

The ones who would be rushing to the market to experience the ‘American Dream’ cannot afford to buy a home now. Jobs are not as available and student loan debt still cripples young people. Those who can afford to buy are eyeing high interest rates and just refusing to accept both high home prices and ridiculous monthly payments. Some are moving back in with parents. House prices have been ridiculously high for a long time now, too long, so one important part of society is now pushed out of home ownership or even renting. Entire groups of people are being offered ‘free housing’, which kills the market in those areas while builders keep flooding the market with product that won’t sell or rent. If I didn’t know better, I’d call that insanity.

The rental market is struggling, clearly. But it’s not just rental high rises and it’s not just luxury accommodations nobody can afford instead of sensible, affordable housing. It’s also production builders. They have finally gotten a strangle hold on resale sellers, because only the wealthy builders can offer the tens of thousands of incentive dollars they offer to potential buyers. One builder is offering up to FIFTY THOUSAND dollars to fill their inventory with bodies, while they still build, by the way, and that’s with a total of 500 to 1500 dollars out of pocket to the buyer. That surely feels like a dream to those brave enough to test that water.

One builder is using their own in-house lenders to ‘qualify’ a buyer with a credit score under 500 in order to sell them a home. Oh, and how about a 3.99% interest rate offered by builders too. Often these come with adjustable rate products which ensure that the 490 credit score buyer will lose that home to foreclosure within years. I’ve seen this before too. By the way, that house that was such a dream come true? It’s still vastly overpriced and possibly cheaply built.

But the builders and lenders have made their money. Builders have ridiculously overpriced badly built product. Loans are sold to investors who will cash in on mortgage interest over the life of the loan…until they default. Am I writing history? Does this sound familiar to you at all? Do you remember the last housing crash?? It’s starting again. When I heard the ‘under 500 credit score’ advertisement, I knew. Here we go again. The only good thing is that buyers who have had to give up hope, will get it back. In the aftermath of a crash, or even during it, buyers have all of the power, and their demands are brutal. Sellers take a beating. Personally? I’m tired of this ridiculous greed-fueled, roller coaster market. And it makes me very sad to see young people blocked out…BLOCKED OUT…of the housing market. So while I see them take revenge after a crash, I understand.

If we think the crash of 2008 was horrible…which it was… we ‘ain’t seen nothing yet’ as they say. This time, the pain will be greater and spread thicker across America. And the recovery will take longer and will look awful if it happens.

Not painting a lovely picture, am I? Well maybe I’m wrong.

I’m Brenda Briggs with Premier Advantage Realty. Reach out and let’s talk.

Boost Your Existing Home Desirability to Buyers

The years 2023 and 2024 were challenging years for existing home sellers. That’s in general; there were some warmer markets. But overall builders captured the market with huge and I mean HUGE incentive dollars for buyers. The problem existing home SELLERS have is that their homes are not new, and they should not be priced alongside new or newer homes. And yet some are.

The problem I see is that often, sellers spend tens of thousands of dollars on their homes getting them ready to sell, and promptly add that dollar amount to their dream price. That NEVER works, folks. What sellers spend is actually required to bring their home back to life to be worthy of the market; it’s not icing. They replace worn out flooring, leaky roof, repair wet crawl space, put in a new water heater, update appliances…all of the things buyers EXPECT to see when they are shopping homes on the market. Today’s buyers do not want to do DIY. They want older but they want it to BE new. See the conundrum?

There’s that dirty word no seller ever hears: Market. The internet makes my job much harder in a way, because it fools people into checking the square footage box, the acreage box, the age box and POOF! There’s your home value. Not. Not not not! Please hear me when I say this: There are a thousand other things to consider when deriving a price for your home and NONE of the online home sites consider any of them. So they tell you a dream price and you buy it, hook, line and sinker.

Remember the ‘nose blind’ commercials? It’s real. But there’s ’emotion blind’ too. Buyers don’t care that your parents built this home; they don’t care that this used to be your room as a child! They have never seen this house, and they don’t see it through your emotion lenses. The automated valuation models don’t know that your back yard view is of a propane dealer or that you have termites eating your floor joists. The AVMs don’t know that there is a plan to put an interstate alongside your property line! AVMs don’t know that your kitchen appliances are forty years old, or that the bathrooms are that age too. They look at age, square footage, zip code and then they grab others with those criteria and give you an average. Most of the time, they are wrong. Read that last sentence again, please.

I’m going to say this and hope you will listen. Real estate agents see thousands of homes each year. We see the best of the best and the worst of the worst. We know how to value your home. By the way, your market is not the same as the one 20 miles away from you. Real estate is LOCAL. Know that when we come to meet you and your home, our goal is to find out your STRATEGY for selling your home. In other words, how motivated are you and why. That’s critical. And then we talk to you about the repairs you’ve had to do, the ones you plan to do, the age of the systems, what you love and what you hate about the home. Then we investigate the building materials (like Masonite or polybutylene) and whether or not you are in a flood plane. We check for easements and private streets and road maintenance agreements. And we check the HOA and covenants. ALL OF THAT makes a difference folks. All of it. AVMs do not consider them, by the way.

But the bottom line is that unless you have made your old house new in all of the ways, you cannot price it alongside new construction. Even if, may I say, the quality of construction may be better. So please, consult a real estate agent (me) and let’s just talk about it. Oh, and then please listen. I will tell you the truth. And then I will help you actually sell your home.

I’m Brenda, a real estate broker with Premier Advantage Realty. Call me.

Doing the Right Thing in Real Estate

Photo by Lisa Fotios on Pexels.com

I’m pretty sure we can all agree that politeness is harder to come by as each day passes.  And every business is morphing into a different character, trying to adjust to constantly changing social landscape.  But here’s one thing that should not change.

When you are allowed to enter the home of a stranger to walk your buyer clients through, to test cabinet spaces and check out closet size and configuration, peek into the crawl space, walk the property…the very least you can do is send feedback to the agent who lists this property for sale for these seller clients.  After all, they have just let you stroll around their home.

You are doing a good thing for your buyers, and you are also getting paid.  And you are also in the business with the listing agent who needs your feedback.  Realize that these sellers want to know your opinion of the home because they may be able to make changes to make the home more appealing.

And if you ignore your obligation to provide feedback, you create more work for the listing agent, who now has to track you down, has to inform their seller clients that you didn’t provide feedback, just more annoying time sucking activities that would not be necessary if you, buyer agent, would do your job.  

And it is the polite thing to do regardless.  

Your friendly reminder from Brenda Briggs, Coldwell Banker Advantage.  Find me online and by the way, I will let you know what my clients thought of your home if I am in buyer agency.  That’s a promise.

 

Helping our Seniors

I have heard some recent accounts of tough times in real estate when dealing with senior clients. Anybody who knows me, knows I have a soft spot for seniors because they are often the forgotten members of society; so it bothers me when I hear about these things happening. Like this: One very elderly lady gets to within days of closing and decides she doesn’t want to sell. She doesn’t want to sell because she never really wanted to in the first place, and besides, all attorneys are in cahoots with each other: She wants to keep her house. And, she doesn’t begin to understand the consequences of such a decision, nor even how she got to this point, really. Heartbreaking.

The key is patience. Patience and covering the same ground over and over…and OVER if that’s what it takes…until everyone truly understands not only the process, but HOW the process works. Remember many of these people, our seniors, don’t understand how real estate works ‘these days’. In their minds, they may envision Mayberry, where everyone knows everyone; or they may think the barber and the attorney are best buds. By the time many of the true seniors get to the point of selling the ‘family home’, they may very well have lost touch with the modern fast-paced reality. If you are going to represent them, you are going to have to assess the level of understanding of your client first; and if you can’t walk them through it, beware.

Remember that seniors need to net a certain amount, usually, and that’s a great discussion to have; but you may have to have it several times to make it understood; in other words, whether or not you can make that happen. And remember that these folks may not know how the attorney works, or even why one is involved. Think about how much real estate has changed in your lifetime, and then imagine being 85 and trying to grasp it. And remember that a seller may think the BUYER’S closing attorney is also her/his attorney. Explain it! Take the time, because I have found that there’s a lot of fear in the hearts of many seniors, and I have found that they truly appreciate it when you take the time to let them know they are being CARED for. That’s what I do, and I mean it. It’s just what we owe them.

A Quick Note for Real Estate Agents

Hi fellow servants. I just wanted to send a quick note about technology. I get all KINDS of responses to it, and the only ones that bother me are the staunchly resistant ones. I’m lucky. I’m over 60, but I ‘grew up’ when technology was getting wings, and I have something of an aptitude for it. So I’ve been a fan from the start, and I’m a nerd, which makes me crave the newest cool stuff. I think some of it is much ado about nothing, and I can usually tell when a program or gadget is going to be a one and done. And I can usually tell when someone took an existing popular program or app and tweaked it to make it seem new and ‘cool’. So I don’t have to have every SINGLE app that comes along, and I don’t need to post pictures of my food. So there you go.

But for the OTHER things, the ones that make our lives SO much easier and better, those…I love. And I put in the effort to learn how to use them so that I have at least a fairly proficient use of them. That’s one secret: Time. The other secret is teamwork. I GUARANTEE that your fellow agents will help you when you get stuck. At my office, if anyone needs help with ANYTHING, there are many hands reaching out to offer assistance. If you don’t have that…well, come to my office. You’ll be amazed.

For real estate, it is ESSENTIAL that you stay IN the mainstream of technological advances. None of them are rocket science, and I keep telling people: “You can’t break the earth if you make a mistake”. Because…you can always fix mistakes, either by re-doing the effort, or by filling out, you guessed it, a FORM. But I digress. Keep trying. Take a deep breath and remember that you are a human with a high functioning control mechanism (brain), and you can do this. And besides, I really hate it when I get a PICTURE of a document in dark gray…impossible to read. Come on.

YA GOTTA LEARN THE PROGRAMS, PEOPLE. Look, we are in this together, and while we are often on opposite sides of the table, we are in the same business. We can either go through it in abject pain and suffering, or we can all be paddling the tech boat in the same direction. I know time is precious in our world, but I also know that every one of us has time to sit down and learn one or two things a week, or a day…however you want to do it…to learn that new database or website you have to use. Again, none of this is rocket science. You can do it.

If you are going to use an electronic lockbox, for example, make SURE your smart phone has a high level of charge, because it has to talk to the lockbox, and if you are under 30% charge? Forget it. You’re going to have problems. And if you are in a low signal area, first of all there should not be an electronic box on that property because it won’t work right (the listing agent should have known that and acted accordingly). And listen, if the majority of the world is using electronic lock boxes, you NEED TO LEARN how to use them, and yes, you need to download that app on your phone. Why? Because it makes. your. life. SO. much. better! And??? It is EASY. Another reason? The listing agent shouldn’t have to teach you how to use the tools of your trade. My blood pressure shoots to the moon when I get an accusatory call that “your lockbox doesn’t work”. OMG. YES IT DOES. It does. I have driven many many miles to listings to check out my lockboxes and guess what? THEY WORK! And they provide a great service to sellers because each person who accesses it is ON RECORD. That’s essential in today’s world.

Wire transfers. Things are changing. You have to get on board with the new direction things are going with regard to funding real estate. And do you know, I have clients who do not have a checking account? Right! Providing directions for tracking electronic due diligence and earnest money transfers is coming. That’s technology. And it is necessary. The old ways of doing things are fading away; even ‘normal’ banks are fading. It’s true! How banking is done is being tweaked as we speak. Better learn to love technology, or at least not scream in fear of it. You HAVE to do this stuff.

Here’s something else to think about. If you are a buyer agent and you don’t have the electronic lockbox app, you will have have to get a one-day code to access the property. You probably should call the listing agent for that, because sometimes the showing services get it wrong and cause a lot of anxiety for buyer agents trying to show property. So, listing agents, learn how to get a one day code for your buyer agents! You should know how to do that if you are going to put an electronic box on the property. You don’t want them to get frustrated and walk away from your listing in anger. Not a good thing.

I know some folks who are absolutely terrified of new programs and apps and processes. I don’t really understand that, but I do try to help those folks navigate through, because each time they make it through without being struck by lightning, they feel a bit braver about using ‘it’, whatever ‘it’ is. But folks, if you are afraid, if you’re one of them, please try to learn. Try to stem the panic, calm down enough to remember WHAT you have just done, and WHY you did it. Knowing the ‘why’ piece makes learning the ‘what’ a lot easier, in my experience.

If you were in the corporate world and the new way of doing things was implemented, you WOULD get on board. These new real estate tools are no different. They are here because they add value to the process, they provide another level of protection for our clients, and they ease the process for all of us. So dive in. You can’t break the earth. Trust me. If it could have been done, I’d have done it by now! You should have seen me in the science world…right Phil?

And one more thing before I go: NOT answering your calls is NOT being technologically advanced. It’s resisting actually speaking to another agent in a business where we NEED to actually speak to one another. I know, don’t hyperventilate. ANSWER. YOUR. PHONE. If you do not, you are adding another UNNECESSARY step in the process, and you know….TIME IS PRECIOUS. Don’t ask me to text you. If I WANT to text, I will text.

Answer. Your. Phone.

Okay, I’m finished now.

Buying a Cheap House

If you are a contractor or investor with lots of cash, just find it and buy it. You can find them for under 100K around here. Godspeed and all that.

If you are a first time buyer, or an ordinary, first time move-up buyer with one home you live in and a little bit of savings, forget it. It does NOT go the way you think it goes. Just doesn’t. Trust me. You won’t, but I am right.

If you are going to try to buy through an internet provider, just know that there are going to be costs. Like…1.95% ‘up front fee’, for example. That’s cash, up front, and you still have to get loan approval. Most cheap houses? NOBODY will lend on them. NO-BOD-Y.

If you want to go it on your own, you had better know how to find out what the REAL cost will be. Or get out the crying towel. These days in real estate, there are usually up front ‘money on the table’ outlays of cash, some of which are not refundable. Just call a realtor. And don’t call one to USE one, call one to compensate them for the help they will give you. I’m tired of hearing horror stories of people losing thousands because they didn’t know or wouldn’t listen. Really! It really bothers me when I hear this stuff, but on the other hand, if they have been advised well and they continue to blunder, well…that’s on them.

Want to just buy a piece of land and build…because land is 20K an acre? Just know that you can’t finance that land. You’re going to have to pay cash for it, even if you family member is “standing by” to build a house on it for you. And dare I say this? Your family member is not going to make you the priority if he’s doing the build on a discounted basis (or has a job he has to go to every day). And if you didn’t have that kind of cash to get you into a home the traditional way, how are you going to get it to pay cash for land?

Oh, I know. Buy a foreclosure house! NOT! If you find a cheap foreclosure house, trust me, the repairs will be astronomical. And you don’t have discretionary funds, remember? Oh, and this is important. You can’t finance it. Ya gotta pay cash. And, you know those seller disclosures you get with homes listed in multiple services? The ones that tell you what’s wrong with the house? Not gonna get one with a foreclosure, and if you DO, all of the boxes will be checked with ‘no representation’. That means: I don’t know and/or I don’t care. So you won’t know whether the foundation has major issues, the structure is termite ridden, half of the structure was not permitted, the septic system is collapsing, the well is contaminated…you know, those little details.

So you get to spend a LOT more money on inspections than you might otherwise spend, only to decide you don’t want the house. I call that a colossal waste of money! UNLESS you are a contractor or investor, flush with cash.

Want a fixer-upper? Great! You’d better like DIY home improvement projects, because you’ll be living in one for years! Now, I have clients who do love DIY and are good at it, and have the patience and love of restoration to enjoy the long term, patience-sapping experience. Not many people do. So. If you go this route, plan ahead. Know that if you run out of patience and money, you’ll have a heck of a time selling a partially restored fixer-upper. And depending on the nature of the ‘fixing’, you may have to wait for a cash buyer to show up. By the way, I can spend five minutes with you and know whether or not you can handle it. Yes, I’m that good.

See, this stuff is important! Real estate agents…the good ones…can walk you through the processes so that you don’t trip over your own feet, even if you ARE looking for a cheap house. And please please please remember, you are hiring an agent for her/his expertise. That’s what you’re paying for. So don’t let non-Realtor people yap into your head and ruin your deal. This happens so often that when I hear about a family member being involved, if that person is not willing to meet with me and talk it out with me? I don’t want the transaction. Why? Because they NEVER make it through to closing when the family member wants to be a behind-the-scenes puppet master. Usually they do not understand the process and don’t want that to become obvious to the professional.

I have done many transactions where I DID meet with family and talk things through. What’s the first job? Make sure everyone is on the same page. Listen, if you and your family member are at odds, stay out of the market until you reach consensus. Real estate agents do not get paid until the property closes. That means if you argue and tug back and forth with family throughout the transaction, not only does the real estate agent have to sit down and wait for you to get bad advice from a non-agent, but we also lose the deal and get NOTHING for our time. I know you like to be paid when you work, so please, remember that our time ALSO has value. So, bring your family to me first. Then I get to decide if the deal has a snowball’s chance….you get the idea. I love nothing more than a tight, loving family, working together. But one behind the scenes giving bad advice? No.

I have helped buyers purchase low priced homes many times. Some are investments; some are homes to be brought back to life to be loved and lived in. I love these transactions, because I hate to see homes fall into disrepair and be destroyed. But you have to know that there is a way to approach and close these purchases and a way to completely blow the deal.

Which would you rather do?

Predicting the Market

Holidays.  You love them, you dread them, you never know what you’re gonna get.  It’s like that in real estate markets, too.  I can predict with some level of accuracy what the market will look like in the last quarter and into the first quarter…from the 10,000 foot view.  I normally have a Thanksgiving and a Christmas closing…not ON those days, but close.  And I usually have closing or two in January.  Some real estate agents will say that people don’t buy houses during holiday season. Well, my clients do. Usually.  But I’m neither a mind reader nor a market psychic.  You just can’t predict accurately all the time.

This year I have multiple deals in the works for year end, more than ever, in fact.  So I figure that my normally SLOW months of February and March might be flat.  But then again… mayyyyybe not.  I have some pipeline business that will likely take me into the first quarter at a reasonable clip.  Could all of the buyers decide not to buy?  Yep.  They could.  Can’t predict.

What I’m trying to say here is that nobody can predict buyer behavior.  Right now, my listings have gone quiet, suddenly and inexplicably, which means buyers are ‘on a break’.  I blame it on Halloween, which is apparently a much bigger holiday than I gave it credit for being.  I don’t get it, but if I don’t blame crickets chirping on Halloween, I have to go to the spacecraft sprinkling anti-home shopping dust on the area, and frankly, I like the space ship idea even better.

It’s funny how this stuff works.  People can be maypole dancing around listings in the entire area, and then suddenly…crickets chirping.  So, if you have your home on the market, just know that these things happen, they come up and they go away.  And your home will sell.  Can I tell you when?

Nope. Wish I could.

For First Time Buyers: A Word of Advice

I am a real estate agent in the Raleigh area market, where we are in a terrible housing shortage, particularly in the first time buyer price point.  Here, many of our first timers use USDA funding in order to get 100% financing, and most of them don’t have enough discretionary money to cover all of their closing costs (some can’t cover ANY).  Often this is because they’ve just finished paying off student loans and can finally, barely qualify to buy a home of their own and get out of the rental racket.

Today, for every home under 150K that pops onto the market, there are about 8 offers on the table in a matter of hours.  First time buyers are offering at LEAST $5000 dollars above list price in order to have a remote chance at having their offer accepted and I’m guessing many of these folks will be disappointed by a low appraised value, potentially after they have spent a lot of money on inspections.  Bad idea.

What this means is:  1) The home is most likely NOT going to “appraise” at that list-price-plus-closing-cost price, because homes are ALREADY priced at the high end of the range due to demand.  2)  If the home does not appraise, then young buyer must bring to closing the difference between appraised value and offer price, or walk away and lose the hard earned due diligence money they put on the table with the offer.  First time buyers looking for sellers to ‘pay their closing costs’ cannot AFFORD to lose that due diligence money and forget about having them bring the difference to closing.  And by the way, sellers are taking FULL advantage of the situation by asking for HUGE due diligence amounts from people barely able to get into the market in the first place.  They do this because the likelihood of an over-list-price home appraising at the higher value is LOW; so the seller stands to be able to pocket whatever amount of due diligence money the potential buyer put forth.

First time buyers, please listen carefully.  If you offer above appraisal value and it actually works, you go into your first home “upside down”.  What you WANT is to walk in with some equity, and in this market that’s hard to pull off; but going in under water is just a bad idea.

So please consider this:  SAVE money to pay your closing costs, or at least SOME of them,  yourself.  That way, you can offer full list price and ask for ZERO closing cost assistance from the seller.  OR…ask for a monetary gift from a family member (with a letter stating such). You might just have a chance at having your offer accepted in that circumstance, and you won’t be upside down when you close.  Talk with your lender about what you have to do in order to accept a gift and make sure that’s allowed by your loan type, but it’s usually an option for you.

Listen, if you have to finance in your closing costs, you are advertising to a seller, who already has a pile of offers on the table, that you can’t afford the house, or that you have no skin in the game.  Either or both of those advertisements will get your offer rejected in record time.  Sellers want to know that you have invested enough to stick around through the whole process, because if you walk away, that seller has lost VALUABLE marketing time.  Sellers don’t like losing hot market time, with perfectly good reason.  If they view you as cash-poor, that makes you a bad risk in their minds.  In this market, sellers don’t NEED to accept a bad risk. There are too many good ones on the table.

This market is NOT the one where you can expect the sellers to fund your way into a house.  YOU have to contribute.  If you cannot, your best bet is a new home from a builder.  Builders have deep pockets and usually offer some closing cost assistance, although it’s minimal in the under-150K price point.  In short: you need money to buy a house.  Remember you may have to pay for inspections, and that can add up pretty fast if you do home, HVAC, roof,septic, well and crawl space inspections and a survey.

I love working with first time buyers, but if I always, always have to be the one to tell you that won’t work, you can’t do that, your offer was rejected, etc…then I end up being the bad guy and I’m not a bad guy.  This is just a twisted, crazy market, and your only viable option is to understand the market and play by its rules.

I once had a builder tell me he was just going to “ignore the market” and keep selling.  That was when the market was crashing.  Want to make a guess how that turned out?  It was a disaster, of course!  You cannot just ignore reality; you MUST operate within it.

So…know what you face going in, prepare monetarily, and prepare with patience.  You may submit several offers before yours gets accepted.  Meanwhile, SAVE SAVE SAVE!  I wish you the very best of luck and I’m proud of you for getting to the point where you can buy your first home!  Let’s get together, talk things through, and get you prepared for this crazy market.

Contingency Offers: Get with the Program!

The need for sellers to accept contingency offers is quickly becoming a frustrating issue in the Triangle. Because sellers usually need to find a home to buy, and because of the growing shortage of houses for them TO buy, we’re facing a new, huge challenge. Buyers know how hard it is to find a home to buy in general, but SELLERS cannot compete with buyers who do not have a contingency, once their home is under contract. But think about this: If sellers know they have a double challenge (selling their home and finding one to move to) AND they know agents will not advocate for them in presenting (and getting accepted) contingency offers, then we can expect a big drop in listings. There you have it: My prediction. With the existing shortage of housing, if people stop listing, we’re in for a terrible situation. Agents need to become familiar with contingency offers and stop viewing them as bad. If a seller needs to make a contingency offer in order to have a shot at a place to move TO when they sell, then this puts the owner of the DESIRED home in an even stronger selling position. They can ask for full list price, high due diligence, and pretty much anything else they want, just for accepting a contingency offer. They might have to make one more house payment than planned, but they can also get that payment in due diligence if they play their cards right. Contingency offers are not the devil and they are growing…GROWING…in popularity and need. But both agents need to be able to have a frank discussion about the likelihood of two successful transactions and work towards facilitating a win-win situation. I remember writing blog entries, appealing to buyers to be sensible about their position of power during the market crash. So many buyers lost perspective and put sellers in heart wrenching positions because they had the upper hand. I hope our sellers now, when it’s their turn to hold all the cards, will keep their perspective as well. And agents, think about these contingency offers. They may work to your sellers’ advantage, if you negotiate well.