Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:I can't figure out the pattern for which houses sell quickly and which houses don't. We just had a house on the main road (major traffic) with three bedrooms sell for $1.4 million in a day or two. Meanwhile, a better located (albeit smaller) four bed for $1.05 million has been sitting for months. A larger house that's probably overpriced and listed for $1.7 has also been sitting for months. But a $4 million gut reno sold in days.
What did they look like inside? IME people in their 30s buying their first house are scared of anything that isn't instagram-worthy. If a house needs even the tiniest bit of work (like there are carpets in the bedrooms or the cabinets have outdated hardware or there is yellow paint on the walls), they run away.
This trope is sooooo tired. First time buyers are stretching as far as they possibly can to buy their first home, literally tapping out all savings to buy $1M++ homes. They have no $ left to repaint a whole house, replace outdated fixtures, etc. They also probably have little kids and demanding careers and don’t want to spend their free weekends making cosmetic improvements (or hiring out - but they’ve never owned a home before so they don’t have a Rolodex of contractors to reach out to get quotes). Updated, reasonably priced homes come up every so often - it’s just not worth it to offer on a boomers outdated home that needs work, sorry.
I think it's very true that many buyers need to finance their purchase and don't have cash to pay for improvements after they buy, as they're sinking all their cash into a down payment.
We got an amazing deal on a house, I think mainly for this reason, as we had an extra $150k in cash to sink into immediate improvements. Those improvements took our $930k purchase (in 22207 on a quiet street) up to $1.3m a few months later, and it's continued to appreciate.
Finding contractors was a pain. Supervising contractors was a pain. But we're very happy with the end product.