Chasing Unicorns – What's Keeping You From Owning a Home?

When I list homes it is funny to watch the market patterns. Sometimes there is no Rhyme or Reason to things. Some weeks and weekends I have crowds coming through the homes. Other weekends the same homes are vacant only to see another wave the following weekend. Some reasons are obvious. Mother's Day Weekend was dead, not just Mother's Day but the entire weekend. I can kind of understand that; but Father's Day was busy (I guess dad's don't matter or like home shopping).

First weekend in June – Dead. Second Weekend in June busy. Now my guess is that first weekend every one was busy with graduation and end of school parties. But I am not sure. Just Finished Independence Day Weekend and things were dead.

But there is a pattern that is more insidious and tragic for the inexperienced and wishful shopper. I have 4 homes on the market or pending right now. They are all owned by the same investor and very similar properties that would appeal to the same buyers. So I had a rare chance to see a market situation with large (relatively) market pool under my management.

These homes all have some minor issues but can go FHA Financing and even potentially VA and we made it clear we were willing to work with VA Buyers. But we have held back and watched the market before putting them on the MLS. The comps are all over the place, but the market is trending up. When we put the homes on the market we priced them at the bottom of the market for the type of home and area. The biggest problem we felt we had was we were our own competition.

Then we saw other agents pricing around us, basically we set the market, and that was OK. But then we would see a home come on the market priced under us. Our showings would drop off. I would go out and view the homes; sometimes I found they had real issues and there was a reason for the low price. Other times they were simply priced low to get the offers in. The second type would generally stay on the market for a week to 10 days. I would speak to the agents and they would tell me they were getting all kinds of offers and the homes were going for well over asking price.

So as soon as it is off the market, back they come back to my listings. There agents have even told me they were busy putting in offers on the other home, but they never get it at that low price they want.

In the mean time our reasonably priced listings are moving off the market, but not as competitively. In fact I see demand picking up and we are become less flexible with offers and repairs.

If something looks too good to be true it is generally too good to be true. Be realistic in your property search.

Gene owns Home Point Real Estate; located in Brentwood Ca and providing service to the East Contra Costa County Communities of Brentwood, Oakley, Discovery Bay, Antioch, Pittsburg and beyond. Give us call regarding Buying a Home, Selling a Home, or Real Estate Investing. Want to learn more?