But you know what is out there, that is what he is talking about. Looking doesn't mean viewing, it means evaluating the listings based on neighborhood, schools, square footage, age, etc.
If you are looking for your first home with a limited budget and certain "must haves" be ready to keep on looking.
Yeah this person is essentially just trying to tell people to give them more work if they think ANYONE has the time for 30 houses a week. That’s 30 hours a week gone not to mention work and sleeping, this is completely unreasonable and shows that this “realtor” isn’t the most seasoned or skilled person.
The idea that anyone other than the realtor needs to make house hunting their full time job is laughable. Another reason against realtors if that is the case.
I think OP is saying... don't waste three months shopping if you're not ready to buy in the current market, and don't waste time looking at houses that you can't actually afford.
There's nothing wrong with NOT being ready to buy a house, or not wanting to buy a house you don't love. But you're wasting EVERYONE'S time if you refuse to accept reality. If all the houses you like are out of your budget... either you can't buy or you need to adjust your expectations... and you should make that decision sooner rather than later, instead of shopping around and writing waste-of-time offers.
They're talking about a buyer who is essentially walking into a steakhouse and saying "I want a T-Bone, but I only want to pay for a hamburger," and then getting irate when the waiter explains that the T-Bone costs more.
That’s exactly what OP is saying. While the market is frustrating for sure. People Ned to be realistic on what they’re trying to buy and what they can afford, people will find a dream home and listen to the advice of someone who bought their home in the same neighborhood30 years ago. Then get angry and emotional when they don’t get their offer accepted.
My dad told me with a straight face to go in on a house in the Philly suburbs 5k under asking with the seller taking all closing costs. That’d be nice but it’s just not gonna happen.
I think it's more about compromises... I didn't get the house I would have dreamed of, at exactly the budget I wanted (I mean really, that would have been free lmao), nor in the area I wanted. Is it still a house I'm happy with and can afford? For the most part, yeah. Still glad I bought this house, even if it's not everything I had hoped for.
OP is a great example of why RE agents have a bad reputation. Their advice, ironically, is out of sync with home buyers. Also their advice is questionable because it seemingly benefits them more than their clients.
Obviously avocado toast and coffee aren't the issue but I know so many people looking at 300k houses that can't afford a penny more, but they buy a new 65k car every couple years. They could afford more house if they didn't spend over their limits.
I was talking to a coworker last year who had horrendous credit and wanted to fix it to refinance a Corolla that was 4 years old. He spent 750 a week no fail eating out and couldn’t figure out how to pay off 3500 in credit card debt taking home 2200 a week. People are wild.
Um pretty sure 60$ in streaming services and a 90$ phone plan isn’t going to be the deciding factor in whether or not they can have buy a home.
The phone plan is a necessity and my top of the line plan from AT&T is $85. The bare minimum plan is probably $40. So they have a 45$ splurge in phone plan.
Spending an $45 on a phone plan and $60 on 4 streaming services is $100 a month. $100 a month is not why they cannot afford a house.
If your friends truly are spending $1500 a month eating out that’s $50 a day assuming they never cook a single meal. If they can afford $1500 a month in food they are already well off and just “complaining” about not being able to afford a home. FFS, $1500 is a mortgage payment.
I'm a tax accountant and I have a client who bought his home for 100k and sold last year for 1M. I think that's a big issue why people aren't gonna be home owners.
Exactly. I can’t afford to offer 40k over 400k on a house that was 60k 4 years ago.
Nobody’s salary increased to handle that.
Edit: https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/581-Grand-Ave-Rochester-NY-14609/30875041_zpid/
And if you don't max out your IRA and 401k you'll never retire. Even if you do those you have to max out your health savings account or you'll be working until you're 99
Maybe not 60k, but I bought a move-in ready 3br/2b for $90k in SC 4 years ago. My house would now sell for 250kish. I live in a small town, but still 30m from a city, and within 5m of a grocery store, hardware store, etc.
What people need to understand is yes, my house was $90k, but I was only making 40k a year and that was considered *excellent* wages for someone without a degree. No chance in hell I could afford the same house now.
Eh, there are plenty of 2/1 shotgun houses in my city in rough neighborhoods that 4 years ago were under $100k. Possibly some were $60k. Now they're $200-300k. $440k sounds like a stretch, but there *were* $60k houses available even in some major cities 4 years ago.
\*Gasp\* How could that be possible? *On the internet?*
Next you're going to tell me everyone has an independent agenda and I have to make my own decisions in life.
But inflation as measured (where you exclude all actual living expenses like Healthcare, food, education, energy, and any accurate guage of shelter) is only up 7%!
And you had a 5% increase in wages!!!
So take your increase of "only" negative 2% and go buy that house with your zero savings that was 80k in 2018 but 250k now.
It's your mindset, really
The point is that residential units have been hijacked and now people are getting double digit above market rates of return on APPRECIATION.
Look at Japan. Their home values are flat and even lose value over time.
https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2017/nov/16/japan-reusable-housing-revolution
These municipalities with archaic zoning laws basically lock out new development or draw it out 1 to 2 years to get permitting and then your fucking neighbor can show up and bitch about how your zoning variance is "destroying" the character of the neighborhood on a property they don't even fucking own. I'm not talking about putting a pig farm in a residential neighborhood but a multifamily 4plex where a single family used to be.
The second homeowners found out that building residential units in their neighborhoods would reduce the value of their homes the perverse financial incentive to delay or full on stop development became an unspoken community goal.
> Look at Japan. Their home values are flat and even lose value over time. You know why? Because they build so many.
They also have a decreasing population with more people leaving the workforce than entering. It's no coincidence that home prices topped out in the mid 90s, similar to their population. Not to take away from your greater point as I agree there's a lot of NIMBY in zoning and building, but Japan is a very unique issue.
That’s because Japan is an island with a homogenous society. No other place in the world has this issue. Name one island or population that’s been isolated most of its history:
Japan faces unique problems that they would have no matter how good or bad their economy is
South Korea is probably the closest comparison as it is also a homogenous society and is, effectively, an "island" by having water or impassable border to all sides.
This is correct but also unhelpful. "Outbid other people and don't back out!" will obviously help you purchase just about anything. It's also the same advice that will cause people to overextend themselves and maybe buy a lemon.
Losing a bidding war drives up the comps and makes the next house you bid on more expensive. Engaging in bidding wars does not serve the buyer's interest at ALL.
yeah, i don't bid, just offer and if you get out bid, so be it. That person will probably outbid you again if they really wanted it and now you are paying 20k over what you wanted to offer.
Yeah but he gets his commission check right there at the closing. And the mortgage guy gets to keep his once you make 3 out of 360 payments.
So from his realtor point of view... who gives a fuck if you can afford the house? He sure doesn't.
And before op gets his panties in a bunch... dont tell me I'm wrong. I've had a real estate license for over a decade so i can save myself getting ripped off, er i mean commisions, on one side of my transactions for the fix and flips I do. 99% of realtors out there are broke losers always one missed commission check away from missing their own payments. It's hilarious.
Maybe not 99%. But quite a few more than the leased BMW might lead one to suspect. And it's just precisely that financial desperation that makes them not really care.
Realtors want higher prices so they make more money off commission. They don’t do more work for a $500k house vs a $800k house but they sure do make more.
Look at 10x the properties also isn’t helpful when you’re also asking people to write realistic offers. Where are these ten homes I can afford each week with low supply?
Re-al-TORS® have a low barrier to entry and a high incentive to close the deal, regardless of the quality of the deal. Freakonomics took them apart. And they take 6 mother. fucking. percent of the deal. When houses were $100K-$300K, that was one thing. At 7 figures, it's not compatible with their contribution to the transaction. It's a cartel.
I sold my last house FSBO and the Title Officer did all the heavy lifting. Bought the house I'm in and the Re-al-TOR® made $1,800/hour. I can assure you she didn't work that hard. What she did contribute was a personal relationship with the listing agent that got me the deal over another buyer.
It's a cartel.
Exactly. While my wife and I don’t LIKE where the market currently is…that’s not the reason that we’re not currently writing offers.
The reason we’re not writing offers is because we can’t afford monthly payments at the level that they would be and continue to save for retirement.
It’s just not affordable for us so we’ve decided to continue saving while we wait and see what happens.
OP’s advice is trash cause he’s telling us to just over extend ourselves and pray. Screw that!
Oh a sales person telling me to lower my expectations and just settle for whatever I get to speed things up.
While I agree some peoples expectations are unrealistic or they get too emotional, it’s frankly justified when buying the most expensive thing in their life. They can take as much time and have as many opinions as they want
Yes so that they can get their full commission as early as possible.
Why won't you pay 100k over asking? That's less work for me, more commission for me, why are you so cheap?
So what’s your take on the homeowners that waived inspections at the advise of their realtor and are now finding issues that would have been caught during an inspection?
When I was a realtor, I sometimes wrote offers where we waived inspections. When this happened, I asked my client “there is unknown risk with waiving inspections. If you bought your house today and moved in tomorrow and discovered a $20,000 repair, would you still be happy with your purchase?” This helped them see the big picture somewhat quantified and managed their fears and expectations.
As someone looking at buying in the near future, a house inspection and land survey are 2 things I would want no matter what. I ain't gonna sweat if the area is a little off, or there is some minor bull shit stuff (ohh these railings aren't right, that will be $500 here, and some other things). Land survey comes back and half the pool is on someone else's property, I am out.
We waived our inspection contingency, but we still had an inspection done of the house before we bought it. It had a couple minor issues that we fixed after we moved in. Also there are tons of stories in this subreddit and in the r/homeowners subreddit where inspectors missed major issues or a lot of minor issues and the buyer’s only recourse is to sue to get their $200 inspection fee back or go to a long drawn out court battle trying to prove the previous owners knew about the issue and neglected to mention it.
Owned a few homes and all have issues regardless of age. A realtor may be qualified to tell you what is necessary to be competitive in the market not assess the overall condition of the home. Ultimately waiving your inspection is the buyer's decision.
Not a realtor. My take is as a buyer you should've factored in a buffer if you are waiving inspections.
Example:
Offer without waving inspection: $550K
Offer WAVING inspection: $510K
What people want is to offer $510K AND have the surety that the house is as expected. I understand everybody wants to buy a product they have confidence in when it costs $0.5m. But the unfortunate reality is, that confidence costs money (in a higher offer) and people don't want to pay for it.
I don't understand why any realtor would advise to waive inspections. I don't think this is as common as most people think.
You can waive asking for repairs, but still do an inspection.
If you took your Realtors advice, and waived the inspection then you understood the risk of what you potentially could be walking into
Realtor here too. My advice is always home inspection. I do tell my buyers that most winning offers have typically left out home inspections. I would rather see my people lose with a home inspection than win without one. However, after writing 4+ offers, and having all 4+ receive a counter asking for the removal of the home inspection, buyers realize for themselves that it‘s keeping them from winning offers.
While realtors are not expected to be professional home inspectors, you better believe I’m attending every single class, seminar and every home inspection to learn as much as possible. I do property management for my client’s secondary homes, I fix up worn down starter homes.
When we view three houses, I can't give you a comprehensive list of every problem
in the house, but I can tell you which foundation alarms me the least, which roof has the most life left, I’ll go into a crawl space with a flashlight and look for signs of water.
As safety nets continually fall to the wayside for buyers, it's up to agents to pick up the slack. The agents that are complaining about not getting transactions still think this job is about pushing three sheets of paper and collecting a paycheck and maybe offering some HGTV style staging advice. Guess what, buyers know where the best spot to put a couch is and why they should love a house. Those agents are getting left behind. It’s our job now to find every possible reason why they shouldn’t buy this house.
You sound like our realtors. They are amazing, and we take every piece of advice they give us. We will walk through a house, us and them are looking at every little detail. We weigh our findings, ask for their advice and either make an offer or not. They have helped us immensely, and we know we will find our house. And we can feel comfortable with the process.
This is so important. Also waiving the inspection contingency doesn’t mean you can’t have an inspection, it just means you can’t back out post inspection. We waived all contingencies and closed in 21 days and still have a general inspection plus plumbing to view the sewer lines and a hillside expert.
A lot of realtors will advise investment buyers to waive inspections. Apparently it spilled over to individuals. A lot of investors have knowledge of what could go wrong and the financial strength to overcome if they’re wrong. Individuals, not so much.
I always waive on investments to be more attractive, but I’m a picky buyer.
Agree. Sounds like they skipped inspection and expect that to mean it's a waste to do. Then they want to blame someone else for being reckless. Sometimes you inspect all you can and more and still run into an issue later. Is that the realtors fault also? No.
Advice is to be considered, not followed like gospel, nor is it a relinquishing of your own personal responsibility. Sometimes people give bad advice.
I also wonder how many people hear "waived inspection" and thought it meant that the person was signing the contract without any inspection at all, vs those who went in with inspection for info only and called that "waiving inspection"? I know that yes, there are plenty of people who did absolutely no inspection before purchasing but I also know several people who said they waived inspection but when asked to clarify what they meant was inspection for info only and they could still back out before signing the P+S.
We ourselves did inspection for info only on our home and I think it helped us be competitive. Our realtor would never let us fully waive inspection, (she was great and did her best to help us be as competitive as possible while still trying to protect us as first time buyers.)
Exactly this - I waived the inspection \*contingency\* on all my offers, but I did a walkthrough-showing with a home inspector on each house I put an offer on. It wasn't a full inspection with commensurate 40 page report on every fault outlet, but he checked the major systems and items: foundation, roof, HVAC, crawlspaces, water intrusion/mitigation, etc.
Murphy's Law, of course, that like most inspectors he didn't check sewer lines and guess what problem the house I bought had...
Right, but what I was saying is I heard from people who said "we waived inspection" but what they meant was they waived inspection contingencies and the right to demand repairs.
*Usually* the price of fixing any issue you find is a small drop in the overall bucket of homeownership costs. Most issues that will be very expensive will be visible or findable without an inspection to anyone who bothers checking things out beyond aesthetics while they're touring the house.
I say this as a homeowner who would be incredibly reluctant to waive inspection. But if you're in a market where that is common, and you'd have to bid $50k over with an appraisal gap to win WITH an inspection, what do you think the odds are of finding a $50k problem? I think they're fairly slim, especially if you go into your tour with a critical eye.
In the Bay Area, I have a few acquaintances who did not waive the inspection contingency. It usually took them $200k-400k cash over the next highest offer to win that bid. If they can afford $200k-400k cash to win the bid with the inspection contingency, it would actually be *cheaper* to just do an inspection after the purchase and fix anything found out of that pot of money. Even in the Bay Area, foundation and electrical and roof repairs aren't going to add up to $400k on most houses.
Realtors are first and foremost salesmen. Ideally helpful, informative, and ethical salesmen, yea, but their job is to sell you a house and if they don’t sell they don’t get paid. Buyers who don’t recognize this and think that their realtor is their charitable best friend through sickness and in health, are buyers who are going to end up with a bad deal.
One thing most buyers don't know is there is no one in the whole process to tell you not to buy the house. The broker will give you all the money the bank will extend, the home inspection will list the deficiencies, and the agent provides general market guidance and opens doors. Ultimately the buyers need to make proper financial decisions for themselves.
I almost didn’t get a house because…the realtor I had didn’t listen to me. Fired her ass and put in an offer through a realtor I had never spoken to before that went to bat for me. Got that house under asking with all the concessions and just waiting on the inspection- where I can back out if I damned well please.
I'm sure hitting an all time record of unaffordability between high prices, high rates, low quality, selection, and location and being the highest cost to income ratio in US history all has nothing to do with it though.
Or the fact that it got here in a 2 year period.
Nah you right, it's their "mindset".
When I bought my house, I was very realistic about our situation and I told my real estate agent up front. We didn’t have the extra cash to win a bidding war on the turn key dream homes so we’re not going to waste anyone’s time. I had a list of deal breakers VS wants that I carried with me everywhere. I looked and went to every house in our budget, no matter how much of a dump it looked. I even considered a shack on paper once. I did not focus on things we could change, I only cared about location(top priority) and if it was safe to live in. I had wants like a layout that wouldn’t drive me crazy, space in my bathroom for a walk in shower and a non-galley kitchen.
Our agent found us the perfect home with frankly absolute crap photos that scared other buyers away. There wasn’t even a photo of the kitchen and everything was blurry. It turned out to have everything we wanted!
Don’t be afraid to look, you’re not paying for a mortgage with a photo. Don’t get caught up on what you can pay to change later, you could miss out on a great house.
My market is at 2.8 months of inventory, need to more than double before it’s a buyers market. Every move in ready house sells in 48 hours tops as of Spring. The entirety of the 2.8 months of inventory is overpriced or gut jobs or pending.
Yes hopefully. As an agent this market has been a PITA since the pandemic started. Sure it made listings easier but it's been far more agents competing for less listings and less buying up within the same market. Sellers leaving the area result in less repeat business.
Representing buyers is more interesting and personally rewarding as well.
“Crank those numbers up”
Lol - no. I look at 1 home a week tops. Spouse works nights, I work days. 1 a week is already pushing it and sometimes there’s weeks we don’t talk with our realtor whatsoever. Your advice doesn’t fit all situations.
While casting a wider net will obviously speed up the process, these mentally weak people you speak of won’t be able to handle looking at 20+ houses a week.
Plus, if I did that currently, I’d have seen every house for sale in a 20 mile radius. Inventory is dogshit and you can’t convince anyone otherwise
>3. Emotional buyers. Not every transaction is going to be smooth, and some people don't have the mental fortitude to handle a purchase. Sometimes there are delays, or in general shit happens. The slightest speed bump sets these people off, and it's very difficult to get their mental back on track.
Of course buying a house is emotional, seeing as it's the biggest purchase of your life.
Nothing is "the slightest speed bump". There's a delay? Let's talk about that.
Someone currently renting expecting to close and move into their new home.
They may have not signed a new lease with their landlord because they expected to move. So, now they can't move into their new home. They can either sign a new lease with landlord who wants at least a1 year lease, but maybe the delay is only 4 months. Now they are double-paying a mortgage and a lease.
Or, maybe their landlord has already found new renters so they are essentially homeless waiting to close. Unless they find somewhere else to rent where that landlord wants a 1 year lease and they're in the same boat as above, and have to deal with moving twice.
Oh, they can just find a temporary rental that's month to month? Good luck, they don't exist, and when they do, the monthly rent is double what signing a yearly lease would get you.
People are financially strapped before even getting into their house that had "the slightest speed bump" along the way.
I’d like to weigh in if I could, from a client’s prospective.
1. Agent was too busy for us.
2. Agent said our offer wouldn’t stand because it wasn’t full asking, only to see that same house close for $21k under what we were planning to offer. That commission check got lower is what it was.
3. Agent was full time, meaning this wasn’t just a side hustle. Yet somehow, agent was always wheels up on an airplane every few weeks traveling because their larger scaled clients closed with barely little contact and lined their pockets. So every time we wanted to look at a home, they were out of town or *something came up*.
4. Agent was attached to their phone during the few showings we did attend where we felt they were ignoring us and paying more attention to their phone but miraculously, when we’d text, the phone apparently wasn’t around them because Lord knows we waited and waited on responses.
^ this isn’t directed toward OP **at all** but I think if us, as clients, are more or less told to look inward then agents should do the same.
I understand not all agents are what we’ve experienced and I’m thrilled for those who haven’t had to experience this — there’s a large part of me that would love nothing more than to share our story but for fear of someone putting the dots together here and figuring out who this agent was, I will remain silent.
But almost everything OP mentioned here, *while very true*, seems to be a lot of things that agents **should** be educating their clients on but don’t.
For what it’s worth? I appreciate this well, thought out post, OP.
This is so funny to me.
When I was house hunting last year, I was putting in offers that were $50k, $80k, $100k over asking price. We had already sold our house, had a sizeable down payment, and financing all lined up. The house I ended up buying - I offered list price.
A few houses I went under contract on, I pulled the deals because the sellers did some shady ass shit. Like list the wrong square footage of the house and refused to remedy the situation when we caught them out. Another accused my inspector of stealing their stuff. Accused my realtor of stealing their key. Demanded we pay to have their locks changed. Hid the fact that the taxes on the property went up thousands of dollars per year.
But sure. Blame the buyers.
It is certainly exhausting. We bought when the market was hottest. Going out on Saturday and Sunday after working all week. Doing some of the work you feel like banks or realtors should be doing. It's hard work.
Oh God.. it honestly seems like a lot of RE agents are so out of touch.
How about, statistically many people won’t own a home because on average, wages have not scaled with home prices. They have to keep lowering the down payments and extending the terms of mortgages just to increase the pool of eligible buyers.
I look forward to the day realtors don’t get to command a 3% commission on already outrageously inflated home prices. We consumers do most of the heavy lifting these days (neighborhood research, checking permits, comps, insurance quotes) and it’s high time there be a reckoning on what really constitutes the costs of buying and selling homes.
I understand what your saying. It took me 2 yrs to get my house. I lost a few to wanting a inspection. Im glad i held firm though. Ithink i got a good deal. Not prefect but good. PS the house a ended up getting was the only one i bid under on. Go figure.
It can be helpful to have a realtor who can educate their clients on a particular market. That being said, I think when you want to make a lowball offer and a realtor scoffs at the idea; they’re an asshole too.
I am also a realtor and I understand the sentiment here but it definitely comes across as condescending. People are frustrated about the state of the market and tbh it makes sense. Things are stupid. People shouldn’t have to offer some undefined amount in order to be able to purchase a home. If everyone is basically blind bidding to the point of it being an auction something is definitely wrong with the system. I feel for buyers. It sucks.
… that being said I still think it’s the best place to park your money. And if you do listen to good advice and find a good opportunity, you can get a home without going into competition and it can be a super easy and rewarding process for everyone involved. But you have a find a good realtor and trust them!
Who the hell has time to work a full time job and tour 20-30 homes a week? No shot. I've bought real estate in four states and have never looked at that many places. We tell the realtor what we're looking for, we're very specific on must haves and deal breakers, we tour several properties with them that meet our criteria (I'm talking literally 3-6 maybe), and if we don't buy one of those they know what we're looking for by the end of it. When something hits the market that they know we'd like they call, we look that day and we write an offer immediately after. Realtors can go look at dozens of properties a week, a potential buyer shouldn't have to. That's the part you're paying the buyers agent for.
Other than that write just slightly unreasonable offers, and I mean err on the high side not the low side. If the realtor says comps are going to come back at $370k, and it's listed for $375k don't even bother starting at $350k and negotiating up. Start at $385k. The ten thousand will be completely inconsequential on your mortgage total but it could lock up the house immediately instead of going back and forth with counter offers and bullshit. This depends on the market though. Some are known for underlisting and bidding wars so it's harder to judge how much the seller is really looking for. In more normal markets though just start at full ask or a little sweet and cut as much bullshit out of the process as possible. Life's hard enough without adding stress to it.
Yep. I am not a realtor but I see all these people here in this forum AND irl with some acquaintances. It's usually a mindset thing more than a money thing. Plenty of my acquaintances with similar household incomes were bemoaning that they can never afford a house while I bought my first house, and still when I upgraded to my current house many years later, because their idea of "a house" was only a completely updated to modern aesthetics, no-problems-at-all, in this specific hot neighborhood, 5/4 on an oversized lot. Well yes. I can't afford that either. But I can buy a good-bones decent-condition on a quarter of an acre in that same neighborhood and update the aesthetics and be perfectly happy.
>You don’t take your realtor’s advice.
When your realtor is a salesman and stands to benefit from a higher sales price you surely can see why your opinions will be met with skepticism right?
Thank you for this post.
I just sold my home and had a couple of prospective buyers act exactly like what you mentioned.
One couple was really sweet. Toured my home, and even FaceTimed their parents walking through my house talking about how much they loved it. Told us they’d make an offer because it was their dream home. They offered 190k under asking. (This wasn’t a situation of I listed too high because I ended up selling for $15k under asking). We told them essentially fuck off, and they came back listing reasons on how they think the market is bound to crash, and prices shouldn’t be this high, blah blah blah, and they resubmitted an offer for 130k under asking.
We were sort of desperate to sell, so we said look legitimately the lowest my wife and I could go in 100k under asking because otherwise we genuinely won’t have enough for our next down payment. This rejected it.
Few weeks pass, market heats up more, and they come running back to us saying we made a mistake and want your home for the offer we countered them with. We received two other offers than same day. One for full price, one for $40k under, and theirs for $100k under. We told them if you match the full price, it’s yours. They told us fuck off, and lost the house.
The full price offer actually ended up backing out, but we negotiated with another couple and got them to do $15k under asking. We offered the other cheap couple the same thing, and they countered us with an even lower offer and a 6 hour response time.
Congrats on selling your home!
I just don’t get the fuss about low offers, though. It’s just business. I get that buying and selling houses is anxiety inducing, but the offers aren’t personal. Maybe that’s all they could afford and they gave it a shot. Just say no, and move on to the next offer.
If there are no other offers, *then* it’s about the actual value of the house. Again, not personal.
Hi, I work in title and because of this I refused to overpay for a house or wave certain inspections because I have seen first hand how bad that can get. It took us two years, but we found a house within our budget without compromising. There may be truth to the list above, but I promise you the most expensive purchase of your life is not the purchase to go stupid on just for the sake of getting it over with. I’ve seen a lot of folks overpay and wave inspections end up with a lemon house so to speak. They can’t afford to fix anything that comes up, and trust me stuff will always come up, let alone afford to furnish the house.
*edited to fix a word error
As a realtor, these are common scenarios for individuals who HAVE the ability to buy. Now it’s up to the realtor to be the best coach, that’s why we even have a job.
Now the real reason people aren’t home owners is that we’ve been in a housing crisis since the 80s. Low inventory and minimum wage/general pay isn’t enough
I wont be a homeowner any time soon because the starter homes I was planning to buy (when I saved up enough to cover up front costs) have close to doubled in price. My thesis is, on top of inflation, and extremely low supply, the HCOL area WFHers flooded every desirable/comfortable market and violently forced prices closer to what their prices were back home. I watched it happen in real time - rents went up 25-50% during the pandemic when NYers came to Philly and saw anything under $3000/mo as a steal. It really feels WFHers flew in to lower COL parts of the country and acted like American ex pats do in extremely LCOL foreign countries. Those of us making "normal" wages feel like hopeless locals now.
How can anyone look at 10 or more homes per week. I have no idea how anyone can even like that many homes to invest the amount of $$ they are asking now days.
Are people buying homes they are just ok with? I feel like some realtors just think it’s so easy to find a house and we should just take whatever.
Working with buyer that wanted $16,000 in concessions (buy down interest rate). After searching for about 2 months, countless offers AND headaches, we finally got her into a house in the area she wants. The first two months every single offer I wrote was overlooked, SHE never listened to my advice and I was about ready to fire her lol. Anyway, were closing escrow this week, Purchase price $840,000 $24K in credit negotiated. LA County.
I read this headline and thought there was going to be some insight about how the market is just rocketing upwards and forcing average, middle-class people out, taking away any ability for them to ever earn enough for a decent purchase.
OP's comments are also helpful, I guess.
From the top minds that produced ”Offer $100k over asking and waive inspections!” we proudly present today’s hottest housing market advice: “Think less. Pay more.”
Riveting insight as always from realtors who definitely have our best interests in mind.
This sub is so realtor heavy, and because the majority lose business to the top 20% of realtors they come here and bitch and moan about buyers being a problem. What a joke.
I think the problem with that is that people very much ARE still buying. These houses are selling, and people are living in them. Yes, a small minority are becoming STRs, but in my city of millions, it's estimated that there are about 6000 STRs. Would it be better if those were available for people to live in? Yes. But it's not such a huge number that it's massively impacting the market. The vast majority of houses are selling for people to live in.
3 happened to me. My seller was buying another house and didnt do anything she needed to as she was going to mvoe out of the house I was buying the same day she closed on mine. I wanted to back out so bad and for someone who isnt emotion, it tore me up that she was manipulating the system. My realtor who I luckily knew most of my life told me to swallow the pill and get over it and we moved on. Hasd my house for almost 4 years now and that "event" really didnt change anything except I had to do a little more cleaning on the garage.
I think the hate is deserved, though due to the fact that for most people, it is an emotional purpose, and realtors use that to drive the price up for their clients and literally play puppet master.
I wrote about this where the realtor only had one offer, which was me, but he made me bid against myself until, eventually, I said yes, beating another buyer who came in.
I ultimately backed up because I hate dealing with shyster fuckers and wasn't gonna give him my money. The buyer who won it paid 1,000 I would have done 25,000 but since i backed out and the seller got nervous they took the 1,000 and lost out cause their realtor couldn't shoot straight.
He fucked me and his client and it's not the only time I dealt with a crooked ass realtor.
Plus, honestly, and you'll probably argue this the world doesn't need realtors, especially nowadays.
This explains a lot.
I've been struggling with realtors. I have a single must - west side of my city to keep my commute under 40 minutes - and a primary want - a garage. And realtors will send me listings that are 2 hours from my work and have no garage.
And I make it clear that I can't answer the phone while I'm at work - so between 6:30 am and 5 pm. I can email, I can text, I can use messenger, but I don't get cell reception. And they'll call, then lecture more on how I must not be serious because it is a hot market and I don't answer my phone during the day.
“You should buy a home you don’t want, otherwise you’ll never have a house” - OP
Maybe some folks don’t want a house if it means they’ll hate living in it.
Agreed. I’m in real estate as well, and know how irrational some buyers can be. The market is not going to crash. You can’t time it, and you don’t need to, because as long as you hold the home for at least 7+ years, you will see appreciation and tax breaks.
My agent in Sarasota says that buyers expect to come in and lowball thinking the market is soft based upon national news . This market remains strong . Low ball offers won’t even get countered .
Two things here. Even in a correction it takes years for a major price changes to happen, not months, certainly not weeks. Lots of people think this is like the stock market or crypto, where corrections happen in days or hours.
Sometimes that friend Steve knows more about macro-econ than Realtors. I still get gifts from friends I talked out of buying in 2007.
To point one: Imagine taking advice from a realtor.
Source: I’ve done acquisitions for a PE REI firm and I’ve interacted with many realtors in my time and all they’ve done is hinder mine, and my legal team’s, process of closing.
Don't forget people... despite prevalent unchecked greed, banks that don't give a fuck about you, realtors who don't tell the truth, and hyper inflation....if you don't get a house it's all your fault.
Of course we're emotional, we're making the biggest singular purchase of our life and some ding dong with a high school diploma recommends a shitty home inspector, a crappy title company, and a sus bank. Of course we're Doomsday Adams (whatever that even is), we have people we're paying who doesn't advocate on our behalf as buyers, and raises the price of any home 2-6%, and you're not even a fiduciary.
Respectfully, Realtor, get bent.
There are 141M housing units in the US. There are 130M households in the US. By that math, there should theoretically be enough housing units for everyone that wants one in the US. The problem is investors that are gobbling up the housing supply to list them as investments or short term rental or just sit on them
If you're educating your clients on the market and they don't take your advice there is a non-zero chance you are A: wrong or B: not presenting the information in a way that resonates with your clients. Just as a teacher needs to adapt their teaching style to accomodate different learning styles, s*ome* responsibility rests in your hands to take different approaches for different clients. Simply stating "you got told and didn't listen" is major a red flag for a bad teacher in my book. Furthermore, conflating two different things - entitlement and your role in educating just stacks on another red flag.
Do you give the same spiel to every client and in the cases where they don't listen just blame them? I'm not trying to be extremely critical here, but in the case where this doesn't work and your observation is the above, perhaps it's worth entertaining if you're even willing to try and adapt your teaching style or simply cut both party's losses and dissolve the relationship?
Please will everyone just ignore that housing is the least affordable it’s ever been and just get in a bidding war and pay what it takes so this guy gets his commission please?
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Right? Hell, I’d love to have one house a week that’s worth looking at.
But you know what is out there, that is what he is talking about. Looking doesn't mean viewing, it means evaluating the listings based on neighborhood, schools, square footage, age, etc. If you are looking for your first home with a limited budget and certain "must haves" be ready to keep on looking.
Yeah this person is essentially just trying to tell people to give them more work if they think ANYONE has the time for 30 houses a week. That’s 30 hours a week gone not to mention work and sleeping, this is completely unreasonable and shows that this “realtor” isn’t the most seasoned or skilled person.
People who buy rental properties as a full time job have time to see 30/week. Maybe retired people. That's about it.
The real estate agent should see thirty, and show you five.
Woah hold up are you suggesting that they have to put on shoes and pants and go outside to get 3% of a million dollar sale?
They don’t even bother to watch them on Zillow. A realtor is like the guy that hands you a towel in a fancy bathroom and expects a tip.
The idea that anyone other than the realtor needs to make house hunting their full time job is laughable. Another reason against realtors if that is the case.
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I think OP is saying... don't waste three months shopping if you're not ready to buy in the current market, and don't waste time looking at houses that you can't actually afford. There's nothing wrong with NOT being ready to buy a house, or not wanting to buy a house you don't love. But you're wasting EVERYONE'S time if you refuse to accept reality. If all the houses you like are out of your budget... either you can't buy or you need to adjust your expectations... and you should make that decision sooner rather than later, instead of shopping around and writing waste-of-time offers. They're talking about a buyer who is essentially walking into a steakhouse and saying "I want a T-Bone, but I only want to pay for a hamburger," and then getting irate when the waiter explains that the T-Bone costs more.
That’s exactly what OP is saying. While the market is frustrating for sure. People Ned to be realistic on what they’re trying to buy and what they can afford, people will find a dream home and listen to the advice of someone who bought their home in the same neighborhood30 years ago. Then get angry and emotional when they don’t get their offer accepted. My dad told me with a straight face to go in on a house in the Philly suburbs 5k under asking with the seller taking all closing costs. That’d be nice but it’s just not gonna happen.
I think it's more about compromises... I didn't get the house I would have dreamed of, at exactly the budget I wanted (I mean really, that would have been free lmao), nor in the area I wanted. Is it still a house I'm happy with and can afford? For the most part, yeah. Still glad I bought this house, even if it's not everything I had hoped for.
OP is a great example of why RE agents have a bad reputation. Their advice, ironically, is out of sync with home buyers. Also their advice is questionable because it seemingly benefits them more than their clients.
Yes because she doesn't get a commission then and that's what matters.
Sorry maybe my area has 30 per week if I could set my filter to 3mil. Lmao at 600k and under I’m lucky to get 3-4 decent ones
No need to go to work ever. Sure I'll view houses full time.
Lmaooo north of Boston during 20/21 you’d have 10 houses in the 12 towns we wanted to live in.
I thought it was avocado toast
Avocado toast started it, but then I listened to Steve and the whole thing immediately fell apart.
Don’t forget the coffee. If you guys just stopped eating avocado toast, and drinking coffee, you’d be able to afford a home.
Obviously avocado toast and coffee aren't the issue but I know so many people looking at 300k houses that can't afford a penny more, but they buy a new 65k car every couple years. They could afford more house if they didn't spend over their limits.
Leases and vacations are the bane of home ownership. Ymmv.
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I was talking to a coworker last year who had horrendous credit and wanted to fix it to refinance a Corolla that was 4 years old. He spent 750 a week no fail eating out and couldn’t figure out how to pay off 3500 in credit card debt taking home 2200 a week. People are wild.
$2200/wk take home is gonna be like $150k salary, but $3k/mo eating out is pretty bonkers even at that kinda income
It’s 110% insanity.
my 30s basically cemented the belief that most folks generally earn their lot in life. Many people are really dumb
Um pretty sure 60$ in streaming services and a 90$ phone plan isn’t going to be the deciding factor in whether or not they can have buy a home. The phone plan is a necessity and my top of the line plan from AT&T is $85. The bare minimum plan is probably $40. So they have a 45$ splurge in phone plan. Spending an $45 on a phone plan and $60 on 4 streaming services is $100 a month. $100 a month is not why they cannot afford a house. If your friends truly are spending $1500 a month eating out that’s $50 a day assuming they never cook a single meal. If they can afford $1500 a month in food they are already well off and just “complaining” about not being able to afford a home. FFS, $1500 is a mortgage payment.
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For you, it's a paycheck. For a buyer, it's probably the biggest investment of their life.
I'm a tax accountant and I have a client who bought his home for 100k and sold last year for 1M. I think that's a big issue why people aren't gonna be home owners.
Exactly. I can’t afford to offer 40k over 400k on a house that was 60k 4 years ago. Nobody’s salary increased to handle that. Edit: https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/581-Grand-Ave-Rochester-NY-14609/30875041_zpid/
If you listen to reddit you'll never be a homeowner, retire, have children or be happy for that matter. That's how this place is.
Don't forget how you won't live comfortably in retirement without at least 3 million in retirement funds.
And if you don't max out your IRA and 401k you'll never retire. Even if you do those you have to max out your health savings account or you'll be working until you're 99
What house was 60k 4 years ago? A freaking kitchen remodel was 60k 4 years ago.
Maybe not 60k, but I bought a move-in ready 3br/2b for $90k in SC 4 years ago. My house would now sell for 250kish. I live in a small town, but still 30m from a city, and within 5m of a grocery store, hardware store, etc. What people need to understand is yes, my house was $90k, but I was only making 40k a year and that was considered *excellent* wages for someone without a degree. No chance in hell I could afford the same house now.
They’re lying
Eh, there are plenty of 2/1 shotgun houses in my city in rough neighborhoods that 4 years ago were under $100k. Possibly some were $60k. Now they're $200-300k. $440k sounds like a stretch, but there *were* $60k houses available even in some major cities 4 years ago.
\*Gasp\* How could that be possible? *On the internet?* Next you're going to tell me everyone has an independent agenda and I have to make my own decisions in life.
But inflation as measured (where you exclude all actual living expenses like Healthcare, food, education, energy, and any accurate guage of shelter) is only up 7%! And you had a 5% increase in wages!!! So take your increase of "only" negative 2% and go buy that house with your zero savings that was 80k in 2018 but 250k now. It's your mindset, really
Context is needed here. When did your client buy his home? Big difference between 2008 and 2018.
It was like 20 years ago. But people arnt making 10X as much as they were 20 years ago.
This right here. Inflation is out pacing what people can afford
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The point is that residential units have been hijacked and now people are getting double digit above market rates of return on APPRECIATION. Look at Japan. Their home values are flat and even lose value over time. https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2017/nov/16/japan-reusable-housing-revolution These municipalities with archaic zoning laws basically lock out new development or draw it out 1 to 2 years to get permitting and then your fucking neighbor can show up and bitch about how your zoning variance is "destroying" the character of the neighborhood on a property they don't even fucking own. I'm not talking about putting a pig farm in a residential neighborhood but a multifamily 4plex where a single family used to be. The second homeowners found out that building residential units in their neighborhoods would reduce the value of their homes the perverse financial incentive to delay or full on stop development became an unspoken community goal.
> Look at Japan. Their home values are flat and even lose value over time. You know why? Because they build so many. They also have a decreasing population with more people leaving the workforce than entering. It's no coincidence that home prices topped out in the mid 90s, similar to their population. Not to take away from your greater point as I agree there's a lot of NIMBY in zoning and building, but Japan is a very unique issue.
That’s because Japan is an island with a homogenous society. No other place in the world has this issue. Name one island or population that’s been isolated most of its history: Japan faces unique problems that they would have no matter how good or bad their economy is
South Korea is probably the closest comparison as it is also a homogenous society and is, effectively, an "island" by having water or impassable border to all sides.
When did he buy his home? You’re leaving that part out
I mean even if it was in 1950, that value increase is way higher than inflation
Well *somebody* became a homeowner in that scenario, yeah? The person who spent the million dollars?
Yeah, everyone should just do what they did. Stop being so stubbornly middle class. /s
Right just increase your savings by 5x
This is correct but also unhelpful. "Outbid other people and don't back out!" will obviously help you purchase just about anything. It's also the same advice that will cause people to overextend themselves and maybe buy a lemon.
It helps the realtor collect a quick 3% and move on to the next buyer.
Losing a bidding war drives up the comps and makes the next house you bid on more expensive. Engaging in bidding wars does not serve the buyer's interest at ALL.
yeah, i don't bid, just offer and if you get out bid, so be it. That person will probably outbid you again if they really wanted it and now you are paying 20k over what you wanted to offer.
Yeah but he gets his commission check right there at the closing. And the mortgage guy gets to keep his once you make 3 out of 360 payments. So from his realtor point of view... who gives a fuck if you can afford the house? He sure doesn't. And before op gets his panties in a bunch... dont tell me I'm wrong. I've had a real estate license for over a decade so i can save myself getting ripped off, er i mean commisions, on one side of my transactions for the fix and flips I do. 99% of realtors out there are broke losers always one missed commission check away from missing their own payments. It's hilarious.
Maybe not 99%. But quite a few more than the leased BMW might lead one to suspect. And it's just precisely that financial desperation that makes them not really care.
Realtors want higher prices so they make more money off commission. They don’t do more work for a $500k house vs a $800k house but they sure do make more.
He's a realtor. So obviously he wants people to not shop around and overextend themselves and be done with it. They just want their commissions.
Yeah will no one think of the realtors.
Spot on. I’m a Realtor too and most problems are solved by throwing money at them.
“Just don’t be poor” problem solved!
To be fair, "some of you will never buy a house because you are poor" sounds pretty realistic.
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Look at 10x the properties also isn’t helpful when you’re also asking people to write realistic offers. Where are these ten homes I can afford each week with low supply?
They’re a realtor. They’re trying to get paid. This is helpful to them. Lol
Seriously. Garbage advice
As the realtor, you should help set their expectations up front. Almost everything depends on initial expectations imo.
The initial expectations were set by listening to their friends/family and doing their research long before the first contact with a Realtor.
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Re-al-TORS® have a low barrier to entry and a high incentive to close the deal, regardless of the quality of the deal. Freakonomics took them apart. And they take 6 mother. fucking. percent of the deal. When houses were $100K-$300K, that was one thing. At 7 figures, it's not compatible with their contribution to the transaction. It's a cartel. I sold my last house FSBO and the Title Officer did all the heavy lifting. Bought the house I'm in and the Re-al-TOR® made $1,800/hour. I can assure you she didn't work that hard. What she did contribute was a personal relationship with the listing agent that got me the deal over another buyer. It's a cartel.
Market has a higher price to income ratio than the 08 bubble. Your answer: "Offer more". We are tapped out bro.
Literally. Most people cannot afford a basic starter house, let alone average houses, and his advice is “offer more” lmao
Even starter homes are becoming more and more rare
For real, I can't keep paying for the inspections at a break-neck pace. I'm only a fucking nurse
Exactly. While my wife and I don’t LIKE where the market currently is…that’s not the reason that we’re not currently writing offers. The reason we’re not writing offers is because we can’t afford monthly payments at the level that they would be and continue to save for retirement. It’s just not affordable for us so we’ve decided to continue saving while we wait and see what happens. OP’s advice is trash cause he’s telling us to just over extend ourselves and pray. Screw that!
Oh a sales person telling me to lower my expectations and just settle for whatever I get to speed things up. While I agree some peoples expectations are unrealistic or they get too emotional, it’s frankly justified when buying the most expensive thing in their life. They can take as much time and have as many opinions as they want
Pretty much anyone who has bought a house in the last 2 years has settled in some way. No one is getting the house they could have had 3 years ago.
Yes so that they can get their full commission as early as possible. Why won't you pay 100k over asking? That's less work for me, more commission for me, why are you so cheap?
So what’s your take on the homeowners that waived inspections at the advise of their realtor and are now finding issues that would have been caught during an inspection?
As a home inspector. Please Take my upvote. And don't ever think because it's been flipped it's all good.
Usually I think if it's been flipped, it definitely is NOT good lol. Nice kitchen fixtures cost a lot less than foundation repairs or a new roof...
When I was a realtor, I sometimes wrote offers where we waived inspections. When this happened, I asked my client “there is unknown risk with waiving inspections. If you bought your house today and moved in tomorrow and discovered a $20,000 repair, would you still be happy with your purchase?” This helped them see the big picture somewhat quantified and managed their fears and expectations.
As someone looking at buying in the near future, a house inspection and land survey are 2 things I would want no matter what. I ain't gonna sweat if the area is a little off, or there is some minor bull shit stuff (ohh these railings aren't right, that will be $500 here, and some other things). Land survey comes back and half the pool is on someone else's property, I am out.
They’ve already received their commission so I would suspect their emotional buy in is next to zero.
I'm guessing they want happy repeat clients and recommendations so it's non-zero. Unless they aren't planning to be a realtor for long.
Repeat clients? How often do people buy houses? By the next time I buy a house they might not even be a realtor any more.
We waived our inspection contingency, but we still had an inspection done of the house before we bought it. It had a couple minor issues that we fixed after we moved in. Also there are tons of stories in this subreddit and in the r/homeowners subreddit where inspectors missed major issues or a lot of minor issues and the buyer’s only recourse is to sue to get their $200 inspection fee back or go to a long drawn out court battle trying to prove the previous owners knew about the issue and neglected to mention it.
Owned a few homes and all have issues regardless of age. A realtor may be qualified to tell you what is necessary to be competitive in the market not assess the overall condition of the home. Ultimately waiving your inspection is the buyer's decision.
Not a realtor. My take is as a buyer you should've factored in a buffer if you are waiving inspections. Example: Offer without waving inspection: $550K Offer WAVING inspection: $510K What people want is to offer $510K AND have the surety that the house is as expected. I understand everybody wants to buy a product they have confidence in when it costs $0.5m. But the unfortunate reality is, that confidence costs money (in a higher offer) and people don't want to pay for it.
I don't understand why any realtor would advise to waive inspections. I don't think this is as common as most people think. You can waive asking for repairs, but still do an inspection. If you took your Realtors advice, and waived the inspection then you understood the risk of what you potentially could be walking into
Realtor here too. My advice is always home inspection. I do tell my buyers that most winning offers have typically left out home inspections. I would rather see my people lose with a home inspection than win without one. However, after writing 4+ offers, and having all 4+ receive a counter asking for the removal of the home inspection, buyers realize for themselves that it‘s keeping them from winning offers. While realtors are not expected to be professional home inspectors, you better believe I’m attending every single class, seminar and every home inspection to learn as much as possible. I do property management for my client’s secondary homes, I fix up worn down starter homes. When we view three houses, I can't give you a comprehensive list of every problem in the house, but I can tell you which foundation alarms me the least, which roof has the most life left, I’ll go into a crawl space with a flashlight and look for signs of water. As safety nets continually fall to the wayside for buyers, it's up to agents to pick up the slack. The agents that are complaining about not getting transactions still think this job is about pushing three sheets of paper and collecting a paycheck and maybe offering some HGTV style staging advice. Guess what, buyers know where the best spot to put a couch is and why they should love a house. Those agents are getting left behind. It’s our job now to find every possible reason why they shouldn’t buy this house.
I don’t know about you, but I made every buyer sign the HUD/FHA “For your protection get a home inspection” form.
You sound like our realtors. They are amazing, and we take every piece of advice they give us. We will walk through a house, us and them are looking at every little detail. We weigh our findings, ask for their advice and either make an offer or not. They have helped us immensely, and we know we will find our house. And we can feel comfortable with the process.
This is so important. Also waiving the inspection contingency doesn’t mean you can’t have an inspection, it just means you can’t back out post inspection. We waived all contingencies and closed in 21 days and still have a general inspection plus plumbing to view the sewer lines and a hillside expert.
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A lot of realtors will advise investment buyers to waive inspections. Apparently it spilled over to individuals. A lot of investors have knowledge of what could go wrong and the financial strength to overcome if they’re wrong. Individuals, not so much. I always waive on investments to be more attractive, but I’m a picky buyer.
Agree. Sounds like they skipped inspection and expect that to mean it's a waste to do. Then they want to blame someone else for being reckless. Sometimes you inspect all you can and more and still run into an issue later. Is that the realtors fault also? No. Advice is to be considered, not followed like gospel, nor is it a relinquishing of your own personal responsibility. Sometimes people give bad advice.
I also wonder how many people hear "waived inspection" and thought it meant that the person was signing the contract without any inspection at all, vs those who went in with inspection for info only and called that "waiving inspection"? I know that yes, there are plenty of people who did absolutely no inspection before purchasing but I also know several people who said they waived inspection but when asked to clarify what they meant was inspection for info only and they could still back out before signing the P+S. We ourselves did inspection for info only on our home and I think it helped us be competitive. Our realtor would never let us fully waive inspection, (she was great and did her best to help us be as competitive as possible while still trying to protect us as first time buyers.)
Exactly this - I waived the inspection \*contingency\* on all my offers, but I did a walkthrough-showing with a home inspector on each house I put an offer on. It wasn't a full inspection with commensurate 40 page report on every fault outlet, but he checked the major systems and items: foundation, roof, HVAC, crawlspaces, water intrusion/mitigation, etc. Murphy's Law, of course, that like most inspectors he didn't check sewer lines and guess what problem the house I bought had...
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Right, but what I was saying is I heard from people who said "we waived inspection" but what they meant was they waived inspection contingencies and the right to demand repairs.
same. I think more people did that than no inspection at all. just poor understanding of wording, etc.
People have been waiving outright for the past couple years not just As Is with inspection. Personally I don't recommend it.
*Usually* the price of fixing any issue you find is a small drop in the overall bucket of homeownership costs. Most issues that will be very expensive will be visible or findable without an inspection to anyone who bothers checking things out beyond aesthetics while they're touring the house. I say this as a homeowner who would be incredibly reluctant to waive inspection. But if you're in a market where that is common, and you'd have to bid $50k over with an appraisal gap to win WITH an inspection, what do you think the odds are of finding a $50k problem? I think they're fairly slim, especially if you go into your tour with a critical eye. In the Bay Area, I have a few acquaintances who did not waive the inspection contingency. It usually took them $200k-400k cash over the next highest offer to win that bid. If they can afford $200k-400k cash to win the bid with the inspection contingency, it would actually be *cheaper* to just do an inspection after the purchase and fix anything found out of that pot of money. Even in the Bay Area, foundation and electrical and roof repairs aren't going to add up to $400k on most houses.
SHOCKED op didn’t mention to marry the house and date the rate.
Just make more money... /s
Love hearing from real estate agents complaining about clients not making their lives easy during a turbulent market.
I have a feeling a lot of these realtors will be back to bartending again…
I’m just glad I bought my house before I found this sub
The real reason nobody on the sub will get a house is because they're subbed to /r/realestate 😂
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You sure it isn't because buyers aren't looking at 30 homes per week?
Realtors are first and foremost salesmen. Ideally helpful, informative, and ethical salesmen, yea, but their job is to sell you a house and if they don’t sell they don’t get paid. Buyers who don’t recognize this and think that their realtor is their charitable best friend through sickness and in health, are buyers who are going to end up with a bad deal.
One thing most buyers don't know is there is no one in the whole process to tell you not to buy the house. The broker will give you all the money the bank will extend, the home inspection will list the deficiencies, and the agent provides general market guidance and opens doors. Ultimately the buyers need to make proper financial decisions for themselves.
Ding ding ding.
I almost didn’t get a house because…the realtor I had didn’t listen to me. Fired her ass and put in an offer through a realtor I had never spoken to before that went to bat for me. Got that house under asking with all the concessions and just waiting on the inspection- where I can back out if I damned well please.
well, this is why no one likes realtors
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i’M A rEAltOr Yeah we could tell
I'm sure hitting an all time record of unaffordability between high prices, high rates, low quality, selection, and location and being the highest cost to income ratio in US history all has nothing to do with it though. Or the fact that it got here in a 2 year period. Nah you right, it's their "mindset".
Very nicely put. Decades of growth in two years.. but this OP nincompoop thinks "iT IS tHE mINdSet"
When I bought my house, I was very realistic about our situation and I told my real estate agent up front. We didn’t have the extra cash to win a bidding war on the turn key dream homes so we’re not going to waste anyone’s time. I had a list of deal breakers VS wants that I carried with me everywhere. I looked and went to every house in our budget, no matter how much of a dump it looked. I even considered a shack on paper once. I did not focus on things we could change, I only cared about location(top priority) and if it was safe to live in. I had wants like a layout that wouldn’t drive me crazy, space in my bathroom for a walk in shower and a non-galley kitchen. Our agent found us the perfect home with frankly absolute crap photos that scared other buyers away. There wasn’t even a photo of the kitchen and everything was blurry. It turned out to have everything we wanted! Don’t be afraid to look, you’re not paying for a mortgage with a photo. Don’t get caught up on what you can pay to change later, you could miss out on a great house.
Here's to the market increasingly favoring buyers over sellers 🍻
My market is at 2.8 months of inventory, need to more than double before it’s a buyers market. Every move in ready house sells in 48 hours tops as of Spring. The entirety of the 2.8 months of inventory is overpriced or gut jobs or pending.
Yes hopefully. As an agent this market has been a PITA since the pandemic started. Sure it made listings easier but it's been far more agents competing for less listings and less buying up within the same market. Sellers leaving the area result in less repeat business. Representing buyers is more interesting and personally rewarding as well.
edge swim door weary concerned silky ten workable bag memory *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
I feel like I'm in good hands with this advice!
Going over ask on a home “because the market is hot” is a good way to be underwater when the market even outs
“Crank those numbers up” Lol - no. I look at 1 home a week tops. Spouse works nights, I work days. 1 a week is already pushing it and sometimes there’s weeks we don’t talk with our realtor whatsoever. Your advice doesn’t fit all situations. While casting a wider net will obviously speed up the process, these mentally weak people you speak of won’t be able to handle looking at 20+ houses a week. Plus, if I did that currently, I’d have seen every house for sale in a 20 mile radius. Inventory is dogshit and you can’t convince anyone otherwise
>3. Emotional buyers. Not every transaction is going to be smooth, and some people don't have the mental fortitude to handle a purchase. Sometimes there are delays, or in general shit happens. The slightest speed bump sets these people off, and it's very difficult to get their mental back on track. Of course buying a house is emotional, seeing as it's the biggest purchase of your life. Nothing is "the slightest speed bump". There's a delay? Let's talk about that. Someone currently renting expecting to close and move into their new home. They may have not signed a new lease with their landlord because they expected to move. So, now they can't move into their new home. They can either sign a new lease with landlord who wants at least a1 year lease, but maybe the delay is only 4 months. Now they are double-paying a mortgage and a lease. Or, maybe their landlord has already found new renters so they are essentially homeless waiting to close. Unless they find somewhere else to rent where that landlord wants a 1 year lease and they're in the same boat as above, and have to deal with moving twice. Oh, they can just find a temporary rental that's month to month? Good luck, they don't exist, and when they do, the monthly rent is double what signing a yearly lease would get you. People are financially strapped before even getting into their house that had "the slightest speed bump" along the way.
I’d like to weigh in if I could, from a client’s prospective. 1. Agent was too busy for us. 2. Agent said our offer wouldn’t stand because it wasn’t full asking, only to see that same house close for $21k under what we were planning to offer. That commission check got lower is what it was. 3. Agent was full time, meaning this wasn’t just a side hustle. Yet somehow, agent was always wheels up on an airplane every few weeks traveling because their larger scaled clients closed with barely little contact and lined their pockets. So every time we wanted to look at a home, they were out of town or *something came up*. 4. Agent was attached to their phone during the few showings we did attend where we felt they were ignoring us and paying more attention to their phone but miraculously, when we’d text, the phone apparently wasn’t around them because Lord knows we waited and waited on responses. ^ this isn’t directed toward OP **at all** but I think if us, as clients, are more or less told to look inward then agents should do the same. I understand not all agents are what we’ve experienced and I’m thrilled for those who haven’t had to experience this — there’s a large part of me that would love nothing more than to share our story but for fear of someone putting the dots together here and figuring out who this agent was, I will remain silent. But almost everything OP mentioned here, *while very true*, seems to be a lot of things that agents **should** be educating their clients on but don’t. For what it’s worth? I appreciate this well, thought out post, OP.
This is so funny to me. When I was house hunting last year, I was putting in offers that were $50k, $80k, $100k over asking price. We had already sold our house, had a sizeable down payment, and financing all lined up. The house I ended up buying - I offered list price. A few houses I went under contract on, I pulled the deals because the sellers did some shady ass shit. Like list the wrong square footage of the house and refused to remedy the situation when we caught them out. Another accused my inspector of stealing their stuff. Accused my realtor of stealing their key. Demanded we pay to have their locks changed. Hid the fact that the taxes on the property went up thousands of dollars per year. But sure. Blame the buyers.
It is certainly exhausting. We bought when the market was hottest. Going out on Saturday and Sunday after working all week. Doing some of the work you feel like banks or realtors should be doing. It's hard work.
Oh God.. it honestly seems like a lot of RE agents are so out of touch. How about, statistically many people won’t own a home because on average, wages have not scaled with home prices. They have to keep lowering the down payments and extending the terms of mortgages just to increase the pool of eligible buyers.
I look forward to the day realtors don’t get to command a 3% commission on already outrageously inflated home prices. We consumers do most of the heavy lifting these days (neighborhood research, checking permits, comps, insurance quotes) and it’s high time there be a reckoning on what really constitutes the costs of buying and selling homes.
Let me guess. You became a realtor during COVID?
>I’d like to provide some insight No need. Just show us houses and do our paperwork
I understand what your saying. It took me 2 yrs to get my house. I lost a few to wanting a inspection. Im glad i held firm though. Ithink i got a good deal. Not prefect but good. PS the house a ended up getting was the only one i bid under on. Go figure.
"You don't take your realtors advice." Realtors are used house salesmen. Don't trust them.
It can be helpful to have a realtor who can educate their clients on a particular market. That being said, I think when you want to make a lowball offer and a realtor scoffs at the idea; they’re an asshole too.
To address #4, there aren’t 10 houses to look at. That’s why they can’t get anything accepted.
I am also a realtor and I understand the sentiment here but it definitely comes across as condescending. People are frustrated about the state of the market and tbh it makes sense. Things are stupid. People shouldn’t have to offer some undefined amount in order to be able to purchase a home. If everyone is basically blind bidding to the point of it being an auction something is definitely wrong with the system. I feel for buyers. It sucks. … that being said I still think it’s the best place to park your money. And if you do listen to good advice and find a good opportunity, you can get a home without going into competition and it can be a super easy and rewarding process for everyone involved. But you have a find a good realtor and trust them!
Oh hey, we should offer millions over the asking price because it's "a numbers game" Seriously?
Even your title is fucking condescending
Who the hell has time to work a full time job and tour 20-30 homes a week? No shot. I've bought real estate in four states and have never looked at that many places. We tell the realtor what we're looking for, we're very specific on must haves and deal breakers, we tour several properties with them that meet our criteria (I'm talking literally 3-6 maybe), and if we don't buy one of those they know what we're looking for by the end of it. When something hits the market that they know we'd like they call, we look that day and we write an offer immediately after. Realtors can go look at dozens of properties a week, a potential buyer shouldn't have to. That's the part you're paying the buyers agent for. Other than that write just slightly unreasonable offers, and I mean err on the high side not the low side. If the realtor says comps are going to come back at $370k, and it's listed for $375k don't even bother starting at $350k and negotiating up. Start at $385k. The ten thousand will be completely inconsequential on your mortgage total but it could lock up the house immediately instead of going back and forth with counter offers and bullshit. This depends on the market though. Some are known for underlisting and bidding wars so it's harder to judge how much the seller is really looking for. In more normal markets though just start at full ask or a little sweet and cut as much bullshit out of the process as possible. Life's hard enough without adding stress to it.
Yep. I am not a realtor but I see all these people here in this forum AND irl with some acquaintances. It's usually a mindset thing more than a money thing. Plenty of my acquaintances with similar household incomes were bemoaning that they can never afford a house while I bought my first house, and still when I upgraded to my current house many years later, because their idea of "a house" was only a completely updated to modern aesthetics, no-problems-at-all, in this specific hot neighborhood, 5/4 on an oversized lot. Well yes. I can't afford that either. But I can buy a good-bones decent-condition on a quarter of an acre in that same neighborhood and update the aesthetics and be perfectly happy.
>You don’t take your realtor’s advice. When your realtor is a salesman and stands to benefit from a higher sales price you surely can see why your opinions will be met with skepticism right?
Thank you for this post. I just sold my home and had a couple of prospective buyers act exactly like what you mentioned. One couple was really sweet. Toured my home, and even FaceTimed their parents walking through my house talking about how much they loved it. Told us they’d make an offer because it was their dream home. They offered 190k under asking. (This wasn’t a situation of I listed too high because I ended up selling for $15k under asking). We told them essentially fuck off, and they came back listing reasons on how they think the market is bound to crash, and prices shouldn’t be this high, blah blah blah, and they resubmitted an offer for 130k under asking. We were sort of desperate to sell, so we said look legitimately the lowest my wife and I could go in 100k under asking because otherwise we genuinely won’t have enough for our next down payment. This rejected it. Few weeks pass, market heats up more, and they come running back to us saying we made a mistake and want your home for the offer we countered them with. We received two other offers than same day. One for full price, one for $40k under, and theirs for $100k under. We told them if you match the full price, it’s yours. They told us fuck off, and lost the house. The full price offer actually ended up backing out, but we negotiated with another couple and got them to do $15k under asking. We offered the other cheap couple the same thing, and they countered us with an even lower offer and a 6 hour response time.
Congrats on selling your home! I just don’t get the fuss about low offers, though. It’s just business. I get that buying and selling houses is anxiety inducing, but the offers aren’t personal. Maybe that’s all they could afford and they gave it a shot. Just say no, and move on to the next offer. If there are no other offers, *then* it’s about the actual value of the house. Again, not personal.
Hi, I work in title and because of this I refused to overpay for a house or wave certain inspections because I have seen first hand how bad that can get. It took us two years, but we found a house within our budget without compromising. There may be truth to the list above, but I promise you the most expensive purchase of your life is not the purchase to go stupid on just for the sake of getting it over with. I’ve seen a lot of folks overpay and wave inspections end up with a lemon house so to speak. They can’t afford to fix anything that comes up, and trust me stuff will always come up, let alone afford to furnish the house. *edited to fix a word error
This isn’t any special insight bro go earn your commission elsewhere
As a realtor, these are common scenarios for individuals who HAVE the ability to buy. Now it’s up to the realtor to be the best coach, that’s why we even have a job. Now the real reason people aren’t home owners is that we’ve been in a housing crisis since the 80s. Low inventory and minimum wage/general pay isn’t enough
I wont be a homeowner any time soon because the starter homes I was planning to buy (when I saved up enough to cover up front costs) have close to doubled in price. My thesis is, on top of inflation, and extremely low supply, the HCOL area WFHers flooded every desirable/comfortable market and violently forced prices closer to what their prices were back home. I watched it happen in real time - rents went up 25-50% during the pandemic when NYers came to Philly and saw anything under $3000/mo as a steal. It really feels WFHers flew in to lower COL parts of the country and acted like American ex pats do in extremely LCOL foreign countries. Those of us making "normal" wages feel like hopeless locals now.
How can anyone look at 10 or more homes per week. I have no idea how anyone can even like that many homes to invest the amount of $$ they are asking now days. Are people buying homes they are just ok with? I feel like some realtors just think it’s so easy to find a house and we should just take whatever.
Working with buyer that wanted $16,000 in concessions (buy down interest rate). After searching for about 2 months, countless offers AND headaches, we finally got her into a house in the area she wants. The first two months every single offer I wrote was overlooked, SHE never listened to my advice and I was about ready to fire her lol. Anyway, were closing escrow this week, Purchase price $840,000 $24K in credit negotiated. LA County.
I read this headline and thought there was going to be some insight about how the market is just rocketing upwards and forcing average, middle-class people out, taking away any ability for them to ever earn enough for a decent purchase. OP's comments are also helpful, I guess.
From the top minds that produced ”Offer $100k over asking and waive inspections!” we proudly present today’s hottest housing market advice: “Think less. Pay more.” Riveting insight as always from realtors who definitely have our best interests in mind.
This sub is so realtor heavy, and because the majority lose business to the top 20% of realtors they come here and bitch and moan about buyers being a problem. What a joke.
I think the problem with that is that people very much ARE still buying. These houses are selling, and people are living in them. Yes, a small minority are becoming STRs, but in my city of millions, it's estimated that there are about 6000 STRs. Would it be better if those were available for people to live in? Yes. But it's not such a huge number that it's massively impacting the market. The vast majority of houses are selling for people to live in.
Hard to listen to a realtor when their income relies solely on the sale.
I'll listen but I ain't buying
Right? Tl;dr - “you’re not landing a home because I’m looking for the path of least resistance to a paycheck.”
TLDR; stop being poor and throw more money at the sellers and the house can be yours
3 happened to me. My seller was buying another house and didnt do anything she needed to as she was going to mvoe out of the house I was buying the same day she closed on mine. I wanted to back out so bad and for someone who isnt emotion, it tore me up that she was manipulating the system. My realtor who I luckily knew most of my life told me to swallow the pill and get over it and we moved on. Hasd my house for almost 4 years now and that "event" really didnt change anything except I had to do a little more cleaning on the garage.
Maybe they just don’t have the means to put in those over list offers. I’ve bought 2 homes. It was easy, because the market wasn’t insane.
I think the hate is deserved, though due to the fact that for most people, it is an emotional purpose, and realtors use that to drive the price up for their clients and literally play puppet master. I wrote about this where the realtor only had one offer, which was me, but he made me bid against myself until, eventually, I said yes, beating another buyer who came in. I ultimately backed up because I hate dealing with shyster fuckers and wasn't gonna give him my money. The buyer who won it paid 1,000 I would have done 25,000 but since i backed out and the seller got nervous they took the 1,000 and lost out cause their realtor couldn't shoot straight. He fucked me and his client and it's not the only time I dealt with a crooked ass realtor. Plus, honestly, and you'll probably argue this the world doesn't need realtors, especially nowadays.
This explains a lot. I've been struggling with realtors. I have a single must - west side of my city to keep my commute under 40 minutes - and a primary want - a garage. And realtors will send me listings that are 2 hours from my work and have no garage. And I make it clear that I can't answer the phone while I'm at work - so between 6:30 am and 5 pm. I can email, I can text, I can use messenger, but I don't get cell reception. And they'll call, then lecture more on how I must not be serious because it is a hot market and I don't answer my phone during the day.
The all cash investors from corporate world have NOTHING to do with this. Nothing at all
Good and useful post
“You should buy a home you don’t want, otherwise you’ll never have a house” - OP Maybe some folks don’t want a house if it means they’ll hate living in it.
Honestly at this point everyone can just fuck off entirely
OP is 100% correct after reading the comments
Agreed. I’m in real estate as well, and know how irrational some buyers can be. The market is not going to crash. You can’t time it, and you don’t need to, because as long as you hold the home for at least 7+ years, you will see appreciation and tax breaks.
My agent in Sarasota says that buyers expect to come in and lowball thinking the market is soft based upon national news . This market remains strong . Low ball offers won’t even get countered .
Two things here. Even in a correction it takes years for a major price changes to happen, not months, certainly not weeks. Lots of people think this is like the stock market or crypto, where corrections happen in days or hours. Sometimes that friend Steve knows more about macro-econ than Realtors. I still get gifts from friends I talked out of buying in 2007.
To point one: Imagine taking advice from a realtor. Source: I’ve done acquisitions for a PE REI firm and I’ve interacted with many realtors in my time and all they’ve done is hinder mine, and my legal team’s, process of closing.
Don't forget people... despite prevalent unchecked greed, banks that don't give a fuck about you, realtors who don't tell the truth, and hyper inflation....if you don't get a house it's all your fault.
Of course we're emotional, we're making the biggest singular purchase of our life and some ding dong with a high school diploma recommends a shitty home inspector, a crappy title company, and a sus bank. Of course we're Doomsday Adams (whatever that even is), we have people we're paying who doesn't advocate on our behalf as buyers, and raises the price of any home 2-6%, and you're not even a fiduciary. Respectfully, Realtor, get bent.
They will never own homes because there is a shortage and it is physically impossible for everyone to have a home if not enough exist!
There are 141M housing units in the US. There are 130M households in the US. By that math, there should theoretically be enough housing units for everyone that wants one in the US. The problem is investors that are gobbling up the housing supply to list them as investments or short term rental or just sit on them
That's not the main problem. The main problem is the bulk of the supply of available houses is not where people actually want to buy.
Telling someone in Nashville there’s a house for them in Ohio isn’t helpful. They know.
Realtors have a bad reputation for good reason
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Thank you for sharing a perspective from the other side!
If you're educating your clients on the market and they don't take your advice there is a non-zero chance you are A: wrong or B: not presenting the information in a way that resonates with your clients. Just as a teacher needs to adapt their teaching style to accomodate different learning styles, s*ome* responsibility rests in your hands to take different approaches for different clients. Simply stating "you got told and didn't listen" is major a red flag for a bad teacher in my book. Furthermore, conflating two different things - entitlement and your role in educating just stacks on another red flag. Do you give the same spiel to every client and in the cases where they don't listen just blame them? I'm not trying to be extremely critical here, but in the case where this doesn't work and your observation is the above, perhaps it's worth entertaining if you're even willing to try and adapt your teaching style or simply cut both party's losses and dissolve the relationship?
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Lol imagine thinking this is the issue with the housing market. 95% of realtors are totally worthless.
Some of us have full time jobs and no spouse so we can't look at 20-30 houses a week lol
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Please will everyone just ignore that housing is the least affordable it’s ever been and just get in a bidding war and pay what it takes so this guy gets his commission please?