We've seen 20 houses, offered and outbid on 2, we are still looking

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
Until your real estate agent absolutely hates you, you have not bid on enough houses, my friend.

Seriously. Your interests are not the same. Look for houses on your own without bothering them, and rope them in at the last minute for bids. It does not matter how long it takes, this is a huge commitment for YOU. Not the agent.

Plus Redfin website has all the photos and data and comps you need (active and sold) to analyze the quality and features of the home and data on price psf.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We probably looked at like 40 or 50. But they weren't all in the neighborhood we said we wanted. Ultimately we made a lowball offer on my dream house. They were offended and refused it. Didn't counter. But their realtor had told mine they HAD to move so we just waited. They lowered the price twice, and then we lowballed them again. They were so upset they basically HAD to take our lower offer that they had the washer, dryer and fridge taken out and thrown away, and they ripped out all the blooming flowers.

Oh wow... How much did you lowballco,pared to original price? And the second time: did you lowball lower than first offer? `Ì am impressed you stuck with lowballing strategy given that it was your dream house. Was it because DH didnt really like it? Or you simply could not afford more?

Same questions, especially on how much lower you were than what they wanted. This is the most interesting contribution to this thread. Ripping out the blooming flowers is such an odd and specific choice. This whole thing is fascinating.

Curious what zip code or city this was even happening in.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You must have a very nice realtor
Ours was a such a nag, insisted on escalation clause, kept telling us that our offer was bad because it was $5k below asking price
She would have refused to even put together a low ball offers

Yuck. I hope you changed agents and didn’t give her any fee.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We viewed 100 houses before got one. It was 2020. Our budget was 1.2-1.3. We looked at houses between 900 - 1.3. Outbid by 10 times. Finally got a house for 1.2, which required about 200k in fixing up, and came with a tenant living in it for another couple of months after closing.
Now all remodel is done under budget. Our house is appraised for 1.75. We are happy living here forever.

So my advise is: keep looking and keep compromising. You will get there.

Good advice. Find something good enough and make it great.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We bought in 2022. Had really tight search criteria. Looked at maybe 6 houses. Bid on one that was painted ugly colors inside and out but otherwise met all our criteria (and we had a list of what we would tolerate, and ugly paint colors was our most tolerated negative). The color scared off other buyers and we were able to put a bid under asking and got the house. The painters started the day after we closed, and it's gorgeous now.

So I guess my advice is-- lock down your criteria. Lock down your list of tolerable negatives. Come up with a very well defined number for how much you can spend on repairs and renovations so you can quickly do the math. And find things that are very easy and cheap to fix but that chase away other buyers (paint, bad landscaping, etc).

Also great advice and common sense. Your realtor can help this too- lists of deal breakers (are they realistic giving housing types in the area?)c needs, wants, nice to haves.

Understand your commute in the morning and late afternoon.

[Anonymous]

Seeing 6+ houses a day is a blur. Seeing 40+ properties a week is a blur. If yours seeing that many properties and not circling back with an offer then yours just shopping around or gathering intel. So don’t complain that you haven’t bought anything.

If you’re serious about buying this Spring or before school starts, fine tune your process so youre not wasting so much time. Follow the market and pricing, understand how to make a property work for your needs or furniture, or if it cannot.

Only see ones that hit many of your desires. Otherwise, skip it. And put in decent offers if yours excited or could envision enjoying the house, yard and location!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We are putting our house on the market soon! Alexandria, walk to Metro, 5br, super cute Craftsman, likely price 1.35ish. Respond to this with an email if you are interested, OP, and i will send you info. I would LOVE to sell it fast and avoid the hassle of staging and having to make it look like no one lives there for an unknown period of time. And would consider a price reduction to avoid all that.

(It is weird that the convention is that sellers do a ton of disruptive and costly cosmetic work to get houses on the market... only to have buyers immediately change everything because naturally they have different taste. I do wish there was some way to avoid all that, since it seems kind of pointless for all involved.)

Not OP but curious what neighborhood? I am looking in Alexandria

[Anonymous]

I am similar OP and I feel burned out and kind of lost my motivation to keep looking....

[Anonymous]

Keep looking. Do you know what is worse than not finding a house? It is settling for a house that does not meet your current and future needs for $$$ because you overbid for a lemon.

Do you know what will make you feel better? Imagine that you sold a nightmare lemon house with very little loss and now you are in the market for your dream house.

Also, go for new constructions too.

Take your time, take your time, take your time. You buy a house with a lot of potential.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We viewed 100 houses before got one. It was 2020. Our budget was 1.2-1.3. We looked at houses between 900 - 1.3. Outbid by 10 times. Finally got a house for 1.2, which required about 200k in fixing up, and came with a tenant living in it for another couple of months after closing.
Now all remodel is done under budget. Our house is appraised for 1.75. We are happy living here forever.

So my advise is: keep looking and keep compromising. You will get there.

Good advice. Find something good enough and make it great.

I think this is good advice but would add the caveat that if you have kids don’t buy a house made before 1978.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Seeing 6+ houses a day is a blur. Seeing 40+ properties a week is a blur. If yours seeing that many properties and not circling back with an offer then yours just shopping around or gathering intel. So don’t complain that you haven’t bought anything.

If you’re serious about buying this Spring or before school starts, fine tune your process so youre not wasting so much time. Follow the market and pricing, understand how to make a property work for your needs or furniture, or if it cannot.

Only see ones that hit many of your desires. Otherwise, skip it. And put in decent offers if yours excited or could envision enjoying the house, yard and location!

This is great advice except that there are dozens of houses that may appear on paper/photos/floor plans to hit all of someone's criteria and be a perfect fit for them, but are a total bust in person. For example, we ruled out any houses that backed up to main roads, but still saw some that on a map didn't appear to be main or busy roads, but in reality were very busy and loud. We wouldn't have known that if we hadn't visited those houses in person. Photos are also very deceiving. We visited a house recently where the laundry room on the floorplan and in photos appeared to be a separate room from the primary bathroom, but nope, that washer and dryer were literally right next to the toilet without any room to build even the thinnest wall/sliding door.

[Anonymous]

Not to be a debbie downer, but seeing 50+ houses and getting outbid on so many may mean that you're getting bad advice from your agent, or your expectations are too high.

We bought in the peak. Saw 3 houses and won our first bid.

Bc I knew my house wasn't just an investment. It was a place to live for 20+ years. So once we found something that checked all the important boxes (Square footage, schools, devoid of major defects), we bid aggresively.

Sure, it was a smaller plot of land that we wanted. And it didn't have a front porch.

And we probably outbid second place by a wide margin.

But that's the name of the game. Find the house that checks the important boxes and then be aggresive.

Your realtor needs to help you reduce the list of items which are "must have" (so more houses qualify), and you must be more aggresive in a bid. Tell yourself that next house you want to bid, you will not lose it

[Anonymous]

They’re not bidding on 50 houses, have SEEN 50 houses and bid on two and lost. 0 for 2.

They must be local and taking their time. Lots of agents have 50+ clients like that that take 1-2 years to trade up. However that still means you have to move fast for a house that’s a 9 or a 10z otherwise the truly motivated buyers (relocations, need schools by august, big shot new job/no time to mess around).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Not to be a debbie downer, but seeing 50+ houses and getting outbid on so many may mean that you're getting bad advice from your agent, or your expectations are too high.

We bought in the peak. Saw 3 houses and won our first bid.

Bc I knew my house wasn't just an investment. It was a place to live for 20+ years. So once we found something that checked all the important boxes (Square footage, schools, devoid of major defects), we bid aggresively.

Sure, it was a smaller plot of land that we wanted. And it didn't have a front porch.

And we probably outbid second place by a wide margin.

But that's the name of the game. Find the house that checks the important boxes and then be aggresive.

Your realtor needs to help you reduce the list of items which are "must have" (so more houses qualify), and you must be more aggresive in a bid. Tell yourself that next house you want to bid, you will not lose it

Agree.

If all you ever have to say or focus in is negative and you cannot see the positives or how to make a negative work, you might not be a buyer for awhile.

Lots to rent in DC area, which is fine, including SFH.

Remember all these houses on the market now likely have 2.5% mortgages and low monthly payments. Current market rent easily covers that. So that sets a valuation floor as well. And renting it out, as a business then, creates more tax shields for 1-3 years.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Not to be a debbie downer, but seeing 50+ houses and getting outbid on so many may mean that you're getting bad advice from your agent, or your expectations are too high.

We bought in the peak. Saw 3 houses and won our first bid.

Bc I knew my house wasn't just an investment. It was a place to live for 20+ years. So once we found something that checked all the important boxes (Square footage, schools, devoid of major defects), we bid aggresively.

Sure, it was a smaller plot of land that we wanted. And it didn't have a front porch.

And we probably outbid second place by a wide margin.

But that's the name of the game. Find the house that checks the important boxes and then be aggresive.

Your realtor needs to help you reduce the list of items which are "must have" (so more houses qualify), and you must be more aggresive in a bid. Tell yourself that next house you want to bid, you will not lose it

Where did you get 50 offers from? The subject line says 20.