Sabotage:
Three Ways Homebuyers Do Not Get What They Want in Todays Real Estate Market:
1. House hunting too long. As many as 50 percent of the homes for sale in Northern Utah are Distressed properties either Short Sale or Bank owned, and those homes tend toward two extremes: Fixer uppers or Great condition priced so low for quick sale that they receive multiple offers. Yes this is happening today –in the Northern Utah 2012 real estate market.
Yet many buyers are convinced that they are looking for just the right deal, just the right house, or cannot make up their mind between the White brick one on XYZ street or the Brown one down on the west side of town. After all they really need three or more bedrooms, two full baths and a two car garage under some pre-determined price range and will not consider any variation.
As a result, it is not at all bizarre to hear homebuyers today say they've been house hunting for a year, 18 months, even two or three years. When you house hunt that long, you cannot remember one house from the last one and tend to get your priorities confused with what you really need vs. what you desire the most.
Your house hunting saga may get to the point where you absolutely must move out of your current housing in a panic and cause you to settle for whatever house you can get, even if it doesn't actually meet your needs -- then spend the next 10 years obsessively spending to upgrade, improve, repair and furnish the place to try to make it more like the home you actually wanted.
Many truly great houses may have come and went while you were still trying to make up your mind. Perhaps you did not have a clear sense of what was important in the first place. To avoid house hunting too long, it is supremely important to get and stay clear on the differences between what you want and what you need, and to work with a local real estate professional you trust.
Look to your agent to get and keep your expectations centered in reality, so you can make more strategic decisions throughout your entire house hunt, like house hunting in a price range where you're likely to both find homes that will work for your life and be successful in your efforts to obtain one. If you clearly detail out for your real estate professional what those realities are she can search the market daily for houses that fit those parameters. She is your trusted partner.
2. Making lowball offers way too low. While in today’s Buyers Market there is certainly room for negotiation, making excessively low offers -- offers sellers couldn't afford to take if they wanted to – is an exercise in futility.
Buyers who think they can operate strictly on the basis of buyer's market dynamics -- without realizing that most sellers will need to make enough to pay off their mortgage or at least receive the fair market value for their home -- are cutting off their own noses to spite their faces, all in the name of trying to score an amazing deal.
Even for Distressed properties the sellers have a target amount that they will accept and is usually somewhere close to current market value. Bank owned homes will usually pay some if not all of the buyers closing costs, while the Short sales many times will not. The net offer is the important number to both distressed property sellers and other sellers.
Note to 'lowballers': If you don't actually get an accepted contract on the home, the super low price you offered is no deal at all.
3. Freak-outs, stress, drama and mayhem. Once was, it was mostly the buyers who were uneducated about the home buying process who tended to freak out and stress the most, especially at the top of the market. These were the folks who found themselves defeated at every turn by experienced buyers who knew what they were up against and were prepared to make their best offer on their first offer. This is when it is important to really listen to your real estate professional about how to submit a fair win-able offer.
Almost every buyer is stressed about whether they can qualify for a loan, and about buying into a down market. Some buyers who listen to the media about home prices continually declining and compare to the local dynamics of their neighborhood market. Remember that bad news sells more news and advertisements than reality. So does the media care about what is happening in Northern Utah? Not in the least.
The emotional freak-outs that result from having your expectations shattered, sometimes brutally, in the course of buying a home often lead to panic-based and fear-based decisions, which can be costly in the short and long term. Additionally, the stress itself can take a toll on your ability to be productive at work, and can even impair your relationship with your mate, neither of which are worth any deal you think you stand to strike.
Again, managing your expectations by working with a trusted Real Estate professional can help you to understand the market in your neck of the woods and the type of transaction you want to pull off is essential to downgrading the role emotion plays in your real estate decision-making. Houses are just inventory until you make it your home.
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