Letter to Buyers

By Ryan Lundquist on Feb 01, 2017 07:55 am

Dear Buyers,

Yesterday I talked with a few buyers who are in the trenches of the market. One is feeling frustrated at not get offers accepted, and the other is starting to feel like affordability is beginning to vanish. I was actually taken aback with a real sense of hopelessness for the latter individual, so I wanted to share some perspective as an appraiser when it comes to making offers in an aggressive-feeling market. Whether you are in Sacramento or elsewhere, I hope this helps. Any thoughts?
Advice for buyers in an aggressive market:

1. Shop below your price range: We are in a market where multiple offers are commonplace in many price ranges and neighborhoods. This means if you are qualified up to $300,000 and money is tight, you might want to consider homes that are priced $270,000 to $300,000 instead of just $299,000. This allows you some space in case there is a bidding war.

2. Expect to get beat: Sorry to be a downer, but you probably aren’t going to get into contract on the first home you offer on. Remember, real estate is a bit like dating. You often don’t marry the first person you go out with. So take heart and expect you’ll submit many offers until something sticks.

3. Know when listings usually hit the market: There is a season in real estate, just like there is a season for baseball, weather, or elections. It’s true inventory is sparse, but it’s also true listings don’t start to hit their stride until March through August. Sometimes February will be a stronger than usual month, but we still don’t see the bulk of what’s going to hit the market until May through July / August. If you don’t believe me, look at the light green listings below over the past few years. In short, don’t freak out in February if there isn’t much on the market.

4. Don’t let sensational headlines stress you out: Headlines these days often talk about how hot the market is, but my advice would be to read stories carefully and ask a few real estate professionals what they think too. For instance, one headline says “Sacramento will be one of the hottest markets in the nation” as values are projected to increase by 7% in 2017. This one story has seriously saturated the market and I’m hearing this sentence about everywhere I go. The irony though is a 7% price increase is about what happened in 2016, which means the headline could have just as easily said, “The market looks like it’ll do about the same thing this year.” I don’t say this to gloss over how competitive the market is, but only to highlight we need to read articles carefully and think critically rather than immediately stress out.

5. Don’t mistake low-ball pricing for the market: Some properties are attracting 15-20 offers, but my sense is when that happens it’s usually more about low pricing than the actual market. This week I saw a property listed at $290,000 that probably should have been listed at $350,000. We can look at the 15 offers and bemoan how intense it is out there or we can realize this one was priced ridiculously low.

6. Be careful of bidding up to “no man’s land”: While it’s plausible to think the contract price might get pushed up a bit with multiple offers, don’t forget to be realistic about what the home is actually worth. If you know you don’t have cash to pay for the difference between a realistic appraised value and the contract price, you might not want to offer that high then. Somehow you’re going to need to stand out as a buyer to the seller, but an unrealistic offer well beyond a reasonable value probably isn’t going to help you in the long run.

7. Realize cash doesn’t always win: There is a false idea that cash investors from the Bay Area are beating out financed buyers all the time – especially those bringing very little money to the table. The truth is 1 in 4 sales last year in Sacramento County were FHA buyers who put down 3.5% (or less if they used down-payment assistance). Keep in mind only 14% of all sales were cash during this same time. Moreover, 27.4% of all sales under $500,000 had FHA loans in 2016 in Sacramento County.

8. Find a way to stand out: There could be multiple offers, so you need to figure out a way to stand out and make a positive impression on the seller. Of course the strength of your offer is the first place to start, but beyond that find a way to make an emotional connection with the seller too if possible. I might recommend brainstorming ideas with your agent. When my wife and I bought a house a couple of years ago there was actually a higher offer on the property, but the seller accepted our offer instead. When touring the home we were fortunate to meet the seller and we hit it off a bit. During the conversation the seller mentioned her son was going to start at a new private school. Anyway, when we submitted the offer we wrote a personal letter complimenting the house and reminding the seller who we were. We also looked up the school and found it was $1400 per month. We then wrote in our offer we were going to give the seller an extra $1400 at the close of escrow to help pay for her son’s school (The underwriter actually freaked out because she’d never seen a buyer do that). I’m not saying you need to do something like this, but in our case it definitely made a huge impression. It showed that we listened, we truly cared, and we were very serious about the home.

9. Listen to your agent: You probably know the market pretty well by now because you’re scouring listings in an obsessive compulsive way on Redfin, Zillow, and MLS. This also means you are most likely going to find your eventual home before your agent does. That’s how it works these days. Just remember finding the home is the easy part, but the most important thing your agent can do for you is negotiate on your behalf and offer professional guidance and advice along the way. Will you listen?

I hope this was helpful.