Anonymous wrote:

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.

Oh, hell no. They are getting 2.5-3% of the sales price that is inflated partly because of their ridiculous commission. I am not paying them that to just fill out a couple of forms.

Do you expect your realtor to come with you to weekend OH? That seems ridiculous. Getting you in before the OH, absolutely their job.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:And why do you have to look with your realtor? Go to open houses on your own.

Houses are still going under contract before the open house.

Because it is more convenient to do it over a lunch break in a private viewing than devoting the weekend to it? And as you said, ideally I want to go before the open house even happens.

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.

Oh, hell no. They are getting 2.5-3% of the sales price that is inflated partly because of their ridiculous commission. I am not paying them that to just fill out a couple of forms.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:And why do you have to look with your realtor? Go to open houses on your own.

Houses are still going under contract before the open house.

OP here - this is so true. There have been a few houses we haven't even been able to see because the seller accepted an offer the day it came on the market. Several were the open houses were cancelled. Even more with offer deadlines at 5pm on Saturday when the open house is 1-3. It's crazy out there. If you are a seller with a really nice house, I highly recommend making it "coming soon" with all pictures and a virtual tour a few days before it comes on the market. Those are the houses that are gone the day of listing.

tour less. offer more.

Anonymous wrote:And why do you have to look with your realtor? Go to open houses on your own.

Houses are still going under contract before the open house.

And why do you have to look with your realtor? Go to open houses on your own.

Seeing 20 houses and only losing on two isn’t unusual at all. Did you say what your budget and location was?

We looked at maybe 30 or so? Bid on 4 and lost, including one to a lower offer. Got our 5th off market. Took almost 2 years.

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.

OP here - if this PP is going to do an AMA, I would prefer that she start her own thread about it and not derail mine. This is NOT the kind of market where you can lowball and get your offer accepted. The only houses we've seen sitting on the market have something really wrong with them (undesirable location, need a lot of work, etc.). The offers we've made have been at list or above (one with no contingencies) and we were still outbid by a lot on both.

Anonymous wrote:This is so disheartening and I feel so bad for even bothering our real estate agent to take us out to see new houses every week. How many houses did you all see before finding the right one?

20 houses is nothing. We easily saw 60 houses and made 6 offers.

Your realtor is making 10s of thousands of dollars for MAYBE 80 hours of work (assuming you saw 60 houses and eventually buy one). If you never buy one and are totally looking in wrong market/price, well she should be nicely telling you that all the time. But don’t overbid and stretch too much. Look elsewhere if you have too.

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

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.

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?

We saw 40-50, made offers on 4 and got outbid before finally finding our house. Oh and it took 4 months.