We thought it would never come but I think we might finally be starting to see the bottom of the market in the Riverview and Brandon areas of Florida! In a recent four week and 5 offer jaunt with a pair of wonderful (and wonderfully partient ) first time home buyers I could not believe we faced such brutal competition. My buyers had done everything right- they had already been fully approved for a house through a major bank- all we needed was the house. We put an offer on the first house only to find out after constant efforts to get in touch with the agent for 5 days that the house had a contract on it already for several weeks. She was on vacation in Australia and evidently the person she left to handle her business did not even know what was going on with her business and her office did not either!! How professional is that??
Our second offer was on a short sale, but wouldn't you know it the agent would not let the seller sign it - he just wanted to submit it to the bank unsigned- another person came along three days later with a higher offer!
Offer three was a duplicate of offer 2- same agent - different house-same outcome!
Offer four was an REO on a bid process that was not accepted.
Offer 5? Well offer five was the gem! A brand new house still being built in which we got a price reduction , 6% in closing costs, upgrades, and a buydown to a fixed interest rate of 5.25%.
So, it took us a while but we are finally locked into a contract and I have learned a valuable lesson with buyers in the lower price ranges of this market- FIND A BUILDER HOME! I am sold, no hassles, instant answers, instant contracts, satisfied buyers. What more can we ask for?? Mission complete- almost!
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