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Current Advice from Real Estate Agents

stmartinfan

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Clifffaith's post about cleaning a cooktop in advance of selling their home reminded me about a recent article in the Wall Street Journal (not posting link because it's unlikely It's accessible) that offered some advice about home sales in today's market,

The three take aways that struck me:

Don't bother with the usual fixes and decluttering recommended prior to listing a home for sale. Demand in most markets is so high buyers are overlooking all the little things that might have been seen as discouraging offers before.

Don't buy a fixer upper, because the cost of materials and shortage of qualified contractors can make the costs higher than in the past.

if you're a senior looking to downsize and don't already have a second home you're moving to, you may be better waiting until the market cools a bit. Finding a new home will be challenging and if you end up having to rent, you may eat up extra dollars you could get selling now.

We're at the downsizing stage and have been looking at stuff we might need to do, so the thought of selling without bothering is appealing, but there is definitely a shortage of homes in the senior development we're Interested in for the future,

Anybody actually in the market right now?
 

easyrider

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Anybody actually in the market right now?

Friends of our just bought a house. They were early in the building process of building their house while the material prices escalated to unbelievably high. They decided to stop the building and sell the lot. The house they bought was right up the hill from their lot. They paid full price and have to wait until summer to move in as part of the sales agreement.

Houses have been selling pretty fast in our area for the last few years.

Bill
 

heathpack

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Our neighbors just listed their house and within 48hr got an offer $95k over asking price.

My Mom just sold her house in NY- 15 offers in a week!

A friend here in town didn’t want a bunch of people traipsing through her house. She did something unusual, I forget what she called it- maybe “previewing” the house. She had three offers over asking price before it got listed. Took the best one and called it a day.

Its crazy out there.

PS My Mom did not spruce up her house, the others had nicely decorated houses that showed well.
 

controller1

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We have friends who purchased their current home for $400K in June 2020. In March 2021 he got a job offer out of state and placed their house on the market for $450K to test the price. Four days later it sold for the $450K. He had done absolutely no improvements to the house since purchase 8 months earlier.
 

am1

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Hopefully the market drops.
 

Mroze

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Almost all homes for sale around Seattle switch to "Pending" within 1-2 days of listing and almost all go or well over asking.
A friend who has been trying to purchase failed for over 6 months as every home ended up in a bidding war with "no conditions".
Last month, he finally closed on a home in a neighborhood on the outskirts of Seattle. This was listed at $950K and it took $1.2M for him to win the bid.
This was $1.2M for a cookie-cutter 2000-Sqft home sitting on a 3900-Sqft lot.

Even new-home builders have gotten in on the bidding wars and only release 2-3 homes at a time inviting bids from potential buyers.

This has got to be the next bubble waiting to burst.
However, all the money being printed [combined with low interest-rates] means that the bubble will only get bigger for a while before making for for a real big pop.
 

Magus

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There is not going to be a correction anytime soon - Fed Gov and Fed Reserve combined have added around $5T in new money in the last twelve months. Its going in to real assets. RE, stocks are the primary examples. The real question, IMO, is when this spills over into everything else. If it does, anyone's timeshares may appreciate quickly here.
 

bizaro86

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Clifffaith's post about cleaning a cooktop in advance of selling their home reminded me about a recent article in the Wall Street Journal (not posting link because it's unlikely It's accessible) that offered some advice about home sales in today's market,

The three take aways that struck me:

Don't bother with the usual fixes and decluttering recommended prior to listing a home for sale. Demand in most markets is so high buyers are overlooking all the little things that might have been seen as discouraging offers before.

Don't buy a fixer upper, because the cost of materials and shortage of qualified contractors can make the costs higher than in the past.

if you're a senior looking to downsize and don't already have a second home you're moving to, you may be better waiting until the market cools a bit. Finding a new home will be challenging and if you end up having to rent, you may eat up extra dollars you could get selling now.

We're at the downsizing stage and have been looking at stuff we might need to do, so the thought of selling without bothering is appealing, but there is definitely a shortage of homes in the senior development we're Interested in for the future,

Anybody actually in the market right now?

We are the process of helping my father in law downsize. His detached house sold at asking price (which was 15% more than I thought he'd get when we started the process a month ago) in 1 day.

But the senior living condo he bought had been on the market for nearly a year. Others in the same building sold for much more than he paid. I think its very likely the original (very ugly) carpet was an issue for buyers, and the discount he got will more than cover replacing the flooring (with enough to buy a new sedan left over).

I think part of the issue is the people selling a seniors condo are either usually moving into LTC or its the family of a deceased resident. In either case not a group that wants to do a reno before they sell. But buyers are also less likely to want to do a reno. So the premium for units that were already updated was very high.
 

Chrispee

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We just sold our place in Vancouver off-market by casually mentioning we were going to sell to our realtor. He sells most of the houses in our neighbourhood so we knew it would only be a matter of days before he had a client who would be interested. I hated to sell without publicly listing it and finding out exactly how crazy the market was, but we got what we wanted. No fixing up, no staging, no open houses, and no seller's agent commission.
 

Bucky

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Construction cost and the resale market are indeed crazy right now.

I just paid to have our 20x28 deck tore down because it was much cheaper to have done than if I had bought the needed lumber to repair it and fixed it myself!

We also bought a vacation home in Myrtle Beach last August. Just a couple of days ago another resale one in the same sub hit the market with the exact same floor plan as ours for more $100K more than what we paid! Crazy.
 

Big Matt

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House prices are based on supply (not demand). There will be a continued shortage of new housing stock until logistics get back to normal and developers can build again without shortages of materials and labor. Just think about how musical chairs works. That's what the sales process is right now in neighborhoods like mine. A friend has bid on 9 houses and lost every one even bidding above list price.

My advice in this type of market is to consider selling without a realtor. Put it on Zillow/Realtor.com and see what happens.
 

joestein

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We are in the process of buying a new home. We got very lucky and purchased a home that was not listed. Our agent had a friend who was a friend of the seller. We went to look at the house and offered them what we THOUGHT they wanted on the spot. They wanted $30K more. They agreed to split the difference. We still got to have an inspection. Many offers today are no inspection. I think we got lucky. I think we are paying a fair price. However, it is not a steal as the roof and windows need to be repaired, which I didn't realize at the time of offer.

We are also selling our house. We put it on Zillow on Thursday and now have about 2100 view and 112 saves. We are hoping for a story similiar to the above like $95K over asking.

I told my wife I am going to dance in the street in front of the house if we get over a certain amount.
 
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stmartinfan

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I told my wife I am going to dance in the street in front of the house if we get over a certain amount.

Sounds Like you're in a good position. Maybe a video for TUG if you're dancing!
 

DaveNV

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When we sold our home in Washington state last Summer, (a small town 75 miles north of Seattle) I had already spent time cleaning it up, moving everything out, touching up a few things, and making it as show-ready as possible. (My Mother sold real estate, and she'd have killed me if I didn't do that sort of thing, regardless of the market.) We listed it completely vacant (no staging) on July 4th weekend, and it hit the market at exactly the right time. We had nine showings the first day, and five offers to buy - two at list price, and three above list. We ended up closing at $33K over what the agent suggested would be a good list price. If we had held out, we could have gotten even more, perhaps up to $50K over, but I didn't want to hassle with it. We accepted the best and strongest offer, and closed escrow 34 days later. Done and done.

Dave
 

AndySamuels

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I turned down a job offer in Tampa metro in February. There are no affordable / quality houses available in my price range. Plus Tampa metro is now on par with Miami metro for home pricing. It used to be 20% cheaper but salaries are still 15% lower. So it makes no sense to move.

Houses priced to market sell the same day they are listed in our HOA. Except for houses where people lost their mind and are asking $75K to $100K above market. My neighbor right across the street tried that and removed the listing last week.

Realtors are pretty desperate for listings here: lots of events, flyers and emails for months now.

There is still a lot of inventory: but mostly condos and homes in bad school districts (most are in Miami metro).

Cleaning, repainting, fixing a home is always the better choice: will likely boost offers & interest. Plus decluttering is always good: less to move / unpack.

Homes in excellent school districts usually sell super fast in Miami metro anyway. Most realtors have waiting lists. In 2018 we sold our home before it was listed $10K over. There is very little to no land to build HOAs. Most builds that do occur are townhomes (small lots with density: profitability for developer) or $1M+: also profitability. Large HOA development in the $400 to $700K range is now virtually impossible.

You have to move pretty far N (Palm Beach County) or pretty far S (Homestead) for cheaper new developments. Which is very peripheral from the MIA/FLL core.




Miami has a messed up housing market already with most people spending way too much on accommodation.


Another issue are HOA fees and abysmal performance of HOA boards, management companies, landscaping companies and so on. Filed 20 forms for violations / needed repairs last weekend. I also forced the landscaper to do their job yesterday. They tried to blow debris / leaves onto my yard again instead of cleaning it up as they are required to.
 
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rickandcindy23

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We have a townhouse we are fixing up to sell. If we had sold it last year, we would have gotten $335K, maybe, but this year, one just like it sold for $380K. I think low interest rates are driving the market.
 

Snazzylass

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House prices are based on supply (not demand). There will be a continued shortage of new housing stock until logistics get back to normal and developers can build again without shortages of materials and labor. Just think about how musical chairs works. That's what the sales process is right now in neighborhoods like mine. A friend has bid on 9 houses and lost every one even bidding above list price.

My advice in this type of market is to consider selling without a realtor. Put it on Zillow/Realtor.com and see what happens.
Naw, it is supply & Demand! It is low rates, too, like @rickandcindy23 said.

If you are serious about selling, definitely contact a realtor! Just like 2 posts here, they were able to sell without putting their home on the market because the realtors have buyers. I have a friend who just bought a 2nd home that never went on the market. Her realtor was contacted by a seller and put the two together. It was the same for me when I was selling real estate. Once I left my office to meet with a seller and had the buyer in mind - who paid well over her asking price. I had that happen more than once and that was 10 years ago in a less than hot market. It's all about who you know ;)
 

Big Matt

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Naw, it is supply & Demand! It is low rates, too, like @rickandcindy23 said.

If you are serious about selling, definitely contact a realtor! Just like 2 posts here, they were able to sell without putting their home on the market because the realtors have buyers. I have a friend who just bought a 2nd home that never went on the market. Her realtor was contacted by a seller and put the two together. It was the same for me when I was selling real estate. Once I left my office to meet with a seller and had the buyer in mind - who paid well over her asking price. I had that happen more than once and that was 10 years ago in a less than hot market. It's all about who you know ;)

It is not about demand. If you said quantity demanded, I would agree with you. I know it's geeky econ stuff...... price moves along the supply curve

I'll give you an example: Let's say there are ten houses on the market and 15 buyers. Also assume that all 15 buyers have to find a house because they are relocating for work. All 15 know that there are only 10 houses, and some may start picking specific houses that they are interested in. At first the houses will sell for market value, but as they all start selling, buyers will start to realize that they are being outbid and start to raise their offers. When there is only one house left and there are six bidders the price will go up because there is no more supply. Quanty demanded stayed the same the entire time (there are five more buyers than houses), but as supply decreases, the prices go up.

Your example overemphasizes my point. The closed system with many buyers and one property is why it sold above market.
 

Snazzylass

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It is not about demand. If you said quantity demanded, I would agree with you. I know it's geeky econ stuff...... price moves along the supply curve

I'll give you an example: Let's say there are ten houses on the market and 15 buyers. Also assume that all 15 buyers have to find a house because they are relocating for work. All 15 know that there are only 10 houses, and some may start picking specific houses that they are interested in. At first the houses will sell for market value, but as they all start selling, buyers will start to realize that they are being outbid and start to raise their offers. When there is only one house left and there are six bidders the price will go up because there is no more supply. Quanty demanded stayed the same the entire time (there are five more buyers than houses), but as supply decreases, the prices go up.

Your example overemphasizes my point. The closed system with many buyers and one property is why it sold above market.
I did not provide an example. You did, and you proved my point. Initially you have 15 buyers & 10 houses. As time goes on, you have say, 10 buyers and 5 houses. Thus, the demand for the remaining houses has increased. Simple math.

It's really about markets and emotion and irrational responses. People do get caught up in the frenzy.
 

Sugarcubesea

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Clifffaith's post about cleaning a cooktop in advance of selling their home reminded me about a recent article in the Wall Street Journal (not posting link because it's unlikely It's accessible) that offered some advice about home sales in today's market,

The three take aways that struck me:

Don't bother with the usual fixes and decluttering recommended prior to listing a home for sale. Demand in most markets is so high buyers are overlooking all the little things that might have been seen as discouraging offers before.

Don't buy a fixer upper, because the cost of materials and shortage of qualified contractors can make the costs higher than in the past.

if you're a senior looking to downsize and don't already have a second home you're moving to, you may be better waiting until the market cools a bit. Finding a new home will be challenging and if you end up having to rent, you may eat up extra dollars you could get selling now.

We're at the downsizing stage and have been looking at stuff we might need to do, so the thought of selling without bothering is appealing, but there is definitely a shortage of homes in the senior development we're Interested in for the future,

Anybody actually in the market right now?
We are in the downsize mode.
We secured all of our contractors in mid-2019 to update our present home as our 3 kids had done a number on the home. due to demand our jobs got pushed back to late 2019 / 2020 and then COVID hit.

Our contractors finished in late 2020 and we started making bids on small site homes and condos since June of 2020. All of our offers have been over asking price and we have lost out on every last one. We have placed over 20+ bids.

We are now tired and discouraged
 

klpca

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We are in the downsize mode.
We secured all of our contractors in mid-2019 to update our present home as our 3 kids had done a number on the home. due to demand our jobs got pushed back to late 2019 / 2020 and then COVID hit.

Our contractors finished in late 2020 and we started making bids on small site homes and condos since June of 2020. All of our offers have been over asking price and we have lost out on every last one. We have placed over 20+ bids.

We are now tired and discouraged
I don't blame you. Can you just sit tight for another year or two? According to my broker/friend our local market is supposed to level off.

We would like to downsize but I don't have the stomach for getting in a bidding war so we are staying put for now. Our nephew moved out a few months ago so most of the upstairs is empty and I keep the doors closed. We live in half of our house.:D
 

Sugarcubesea

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I don't blame you. Can you just sit tight for another year or two? According to my broker/friend our local market is supposed to level off.

We would like to downsize but I don't have the stomach for getting in a bidding war so we are staying put for now. Our nephew moved out a few months ago so most of the upstairs is empty and I keep the doors closed. We live in half of our house.:D
That is what we are thinking we will do.
 

Talent312

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I just paid to have our 20x28 deck torn down because it was much cheaper to have done than if I had bought the needed lumber to repair it and fixed it myself!

I tore out a ground level deck (16x24) and was going to replace it with Trex.
That is, until our contractor said a concrete slab would be half as much.
He said that concrete is one the few things still reasonably priced.
.
.
 
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