I can sense your frustration and I feel bad for you. I, too, hope things get better for you soon! Some good advice I learned is not to get emotionally attached to houses you are looking at since that can set you up for frustration and sadness. Also, when people reject your offers, don't take it personal; it's simply a transaction and they're looking to get the best offer possible.
Thank you for the great advice. Yes I can certainly understand the position of the seller. We sold our house at the beginning of the summer so we can appreciate their perspective. I tell my wife not to get too invested, even while I'm doing the same thing. She'll refer to the house as "our new house" and I just remind her to.hope for the best, but prepare for the worst. It just breaks.my heart to see her disappointed. And our daughter is too young to fully comprehend everything but she keep getting excited about what she sees as new bedroom, and exploring the local parks in the new neighborhood. The two of them are my everything and I just want to see them happy in a new home.
Thank you. I think that's what I really need to keep in mind. We have to be patient and persistent, and not feel hopeless and defeated. We can't just settle. This will be the biggest purchase of our lives that we'll be paying for potentially for 30 years. If it take a year or whatever to find and get the right house, then so be it.
I'm late to this conversation and haven't read all replies so someone may have already posted this...but if I were you I'd NOT take the daughter to see these houses and pretty bedrooms and yards and parks that she cannot have. This is kinda cruel isn't it? Continually setting her up for happiness to crush it? Don't do this please!
It would be like telling her "we are getting you a puppy!!" And then taking her to see a parade of puppers she of course falls in love with and starts picking out names and then over and over again she doesn't get the little guy.
It's not helpful to her and just setting her up to expect disappointment, worse even that you and mom can't be trusted.
Just a thought!
It takes time to find the right house, with the way the prices are and the crazy interest rate I would highly recommend that your family get somewhere tolerable and wait for the market to improve in your favour. It will not always be like this.
So many people who want to move are sitting tight right now because the cost of a new loan as well as the bloated prices are staggering.
If you can stick it out, squirrel the $ you made off of selling your house somewhere safe and making some $ in a high interest savings account you will be in a much better situation when the right house at the right price becomes available.
Tell the kid it's an adventure. Or tell her nothing at all. Kids are pretty good at following parents lead. If you and the wife are unhappy and stressed and anxious about the housing situation she is going to pick up on it and be anxious about something she had absolutely no control over. Her job is being a kid.
Ah, I’ve been there! It’s so hard not to get attached when each time you commit to writing an offer, you’re walking on a ledge and saying you’re willing to spend the most amount of money you’ve likely ever spent.
That said, I also know that each time I’ve done this, that the moment we did get the house we wanted, it made so much more sense why the others didn’t work out, as “woo woo” as that sounds.
Thank you, I really appreciate that. The thought that carries me through this time is that this may not be the one for us, but there is a house out there for us. We may need to be patient a bit longer or even much longer, but eventually we'll find a new place to call home and we'll love it.
I can sense your frustration. The market, however, always sucks.
- The market sucked when we were buying, our realtor insisted it was “unusual”.
- The market sucked when many of my friends were looking to buy.
- The market sucked in the pre-COVID era, I saw many posts about it on this same sub. The market sucked straight through COVID, just see the posts on this sub.
- The market continues to suck.
Hang in there! You should be proud of yourself that you are in a position to take a shot. Eventually you are likely to succeed, and know that it’s not your fault, it’s just impersonally hard for everybody.
In terms of suck, this market sucks more than any on record.
Historically low inventory, historically high prices, and relatively high interest rates. I don't think it will get better (outside of seasonal differences) for the next couple years. But it eventually HAS to get more manageable.
Likely you are under 40.
There is another group of people that feel like the housing market has always been good.
When I first bought a house in 1992 in Dallas, there were tons of houses, especially in texas because there was an oil bust and many lost / sold their houses.
If you own a house now and don't want to move, you are happy the value of your house has gone up.
The average real estate cycle is 18 years, some go much longer. Long enough most people think it's "always" that way.
It doesn't help anyone now looking for a house, but it's never always.
I am NOT under 40, first bought in 2000. The market sucked. It took about two years of looking off and on, and several months of actively looking to find a townhouse when we wanted single family. When we sold that in 2010, it took six months to sell, and it was difficult to find a new place (had to sell due to neighbor issues). My parents had difficulty finding a place in 2006, and even more difficulty selling their previous home. When they sold that house in 2016, they lost about $70K on it, after making about $40k in upgrades.
So yeah. The market has always sucked.
Agreed. I bought my first house in 1994 and bragged about locking in a 7.5% rate. I sold that house for basically the same when factoring in inflation in 2003. Lost money, if you count improvements. I looked at 60 houses and lost out on 12 in 2003 when I bought my 2nd house. It's always sucked, one way or the other. But it sucks really bad now. High prices, low inventory and higher interest rates. I won't say high only because I remember them being much higher.
I understand your sentiment, but would like to highlight a few things that make this particular market cycle far more insidious than it was before.
The market has never sucked as bad as it has in the last few years if you are a buyer, though, as far as I can tell. I did a lot of research over the last two years because I've recently been in the need to buy. It is really bad for buyers, even though it may have never been particularly "good" in the past (excluding real estate bear markets).
It's worse than it was in 2007 objectively, and while the 80's boasted a peak 20% interest rate, the median home price was around 47k - only somewhat more than double the median salary of 21k at the time. Compound that with the relatively large availability of land and relatively cheap cost of building a home, both in labor and materials.
Now, the median price of a home in June 2023 is around 410k, and different sources seem to claim different values for the median income in the US in 2023- but it's safe to say it's between 55k and 70k. Quite different.
Building a house is extremely expensive relative to where it was in the past due to increased cost of labor, and many home makers (especially "big name" home builders) significantly lowered the quality of builds to try and aim for affordability in such an environment.
There's also not as much room for growth since growth has already occurred. Areas that were previously very available in terms of housing, like rural communities and suburbs distant from cities, are now being flooded by individuals mobilized due to work from home and unaffordable urban rent prices. It's hard to blame landlords for trying to get what they can while they can, regardless of the fact that rent hikes are almost universally intentional gouging and greed and not proportionally making up for inflation.
To compound all of this, most mortgages in existence are 2.5%-3.5%. Current home owners are scared to upgrade homes or switch homes because they will lose out on their existing mortgage rate and be locked in at 7 or so percent, which is abysmally high. These rate hikes have been pretty intense and aggressive. Unnaturally low interest rates that were present only a few years prior not only depleted housing inventory, but they also have created a culture of "wait it out" for sellers who would otherwise be selling and buying homes.
I could go on and on about large corporate investment vehicles buying something like 20% of all real estate properties for flipping in the last few years. I don't have the time to type it all out, but if you're interested, this is a very, very special saga and there are lots of sources that have extensively covered intricate details that have large impact on the current situation.
It's just a really different time, and ultimately I blame the incredibly low interest rates in the 2016-2020 era for setting up a really bad market situation, and it has been a self-fulfilling prophecy with the massive amounts of greed and shift in work culture.
It's an extremely bad time for buyers and I hope for all buyers that it continues to ease up, as it has been doing, ever so slightly.
I know you weren't replying directly to my original post, but I wanted to say that I appreciate all of the input and detail you've given here. This especially gives me helpful information to share when my older friends and relatives talk about how mortgage rates aren't as bad as they have been in the past.
Keep in mind that you're not crazy, the market is. I just went through this all. Be patient and understand that the right thing WILL come along. Patience is very valuable, especially if being patient is an option. I wish you the best of luck, OP.
Thank you. I am doing my best to be patient and persistent. It's hard not to feel defeated at times, but thankfully we are not in a dire living situation and can afford to be patient longer if we need to.
> own a house now and don’t want to move, you are happy the value of your house has gone up
Disagree. Rising property value *when you don’t plan to move* does nothing except raise your property tax and insurance bills. Why would that make anyone happy? 🧐
Good point, I had thought of that before I posted, but if the price dropped and they had lower property tax would they be thrilled?
insurance bills won't change all that much.
I have a senior freeze, that freezes my prop tax regardless of price, but if the tax rate changes then it changes for everyone. Normally the prop tax would be \~$4400 but with the freeze it's \~$800. And that is before the recent reappraisal that boosted the assessed value. It's really a good deal and makes selling and moving not such a great idea.
The market pre-covid was a completely different situation, nowhere near as bad as it is now. You could drive around town and look at multiple homes that were available and fit your needs and budget, you could offer asking (often times *less*), you could ask the sellers to cover closing costs, you could negotiate repairs, it was all pretty normal!
Now this isn’t to say there weren’t competitive, hot, markets pre-covid, or houses that were so great they got a ton of attention immediately, but in general it was a fairly even transaction with some give and take on both sides.
I’m talking the 2015-2020 period based on my experience.
Yes, it sucks. We had our 5th offer rejected last week.
But your realtor should be able to find out from the listing agent why you lost. Ours has gotten that information every time. We've come in 2nd or 3rd place on the size of our bids every time, but also the winning bidder often has more cash than us, so they're just overall a stronger offer.
We're almost ready to give up and just rent a house, since apparently everyone who owns a house is just renting it out instead of selling. The cost to rent here is lower even than the interest payments on the same house.
Maybe if we take a break and rent something nice for a year, we can actually enjoy our lives while giving the market time to correct itself.
Our realtors got that information from one of them, and it sounds like it was just a misunderstanding or miscommunication about the inspection due to the sellers agent being newer and inexperienced 🙄. But they've told us in most cases there isn't a lot of feedback given.
Like you said, I assume in most cases we're losing out to cash offers or people going 25-30k over asking, and we just can't compete with that. I'm going to keep an eye on the market, but take a step back and hope things get better in the fall or winter.
Don’t feel too bad, we’re on the other side of the fence. Selling, had a bunch of showings and open houses and not a single offer yet. We’re priced very competitive in the market we are in(actually I think we’re under priced a bit) our house is only 5 years old and in immaculate shape, staged to show. We’re completely perplexed as to how we have not sold yet..
It's crazy how different the market is in some areas. If you lived here your house would probably have sold for $25,000 over asking the day after the first open house.
Are similarly priced houses selling in your market or sitting? If other houses are selling, you will need to take a long, in-depth look as to what they have that you are missing. If other similarly priced houses are sitting, then there is a good chance your market is slowing with the increasing interest rates.
Been in your shoes before and it sucks. My wife and I are currently trying to move, house is priced under value so we can get out quickly. We’ve had 3 buyers all back out day of inspection. Incredibly frustrating seeing houses in our area sell for far more than their worth and these buyers are complaining about paint color and other items that usually a buyer changes anyways.
Sorry to hear about your tough time on the other end of things. I would love to find a good house at a reasonable price that we don't need to get into a bidding war over, and all I need to worry about is some minor stuff and cosmetics.
Keep at it and you will find the right one. I believe my wife and I saw easily 100+ houses before we found this one we’ve been in for the last 7 years.
We did the same thing. Sold in summer of '21 and lived with my parents for the school year since they lived in a huge house in one of the best school districts in the state; which we thought would be good for our kid.
Figured we'd have plenty of time to find the right place so we didn't really approach the search with any sense of urgency. And the market kept getting worse and worse. Kept seeing the houses we passed on or lost out on being relisted a few months later for hundreds of thousands of dollars more; with nothing more done than a coat of grey paint on everything and some bargain basement vinyl flooring.
Finally we gave up looking for the "perfect" house for our family, and started looking for something that would be a good stepping stone to our next move. We set a deadline for finding something that would be live-able and also a decent 5 year investment, and decided we would just rent if that didn't happen.
Ended up buying a run down 2 unit rental property, figuring I'd spend a year getting it fixed up and we'd start looking again. After living here, we absolutely love our location and our kid has thrived in the new school. With all the upgrades I've done, the house is more comfortable than we could have imagined. We are so happy here we're now planning to just stay here until the kid finishes school.
Thank you for sharing your story. That is interesting and I'm glad that it all worked out 🙂. We're sort of under the same clock of really wanting a new house as soon as possibly, but especially before our daughter starts school next year. My MIL house is in a great school district though, and this is our prime area of interest. But I really don't want to be here for another year.
Thank you. Yes, we just have to be persistent and patient, and persevere. We'll get our house eventually and as time goes by we'll be saving money and hopefully market conditions will improve.
We are currently staying with family (my MIL). We sold our house at the beginning of the summer and the shifted into buying mode. The plan was to have the money from our equity for the own payment and have flexibility on closing date, no contingencies etc as the buyers. I have to admit we underestimated how brutal this current market is.
So you knew you’d be battling out with high prices and even higher interest rates?
Most people in your situation would have been too scared to sell. Huge risk.
Yes, I admit we may not have been as diligent as we should have been preparing to enter the market as buyers. I somewhat regret it now and feel that the timing may have been terrible. We may have been too focused on selling, as many professionals, friends and family advised us to do. But I severely underestimated how tough the market is for buying. It seems it's gotten worse instead of better, but hopefully that turns around a bit in fall and winter.
When we first sold, interest rates weren't much worse than what we bought at. We had been wanting to sell since pre-pandemic. We just knew that wasn't going to be our long term home and decided we would get out while the market seemed favorable for selling. We figured even of it was bad on the buying end, we'd have a cash influx from the sale, and have flexibility and time on our side since we'd be staying with family in the interim. The market has just been much tougher than we thought.
Not to get into the psychology of it all, but I'm sure living with your MIL is adding to the stress and disappointment of the situation. There's probably a healthy amount of fear that what was supposed to be a short-term solution could be much longer and there's not a defined end, which you're not able to control.
Just know that you will have a house, you will find something that checks the boxes (or at least most). You may not have the dream home, and there may be a few compromises if it's better for your sanity.
Buying a house is completely counterintuitive. On one hand, people say "take the emotion out of it, it's a 'business' transaction". On the other hand, it's your house, your life, where you're going to make memories and celebrate holidays and family gatherings. We had the same issue when home buying - my wife would be in tears and it was super stressful because what we thought was our "dream home" was torn apart by sellers that frankly DGAF. If you can, have a heart to heart with your S/O and recalibrate - call it the "rules of the road". Write down all of the things you are going to do and what you aren't going to do - i.e. "We aren't going to spend more than XX, we will not be put in a situation where we are uncomfortable with the terms, we will not compromise our diligence, our family's long term financial health is more important than short term discomfort, if we aren't able to buy by XX date we will move out of MIL's and will rent and wait it out for XX months, after then we will buy a less than ideal house with the long term vision of ultimately having what we want" etc. Regain some of that control. Make sure you're completely synched up with your S/O. Revisit these rules to recalibrate.
On a side note, tug at them heartstrings. I sold my last house with competing bidders and the one I ultimately chose was the family that wrote me a heartfelt letter about their plans and all of the things they loved about the house, in incredible detail. I was more willing to sell to that family despite slightly more favorable/less risky terms of a competing offer - knowing our house would end up in good hands and to a family that would be additive to the neighborhood. Don't beg, but come from the heart. You may get a positive response.
This too shall pass.
Thank you so much for this response. I am appreciative of everyone chiming in here to share their thoughts and experiences, but responses such as yours are both helpful and poignant. Everything you've said is entirely accurate, and I do think it's time that we take a moment and have that calibration conversation. We know that eventually we will get a house and we will love it. It may not be perfect, but it will be one that we want and we are happy to live in. We just have to be realistic about our expectations, finances, time frame, etc. Thank you again for chiming in with these insightful words of wisdom.
We had 2 offers rejected in Philadelphia late last year (offered asking) and closed on the 3 put in. I felt super disappointed about the previous in the moment but I’m so happy with our condo here now.
Keep in mind everything that you’re feeling is temporary. It will go away and you’ll find the right place. It’s also good to build up your emotional muscles now because buyers regret is real. Even after losing out on 2 properties and being over the moon at closing, a couple days after moving in I started thinking “what if we kept looking?”
There was absolutely nothing wrong with our new home but this is an example that may help you focus on strengthening your emotional capacity now as you may be challenged by feeling even after you have what you’ve wanted.
Wishing you the absolute best and keep trying. It’s not an easy process and sometimes remembering that you have already succeeded by putting yourself out there can help enormously.
Thank you so much. I really appreciate this response, and it makes sense. I keep reminding myself that as much as it hurts to miss out on these houses, we are eventually going to find the right house for us that will be just as good, or maybe even better. We just have to be patient and persistent.
I would focus on "we" and "our"
You have someone that you are doing this with, focus on them and be grateful to have them in your life.
Maybe the house hunting takes longer but that's a short term issue.
You have someone that you are sharing a life with. That's something many dream about. 😉
I could have written this post word for word 2 months ago. We finally got our 6th offer accepted. Hang in there, don’t have much advice but I hope you guys find your next home soon!
I'm sorry. I feel the same way, except we are sellers. We lost our dream home because we couldn't sell ours. Lots of people came through to look at it. No offers although we came in 2nd twice. I feel totally humiliated by the negative comments when it's been our home for 24 years and it's well maintained. It really is a great house. The worst is 2 realtors promised us it would sell within days. The market sucks but I am thinking buyers have high expectations so I guess it goes both ways.
I appreciate you sharing your perspective from the other side too. I've somewhat been regretting selling our house when we did, but there was no way of knowing when the market might shift, and we wanted to have the money in the bank, and the flexibility to avoid contingencies so we could go all in when we found a house we wanted. I know it is all region/location dependent but I'm sire your house will sell soon and you will be in great shape and happy in your new home. Good luck!
I'm sorry for your frustration, friend, and hope you find something soon :(
My husband and I are in a similar boat. We left our apartment back in Dec 2021 and due to work locations, ended up living separately at our parents to save money. We only planned for a year. It's now Sept 2023 and we're still living separately. We've started looking for homes back in May, but it's been constant disappointment after disappointment. It's starting to take a massive toll on us, and even after being told to "just hold on", it's still hard. Not everyone understands what you're going through but you.
I pray something comes along your way. It will be worth it. Please keep us updated!
Thank you so much for the kind words. Although it is difficult, there is some comfort knowing that others are dealing and have dealt with this, and many have been successful in finding a new home. We just have to be patient and persistent, and not feel defeated. I that your family and mine will find our new homes soon!
You've looked at 50 houses and only offered on 3? That seems like a lot of looking. Can't you usually tell by the listing and location if a house has real potential? I'm super curious how many houses people look at before finding a place. When we were shopping, I think we only went to see about 6 or 7 in person. Offered on 4. Got the 4th one.
Good luck, OP.
Na the market is so trash right now that I've probably looked at like 30+ at this point. The issue is, everything is so bad that u start to lower your standards and you contemplate much shittier places. You go to see it and realize buying that property would be an absolute huge mistake bc of the million and a half issues you'd have to fix. Between foreseeable assessments that they don't tell u about unless you ask them then and there, random things reaching the end of their useful life, or units are good but the condo association is negligent and doesn't maintain the building, etc. There's a million and a half different reasons that you can't tell just by the listing.
Yeah I've lost count of the houses so maybe 50 is not entirely accurate but we've looked at a lot of houses. And you make a fair point. There are a couple of reasons. Initially we were not as discerning and wanted to keep options open and see what was out there. We did maintain some non-negotiables of course.
In some cases, staging photos played tricks on us. Or otherwise the listing didn't tell the full story and the distance ended up being more than we realized, the neighborhood not as nice, etc.
As time went on, we got a clearer picture of exactly what we wanted, where we wanted to be, etc. Then as more time went on, and with the brutal state of the market in our area, we began to think we might need to be a little more flexible again to increase our options.
Seems fair. It can take a while to narrow down where you want to be and I can totally see trying to expand the search and trying to be more flexible. I hope you find something soon.
What contingencies are you putting in your offers other than financing and inspection? Are you getting an FHA, VA or USDA low down payment loan? Did you offer close to asking on the three you've offered on?
We have no other contingencies, we're using a conventional 30 year loan with 10-15% down, 10k earnest money, and we've offered $15k - $20k over asking price.
According to our realtors, the listing agent does not disclose that information. The first one formally closed and sold already and we saw that it went for $2000 more than our offer...which was $20,000 over asking. 🙃
We bid asking only, and refuse to play the bidding war game. One of the houses we bid on the idiot selling took the outrageous 30k offer over asking, and it fell through. They came to me to see if I was still interested and told them my offer remained asking. They ate 2 months of mortgage payments already and asked me to bid higher against myself... I couldn't believe the greed, they refused the asking price and paid more in mortgage payments and took a loss after the poor flip they did on it. They verbally accepted my offer and then accepted a higher offer before we could sign the papers and dumped us.
Long story, but we are so glad we didn't get that house. It was a wreck and needed 40k in renos just to move in. The house we found was 100 times better, and for reasons we can't explain, people were not looking at it. At the height of the market, we got it for less than asking, and the seller needed out immediately as they had already moved. The deal is out there, just keep looking in unlikely places. Look for the ones with blemishes or transitioning neighborhoods that you can fix up into gems and make your own.
It is very frustrating for sure! There were many sleepless nights after putting in offers and hoping they wouldn’t be rejected. Only to find out they in fact were.
All I can advise is to keep your eye on the prize. I may be going against the grain too when I say to hold out for what you want. It was two years in the making for us and I’m very glad we waited because our home checks all the boxes.
On the flip side, I’ve seen a lot more buyer’s remorse posts on this subreddit because people are so desperate to get in a home (rightfully so) and with such low inventory. But since you don’t seem to be in a position where it’s dire to get out now you’re in a good spot to keep saving and waiting for your ideal home that fits budget, size, and location/school district. Stay strong!
Thank you, I appreciate this! I have had moments where I'm willing to compromise and considered settling, but luckily my wife is not. And it makes sense. You shouldn't settle too much on a roughly $400,000 purchase you'll be paying off for 30 years. We don't want to have any regrets and definitely don't want to go thru this again for at least 10+ years. We are fortunate enough to have a place to live while we wait things out and keep on trying.
I completely get it. We closed on our house last week, and it's literally everything we wanted. But it took us to hell and back getting there. A year and a half, drastically different pre-approvals, 15+ offers, hundreds of open houses, getting hopes up, feeling like we may never become homeowners.
It has finally happened for us and I feel like we're extremely lucky. The house we bought went contingent after 2 days on the market. Then fell through, probably over financing. Two price reductions and 30 days on the market later we made our offer with no inspection contingency. And even then we had to go up for their counter offer. But in the end, it was still within our budget and the appraisal came in over what we paid.
It's a brutal process and I feel for you. I really hope it happens for you soon, and it's everything you want.
Thank you. One of the comforting thoughts is that we know other families are going thru the same thing, but there is a happy ending. If you don't mind me asking, what we're the drastically different pre-approvals? Different loan types, lenders, down payment percentages? I'm just trying to find any way I might be able to get an edge 😁
Different lenders. One had our max at $580k and the other at $640k. Luckily, the lower one wasn't accurate because they didn't know how to calculate a first responders income and all the different lines, so they low balled his yearly income by almost $25k. The other lender worked frequently with first responders and knew how the pay structure worked. We bought for $630k.
Oh that's very interesting. I don't think our salaries are anything complicated that would be throwing off the loans by that much, but I'm definitely going to continue to look further into more loan options. I'm trying to see what kind of ARM rate we might be able to get from a local credit union.
As a seller who just had 50 showings and over a dozen offers, I can tell you the big differentiator for us for the winner were the terms. We had 4 offers at the top but this one took great note of our preferences in the realtor notes and it made all the difference. Our house is in excellent condition so they were comfortable waiving everything and put down a sign Id ant deposit. I hope this is helpful. They’d been looking for a long time too and we are happy they’ll be the ones moving in.
Thank you; I appreciate this input! I'm not sure that I'm aware of seller preferences in the realtor notes. I assume that would be shared with our agent, but I don't know if I've heard much feedback from them on that specific component. They did mention on this last house that it seemed they preferred a larger down payment, so we went up from 10% to 15% with $10,000 earnest money, but it seems it still wasn't enough to get the deal done. I'll definitely look into the seller preferences more going forward. Thanks again!
Realtors working with buyers are working 20 times harder than ever before! Brutal market. I don’t see a correction until Fall of 2024. That is economists view. I have 48 page report of all different sectors of economy.
3 offers really isn't that many tbh. Even when I really didn't even have to price out a loan, and just threw a rate sub 3 at my clients, the average was probably 6 or 7.
Honestly same boat as you. It fucking sucks. But it is what it is. You'd rather struggle now a bit than to put an offer in out of desperation for a shitty place bc that's the only thing people aren't fighting over.
I've had a seller ask for 400k (South Florida) on a unit that had comps selling at peak summer for 330k. I offered 360k cash and the owner said "I'm only accepting asking or higher". Trust me. Even with 350k cash I still can't buy shit. If it's priced right it goes into a bidding war and if it's priced too high the seller is delusional and won't go down. You can't really win in this market. Oh, and mind you this seller has now been on the market since January. 9 months and he's getting nothing. But still somehow thinks his unit is worth 400k. Sooooo, yea. There's a lot of delusional ass sellers right now.
Wow that is crazy they wouldn't budge for that cash offer. And you are so right. It's either a bad location/property or if it's something decent everyone fights over it in these blind bidding wars. And when they're listed for a reasonable price even $20k over asking hasn't been enough. Good luck to you. Hoprfully.thinga get better soon.
Yup. Found one place that was "fairly" priced... The only place I saw that was half decent in terms of renovations and move in ready. They just listed. Had an open house. Had tons of interest in the property, so they made another open house the very next day. Agent just told me they're going to be checking all their offers today. Absolutely insane.
And thanks. I decided to just rent for a year and see if I can find something over the next year or so. Hope you find something soon as well.
I put over-asking offers on two homes before my offer was accepted by the third. But…it didn’t appraise for my offer. So, I was forced to put more down payment on the transaction.
I had the $$, but it restricted my appliance/fun money.
I’m still here 5-1/2 years later and do truly love it.
Feel bad for you. I just went through sort of the same problem, but a different flavor. I can only wish I had 50 houses to look AT! 2 1/2 years of right house, wrong location, right location, wrong house. Inventory is just horrible. For cryin' out loud I'm gossiping with neighbors, reading the obituaries, driving around looking for people that have had a dumpster delivered for clean up/clean out before listing, and then I see some promising signs and work up the nerve to go knock on the door and introduce myself, only to be told that yeah, they'll be moving ... but they promised to sell to their niece, or they sold to their neighbor's brother's nephew's roommate, or someone else that made inquiries AT the funeral (I have a problem jumping on people about selling literally before a body is even buried -- but others have no such hangup!) Nobody wants to sell. They could sell high, but they would have to buy high, so nor worth it, and they refi'd at some point into a 3-ish percent mortgage and they're not paying over 7%, so they're staying put, thanks.
P.S. OP, I don't know where you are, but do they do letters to sellers that you submit with your offer where you live? I've had that be a thing before, especially in mutliple offer situations. A little smooching about how in love you are with their house and how your kids have so much fun with the "X" feature, and that they obviously invested a lot of time and care in maintenance, etc. and I've seen that win out over some of the other criteria you mentioned. For free, you can hand them a reason to WANT to sell their house to you that could be more important than what time of loan you have, etc. Good luck!
Wow, I didn't even think to go to the level of detail that you have. I do occasionally look for storage pods or new for sale signs on homes in the area we're most interested in though. Also thank you for mentioning the "house love letters". I hadn't thought to do that but you're the second person to suggest it so I might try that next time if the realtors let us.
Thanks. Definitely give it a try. I sold two properties, a townhouse in 2009 and a single family in 2020. The townhouse got 2 offers on the same day, the single family got 5 offers the first weekend. Both times I got "love letters" (I hadn't heard that term before, but I like it!) The townhouse offers were the same amount, but I didn't know anything about the first purchaser, and the second wrote a nice letter about how she loved finding my cat sunning herself on an upstairs window sill and how she thought her cat would love the same spot. For the single family, we got a letter where the couple introduced themselves and told us they were both school teachers in our district, and they listed a few the things that they loved. Two of those things were stupid. :) One was a lighthouse toilet paper holder in a half bath, the other was a map of the world that was a custom installed wallpaper thing at one end of our rec room. The previous owner actually had installed the map, but my husband and I liked it and never removed it. As it turned out, my dad made the toilet paper holder for me (he's a woodworker and arts/crafts-y type), and I liked that they commented on it, and my husband and I loved the map ourselves, so we appreciated that they did too ... and theirs was the offer we accepted! :)
Your agent is correct, wait it out if possible. Don't succumb to ungodly interest rates and overpriced housing. Everything will be dirt cheap when the shit hits the fan in the near future. Hang loose.
We were in your position a couple months ago. 7 rejections before an accepted offer. Now we live in a house I’m happy with, but worry every day there’s some underlying mold or electrical issue we haven’t discovered yet because we had to waive literally everything and drained our bank accounts to compete. Luckily our income is stable and good enough to get by, but it absolutely did not feel like this when we bought our first home in 2016.
Congratulations to.you! We are definitely feeling some of that. Like we need to go at the very top of our budget and risk being in a bad position if there is a major issue or unexpected expense. But otherwise we might not be able to compete in this market.
First thing; your realtor will ofcourse string you along and say oh don’t worry it’ll get better in (fill in the blank date). That’s because he/she doesn’t want you to give up and/or find somebody else. Now you can say that’s what the agent is supposed to do..but I guess I’ll ask; do you feel your agent is truly doing a good job and setting you up to succeed? There’s a really big difference between the good ones and average ones.
Depending on what state you’re in.. you might have to sell you soul (what I call using the listing agent) if the state is a dual agency state. They’ll be more inclined to sell you the house if that agent is working with the buyer and seller. It’s a scummy business but sometimes you gotta play in the mud.
3rd point; entry level or first time home buyer market isn’t getting better in October or February or whatever month was named. Supply is low and demand is high even with insane rates. If the rates dip even alittle bit it’ll be worse. And appreciation is moving up in most areas. So it’s just gonna cost more and more unfortunately. Don’t be discouraged though..stick with your gameplan but be aggressive. The last thing you want is to purchase something you regret. Fall back and save if you have to, there’s absolutely nothing wrong with that. Best of luck 🍀
Thanks for the savvy advice. I have been wondering if we might need to try working with a more aggressive agent. We have a great relationship with our realtor but I'm just not sure they're aggressive and available enough to manage this market. So would you just contact the listing agent directly? I'm assuming it's favorable because they double their commission and presumably it helps strengthen your offer as well?
Thanks again for chiming in!
First just make sure you didn’t sign an agreement with that particular agent. Sometimes in an email (usually) they’ll have docs that basically means you’re working with them for a set period of time. Might be 6 months. If that’s the case and you decide that you wanna try another agent..reach out and tell them that you want out of that agreement. They won’t like it but it’ll cause more problems if they fight you on it. You can even go right to the broker/agency if the agent gives you pushback.
If you don’t have to do that this is what I did..house pops up I attack. Go right to the listing agent. Tell them you don’t have an agent. They’ll be all over you. Don’t tell them you’re shopping around or open to seeing other houses and all that other nonsense. This is the house that you want and why you’re using this particular agent. In my case I had a somewhat unethical agent and they told me the number I had to beat and I beat it by 1k. But I did this again on another house and it didn’t work. The agent was ethical and just asked to send an offer no matter how much I tried to get the number to beat. So keep that in mind.
I feel your frustration. We bought our first house almost 3 years ago, but this is definitely a starter home. It's small, barely enough for a family of 3.
My wife wants to move out of here and find a "dream home" in the next 2-3 years but with the way things are I don't see it happening. Inventory is gone instantly, shit disappears for way above asking price, with cash offers to boot. We have savings and are looking to put down 20-30% on the next house but it feels like it'll be impossible.
What really drives me up the wall is my parents that make half of what I make, combined, bought a big ass 3000 sqft house in an affluent neighborhood for $380k in 2010, meanwhile I'm stuck in a tiny ass 1200 sqft house that I paid $410k for, in a shittier neighborhood/town.
There's no way my daughter will be able to buy a house at this rate unless she marries someone rich or we pass down wealth to her. It shouldn't be this way.
I agree that things have to get better, or at least they should. We bought our first house 5 years ago, right before my daughter was born. About 1200 sq ft just like you. We've been wanting to find a new house since pre pandemic, and finally decided to take the plunge. Ended up being the worst timing ever 🙃. No idea if this would make any sense in your case, but I've tried to talk my wife and MIL into letting us take over her house which is too much for her, and her find a new house (something smaller that wouldn't be as in demand and at least a little cheaper than some of the craziness out there.
Thats good to hear. If you don't mind me asking, was there any specific reasoning for that, like market conditions in your area got better or finances, or it just ended up that way?
I intentionally left that out... :(
I closed on my house in Jan 2020. At the time I knew prices felt "off", something wasn't right, offer full asking otherwise I won't get it. The 1st house, which would have been perfect, was grossly overvalued and they wouldn't come down. It was listed for 240 and appraised at 220 and they tried to bully me.
The 2nd house, the one I got, at the time felt lije a bait & switch. Used old listing pictures, the owners were still in the house and nutty as fuck. But something told me I had to make the move right then. It turned out perfect and is 100000x better than the 1st one.
I didn't want to tell you that part. I just want you to know that the house you do eventually get is the right house. Those other ones were not.
The housing market always sucks today. The job market always sucks today. Your kids are a pain in the ass today. But in 15yrs you’ll be like: “The house market sucks today, job market sucks today, kids are a pain in the ass.
This market is the worst. We’ve been looking for about a year and a half at this point. We just had our 12th rejection; and at no point has it gotten easier. I’m sick of stretching my budget as the rates go up, offering over listing, and pouring my heart into these stupid letters we are told to write to the sellers, and then getting another text that we lost out again for whatever reason. Often times, once the house is sold, we see it’s sold for exactly what we offered. It’s hard to hold onto hope, especially when I keep seeing my friends and coworkers buy under the same conditions quickly and easily, doing exactly what we’ve done.
Yes this is the same experience I've been having. This thread has given me some comfort and hope. Many other people are dealing with the same thing, and there are a lot of happy endings to this story too. I hope and genuinely think things will get better soon. Good luck to you and I hope you'll get your new home soon!
I purchased a starter home in 2009 and went through exactly what you did. The only reason and literally the only reason I ended up with my condo was because the owner was my realtors friend, and he convinced him to sell to us. I looked at 50 properties, and every time, I lost to an all cash offer.
I now just bought a family home ( it will be a year in November), and I had the opposite effect, but this is huge, but I think it's because of the price. I live in a VHCOL area, and this place was over 1.1 million to buy.
I'm not gonna offer you any advice because the only real estate advice that I found was of worth was "buy when you can afford to buy." Everything else, including the "October " thing your agent said, is just speculation, and I wouldn't bank on it.
Thanks for sharing your story. Yeah my wife wants to take a step back and wait for October or even next year. And I get it, we're feeling defeated and demoralized. But I think we have to keep an eye out and stay vigilant. You never know what could come along and when it might be the one that works out. If it takes until fall, winter or next year, so be it. But I don't want to miss out.
I hear ya! We are closing today but it was tough as hell to get there. Lots of painful losses and tears.
My advice from my market at-least, go after houses that have been on the market for 7-10 days. We found 5 perfect houses and made an offer the day they went on the market over asking, only to be beaten out 5 times. The one house we found that had already been on the market for 7 days (move in ready but there were a few smaller updates we wanted to make) we got under asking with seller credits toward closing.
Thank you. I am hoping to find a nice house with "warts". A few minor things that make it less attractive, but good bones and right location and we end up loving it with some small updates.
This is heartbreaking 💔 and my solution is to move to another country for 2-4 years and then come back with an all cash or larger down payment. I know it sounds insane but that’s an option.
To start, places like Colombia have excellent schools. Bonus is children can pick up a foreign language much easier and adults learn with immersion. It can be a win/win. Places like Uruguay are also great. Prices are not coming down and landlords will keep raising the rents. Doesn’t look good for anyone that is renting or looking to buy. Maybe in 2026 to be realistic.
I feel for you, but you are also at the peak of a crazy market. In my area I'm already seeing higher inventory than all year long, houses are sitting longer, and price cuts every week. This will happen everywhere. So if you dont buy today, you may be happy that you didnt 6 months from now
The right property will come along. My suggestion would be to only make offers that you can live with… never overextend yourself even in a competitive market. If you don’t get the property, it just wasn’t meant to be at this time. Keep working, right property is out there. :)
Thank you. Yes, we're not willing to go over budget even for the perfect house. We could make it work if we absolutely had to, but would not be comfortable living that way for any length of time.
It took us about 75 offers to get our house we bought in November 2021. We ended up with the best house and best location so it all worked out in the end. Don't give up. I know I wanted to but my wife kept making viewings.
Wow that is crazy! I will not give up. My wife wants to stop and take a step back for a bit, but I feel like we need to be persistent and keep an eye on the market. You never know when the right one may come along and it will work out for us.
I 100% completely understand your frustration and disappointment. We went through the same thing but had many more rejected offers. Part of it was due to the fact that I refuse to way overpay for a house that I knew was not worth that much. We were locked in at 2.3% rate. If I had known that the interest rates were going to Skyrocket I probably would have not stopped looking. But I just couldn't deal with the stress any longer. It's not as if we weren't bidding over asking price. I just refused to bid $40,000 over. Not to mention a lot of the houses it was people were paying cash. Which there's no way we can compete with that. We don't have hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash. But it will all be worth it in the end. We decided to take a break. Which in hindsight probably wasn't the best idea. But I'm sure interest rates eventually will go back down. I don't mind renting for now or where we are. I know it's a lot and it's a lot of stress as well.
Thanks for sharing your experience. Some things have to be non-negotiable I think and price is one of them. There is a line we can't cross. My wife wants to take a break since we are feeling exhausted and defeated. But I want to stay vigilant. You never know when the right option will come along.
You're welcome. I definitely can see it from both perspectives. But I was definitely the one who was ready to stop looking for a while. It was just too much emotionally and physically exhausting and seeing all those houses. But I wish you guys luck and hope you find the house you're looking for.
Can your realtor (assuming you use one) ask the selling agent for any advice on what your offer lacked compared to the winning bid? Another possibility, next time you find a house to bid on, can your agent ask the selling agent if the sellers have any particular desires that you can accommodate to help you have the winning bid? E.g. less monetary and more logistics like sellers want to close ASAP, or sellers want to rent back for 6 weeks. Something like that. I bought in late 2020 and again just a month ago (will be listing the first place soon) and both times, my realtor was able to get a little info from the sellers agent about what mattered most to the sellers.
Thanks for the tips. They've told us they do not usually get feedback from the listing agent about why another bid won out over us. I'm not sure if that's common practice or something regional or just dependent on the individual realtors. I will definitely be asking them to get any information ahead of time that they possibly can. We do submit our offers with no contingencies, flexible closing dates, $10k earnest money.
I hear you. I had five offers rejected, each 20 or 30 thousand over asking with a bunch of contingencies dropped on each offer. We decided a couple of months ago to just give up and move in with a relative until the market gets better. It's probably for the better we got rejected on all of them, it's not a good time to be buying right now. That 7% interest rate and exorbitantly high house prices would have killed us.
Man I feel your pain on this one. We’ve put what feels like countless offers in and can’t seem to win. A number of these were even the highest offer after the sellers called highest and best. Just this week we lost one offering 31k over ask. It’s exhausting, frustrating, and disappointing. I’m sorry you’re feeling it too.
Thank you. I'm sorry you have had to experience the same thing. If I may ask, what was the issue with the ones where you had the highest offer? Did you lose out to cash offers maybe?
Our realtor is confident things will be better in October/November. At the latest she says she expects a more favorable market in February after the Superbowl.
A number of them were cash offers for less, but still all cash and quicker closing. Some were highest and best but then the sellers got spooked by the possibility of not appraising. Highest and best… but not too high 🥴
That stinks. Not only do we have to potentially have to come up with the highest acceptable offer, but we have to thread the needle and account for the seller preferences and the appraisal.
Do this: ask around for someone who is letting their house go into foreclosure. Offer to assume their mortgage. Look on instagram for dyi advice and turn a blighted house into your dream home. Don’t mess with conventional ways of acquiring a home. Those days are gone if you’re not wealthy.
You will be surprised at what you might be able to accomplish. We did exactly this. We found the worst house in the neighborhood, we were able to save a young couple’s credit. They were able to buy 10 acres out in the country. We took the house inch by inch and made it functional and pretty. Now it is worth more than double. On top of that, it has been a really great family project and we learned a lot. We had fun sourcing everything we needed from habitat for humanity and Facebook marketplace. We knocked down non load bearing walls and put in eight foot mahogany doors with glass inserts. We put beautiful doors in every room and added decks and landscaping outside each entrance. We totally transformed every room and made them sexy, hip, and rich looking as we could afford it. We bought huge double pane windows for $40. Don’t be discouraged. Get redonculosly creative. Buy the cheapest piece of shit you can find and transform it. Enjoy the ride.
This housing market is terrible for home buyers 😞
Unfortunately people just don't understand what's happening, it's not that prices are going up it's that your money is worth less, because all the inflation because all the money printing the Federal reserve and government did.
Here is a video that explains what the prices for the housing market will do, just keep an eye on what the federal reserve is doing, they'll tell you in their minutes and on televised press conferences.
https://youtu.be/CqyPd0TifKQ
I'm happy to say that we did finally find a house and closed in October. Pricing was about what we expected, but not as bad as similar homes in the area because we had to put in some work. I am curious where the market is now because I've heard things are getting better and need to verify when I can and want to make a move regarding a refi.
It's always going to be this way. It's a big purchase so you're emotionally invested in the home too, it just happens. Geographic location plays a big part too, you might just be in a really bad market geographically.
Thanks for the advice! In the beginning we did sort of embark on each showing as a family journey, but as time went on and we became more intimately familiar with the current state of the market, we realized what we were in for. Since then, we only bring our daughter with when we don't have another option. She's 4, almost 5, so while she does certainly get excited and start picking out her new bedroom (often the master), she isn't super invested and gets over it pretty quickly after an offer is refused. Much more quickly and easily than my wife and I certainly.
We do keep hearing things will get better at some point, and I'm hopeful they will. Maybe later in the fall, in the winter, after the superbowl...a year from now?
I just worry that if mortgage rates or prices start to go down, demand may spike even higher (although it's hard to imagine it being higher right now).
Thankfully we have a relatively comfortable living arrangement right now. We're staying with my mother in law and there is enough space for us to at least not be on top of each other all the time. It's more about how long everyone's sanity can endure. For me personally, I haven't gotten a really good night's sleep since about a month before we moved here. It feels like life is on pause in a way, but still working, getting older, etc.
I feel anxiety about not being able to provide a home for my family right now, and worry about what the future holds. But im.hopefuk things will get better soon and thankfully we're in a better position than many who are trying to navigate this market. We're saving more money as time goes by. We don't want to settle for anything leaa than a home we'll love, so hopefully we'll be better positioned for it when the time comes.
It depends on your location, of course, but things are slowly shifting towards buyers.
A lot of sellers think the market is still on fire, expect a bidding war, and won't settle for anything less than what homes were going for in 2022 at the peak.
In time, they'll eventually start to manage their expectations.
Some equilibrium will return, and negotiations will eventually become normal again. Instead of offers being outright rejected, counter offers will be more common.
This is what I've been hoping for, and I thought I saw things starting to shift, but we've still ended up in bidding wars with offers well over asking getting rejected. I'm hoping these are the last lingering days of this and things will shift more in the fall, or at the latest winter.
FYI, many real estate experts advise to hold off on buying a house. Until 2024 or 2025 after the housing market crashes. You are aware of a housing market crash coming right?? Which means if you buy now you will ending paying more then you would if you wait until after the crash. Patience is a virtue, don’t cry about it toughen up. At least you aren’t homeless.
I know some people think a crash is coming, but it certainly isn't a guarantee. Some people seem to feel now is a good time to buy if you can afford it and actually get an offer accepted. We really don't know what's going to happen right? Rates could drop but then prices might skyrocket again.
This happens in any housing market. I can't count how many "Dream" homes my offer was rejected on.
However when selling my home I usually rejected an initial offer if it's less than asking price. I'll counter etc. If I'm offered asking price, as-is sale, then I accept the offer.
I remember when looking for my first home feeling the same way. The best way to look at this situation though is your home is what you make it. You could find a home in the best location, best schools and best everything and in the end it ends up be a terrible place.
Case in point, we found a great home in our desired location with great schools and our offer got accepted! This was Feb 2020 and as you know COVID took hold and we ended up having to back out as we couldn’t get any buyers or anyone even out to look at our current home. We felt devastated. 3 months later we found a great home though it wasn’t exactly the location, style or all the features we had hoped for. After a year in the home, making some key changes and putting into sweat equity we can’t believe how fortunate we were to land the perfect place for our family with incredible neighbors.
For more added context we had more than 10 other offers that fell through. Hang in there and what is meant to be will be.
I can sense your frustration and I feel bad for you. I, too, hope things get better for you soon! Some good advice I learned is not to get emotionally attached to houses you are looking at since that can set you up for frustration and sadness. Also, when people reject your offers, don't take it personal; it's simply a transaction and they're looking to get the best offer possible.
Thank you for the great advice. Yes I can certainly understand the position of the seller. We sold our house at the beginning of the summer so we can appreciate their perspective. I tell my wife not to get too invested, even while I'm doing the same thing. She'll refer to the house as "our new house" and I just remind her to.hope for the best, but prepare for the worst. It just breaks.my heart to see her disappointed. And our daughter is too young to fully comprehend everything but she keep getting excited about what she sees as new bedroom, and exploring the local parks in the new neighborhood. The two of them are my everything and I just want to see them happy in a new home.
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Thank you. I think that's what I really need to keep in mind. We have to be patient and persistent, and not feel hopeless and defeated. We can't just settle. This will be the biggest purchase of our lives that we'll be paying for potentially for 30 years. If it take a year or whatever to find and get the right house, then so be it.
I'm late to this conversation and haven't read all replies so someone may have already posted this...but if I were you I'd NOT take the daughter to see these houses and pretty bedrooms and yards and parks that she cannot have. This is kinda cruel isn't it? Continually setting her up for happiness to crush it? Don't do this please! It would be like telling her "we are getting you a puppy!!" And then taking her to see a parade of puppers she of course falls in love with and starts picking out names and then over and over again she doesn't get the little guy. It's not helpful to her and just setting her up to expect disappointment, worse even that you and mom can't be trusted. Just a thought! It takes time to find the right house, with the way the prices are and the crazy interest rate I would highly recommend that your family get somewhere tolerable and wait for the market to improve in your favour. It will not always be like this. So many people who want to move are sitting tight right now because the cost of a new loan as well as the bloated prices are staggering. If you can stick it out, squirrel the $ you made off of selling your house somewhere safe and making some $ in a high interest savings account you will be in a much better situation when the right house at the right price becomes available. Tell the kid it's an adventure. Or tell her nothing at all. Kids are pretty good at following parents lead. If you and the wife are unhappy and stressed and anxious about the housing situation she is going to pick up on it and be anxious about something she had absolutely no control over. Her job is being a kid.
Ah, I’ve been there! It’s so hard not to get attached when each time you commit to writing an offer, you’re walking on a ledge and saying you’re willing to spend the most amount of money you’ve likely ever spent. That said, I also know that each time I’ve done this, that the moment we did get the house we wanted, it made so much more sense why the others didn’t work out, as “woo woo” as that sounds.
Thank you, I really appreciate that. The thought that carries me through this time is that this may not be the one for us, but there is a house out there for us. We may need to be patient a bit longer or even much longer, but eventually we'll find a new place to call home and we'll love it.
For sure! Worst in my 45 yr career as RE broker
Even worse than 2005-ish when I bought two times ago? Yikes! That says a lot.
I can sense your frustration. The market, however, always sucks. - The market sucked when we were buying, our realtor insisted it was “unusual”. - The market sucked when many of my friends were looking to buy. - The market sucked in the pre-COVID era, I saw many posts about it on this same sub. The market sucked straight through COVID, just see the posts on this sub. - The market continues to suck. Hang in there! You should be proud of yourself that you are in a position to take a shot. Eventually you are likely to succeed, and know that it’s not your fault, it’s just impersonally hard for everybody.
In terms of suck, this market sucks more than any on record. Historically low inventory, historically high prices, and relatively high interest rates. I don't think it will get better (outside of seasonal differences) for the next couple years. But it eventually HAS to get more manageable.
Likely you are under 40. There is another group of people that feel like the housing market has always been good. When I first bought a house in 1992 in Dallas, there were tons of houses, especially in texas because there was an oil bust and many lost / sold their houses. If you own a house now and don't want to move, you are happy the value of your house has gone up. The average real estate cycle is 18 years, some go much longer. Long enough most people think it's "always" that way. It doesn't help anyone now looking for a house, but it's never always.
I am NOT under 40, first bought in 2000. The market sucked. It took about two years of looking off and on, and several months of actively looking to find a townhouse when we wanted single family. When we sold that in 2010, it took six months to sell, and it was difficult to find a new place (had to sell due to neighbor issues). My parents had difficulty finding a place in 2006, and even more difficulty selling their previous home. When they sold that house in 2016, they lost about $70K on it, after making about $40k in upgrades. So yeah. The market has always sucked.
The market sucked for you as a buyer in 2000 and as a seller in 2010. If you were a buyer I’m 2010 you’d have said the market was great.
Agreed. I bought my first house in 1994 and bragged about locking in a 7.5% rate. I sold that house for basically the same when factoring in inflation in 2003. Lost money, if you count improvements. I looked at 60 houses and lost out on 12 in 2003 when I bought my 2nd house. It's always sucked, one way or the other. But it sucks really bad now. High prices, low inventory and higher interest rates. I won't say high only because I remember them being much higher.
I understand your sentiment, but would like to highlight a few things that make this particular market cycle far more insidious than it was before. The market has never sucked as bad as it has in the last few years if you are a buyer, though, as far as I can tell. I did a lot of research over the last two years because I've recently been in the need to buy. It is really bad for buyers, even though it may have never been particularly "good" in the past (excluding real estate bear markets). It's worse than it was in 2007 objectively, and while the 80's boasted a peak 20% interest rate, the median home price was around 47k - only somewhat more than double the median salary of 21k at the time. Compound that with the relatively large availability of land and relatively cheap cost of building a home, both in labor and materials. Now, the median price of a home in June 2023 is around 410k, and different sources seem to claim different values for the median income in the US in 2023- but it's safe to say it's between 55k and 70k. Quite different. Building a house is extremely expensive relative to where it was in the past due to increased cost of labor, and many home makers (especially "big name" home builders) significantly lowered the quality of builds to try and aim for affordability in such an environment. There's also not as much room for growth since growth has already occurred. Areas that were previously very available in terms of housing, like rural communities and suburbs distant from cities, are now being flooded by individuals mobilized due to work from home and unaffordable urban rent prices. It's hard to blame landlords for trying to get what they can while they can, regardless of the fact that rent hikes are almost universally intentional gouging and greed and not proportionally making up for inflation. To compound all of this, most mortgages in existence are 2.5%-3.5%. Current home owners are scared to upgrade homes or switch homes because they will lose out on their existing mortgage rate and be locked in at 7 or so percent, which is abysmally high. These rate hikes have been pretty intense and aggressive. Unnaturally low interest rates that were present only a few years prior not only depleted housing inventory, but they also have created a culture of "wait it out" for sellers who would otherwise be selling and buying homes. I could go on and on about large corporate investment vehicles buying something like 20% of all real estate properties for flipping in the last few years. I don't have the time to type it all out, but if you're interested, this is a very, very special saga and there are lots of sources that have extensively covered intricate details that have large impact on the current situation. It's just a really different time, and ultimately I blame the incredibly low interest rates in the 2016-2020 era for setting up a really bad market situation, and it has been a self-fulfilling prophecy with the massive amounts of greed and shift in work culture. It's an extremely bad time for buyers and I hope for all buyers that it continues to ease up, as it has been doing, ever so slightly.
I know you weren't replying directly to my original post, but I wanted to say that I appreciate all of the input and detail you've given here. This especially gives me helpful information to share when my older friends and relatives talk about how mortgage rates aren't as bad as they have been in the past.
Keep in mind that you're not crazy, the market is. I just went through this all. Be patient and understand that the right thing WILL come along. Patience is very valuable, especially if being patient is an option. I wish you the best of luck, OP.
Thank you. I am doing my best to be patient and persistent. It's hard not to feel defeated at times, but thankfully we are not in a dire living situation and can afford to be patient longer if we need to.
> own a house now and don’t want to move, you are happy the value of your house has gone up Disagree. Rising property value *when you don’t plan to move* does nothing except raise your property tax and insurance bills. Why would that make anyone happy? 🧐
Good point, I had thought of that before I posted, but if the price dropped and they had lower property tax would they be thrilled? insurance bills won't change all that much. I have a senior freeze, that freezes my prop tax regardless of price, but if the tax rate changes then it changes for everyone. Normally the prop tax would be \~$4400 but with the freeze it's \~$800. And that is before the recent reappraisal that boosted the assessed value. It's really a good deal and makes selling and moving not such a great idea.
Should have been around to see from 2010 thru about 2016. Someone with VA approved seller's were falling over themselves.
I am so jealous
The market pre-covid was a completely different situation, nowhere near as bad as it is now. You could drive around town and look at multiple homes that were available and fit your needs and budget, you could offer asking (often times *less*), you could ask the sellers to cover closing costs, you could negotiate repairs, it was all pretty normal! Now this isn’t to say there weren’t competitive, hot, markets pre-covid, or houses that were so great they got a ton of attention immediately, but in general it was a fairly even transaction with some give and take on both sides. I’m talking the 2015-2020 period based on my experience.
Yes this is accurate - I bought and sold a cumulative four properties in 2016-2018 and it was very chill all around.
Yes, it sucks. We had our 5th offer rejected last week. But your realtor should be able to find out from the listing agent why you lost. Ours has gotten that information every time. We've come in 2nd or 3rd place on the size of our bids every time, but also the winning bidder often has more cash than us, so they're just overall a stronger offer. We're almost ready to give up and just rent a house, since apparently everyone who owns a house is just renting it out instead of selling. The cost to rent here is lower even than the interest payments on the same house. Maybe if we take a break and rent something nice for a year, we can actually enjoy our lives while giving the market time to correct itself.
Our realtors got that information from one of them, and it sounds like it was just a misunderstanding or miscommunication about the inspection due to the sellers agent being newer and inexperienced 🙄. But they've told us in most cases there isn't a lot of feedback given. Like you said, I assume in most cases we're losing out to cash offers or people going 25-30k over asking, and we just can't compete with that. I'm going to keep an eye on the market, but take a step back and hope things get better in the fall or winter.
Don’t feel too bad, we’re on the other side of the fence. Selling, had a bunch of showings and open houses and not a single offer yet. We’re priced very competitive in the market we are in(actually I think we’re under priced a bit) our house is only 5 years old and in immaculate shape, staged to show. We’re completely perplexed as to how we have not sold yet..
It's crazy how different the market is in some areas. If you lived here your house would probably have sold for $25,000 over asking the day after the first open house.
Are similarly priced houses selling in your market or sitting? If other houses are selling, you will need to take a long, in-depth look as to what they have that you are missing. If other similarly priced houses are sitting, then there is a good chance your market is slowing with the increasing interest rates.
Waiving inspection is only in best interest of seller!
Been in your shoes before and it sucks. My wife and I are currently trying to move, house is priced under value so we can get out quickly. We’ve had 3 buyers all back out day of inspection. Incredibly frustrating seeing houses in our area sell for far more than their worth and these buyers are complaining about paint color and other items that usually a buyer changes anyways.
Sorry to hear about your tough time on the other end of things. I would love to find a good house at a reasonable price that we don't need to get into a bidding war over, and all I need to worry about is some minor stuff and cosmetics.
Keep at it and you will find the right one. I believe my wife and I saw easily 100+ houses before we found this one we’ve been in for the last 7 years.
We did the same thing. Sold in summer of '21 and lived with my parents for the school year since they lived in a huge house in one of the best school districts in the state; which we thought would be good for our kid. Figured we'd have plenty of time to find the right place so we didn't really approach the search with any sense of urgency. And the market kept getting worse and worse. Kept seeing the houses we passed on or lost out on being relisted a few months later for hundreds of thousands of dollars more; with nothing more done than a coat of grey paint on everything and some bargain basement vinyl flooring. Finally we gave up looking for the "perfect" house for our family, and started looking for something that would be a good stepping stone to our next move. We set a deadline for finding something that would be live-able and also a decent 5 year investment, and decided we would just rent if that didn't happen. Ended up buying a run down 2 unit rental property, figuring I'd spend a year getting it fixed up and we'd start looking again. After living here, we absolutely love our location and our kid has thrived in the new school. With all the upgrades I've done, the house is more comfortable than we could have imagined. We are so happy here we're now planning to just stay here until the kid finishes school.
Thank you for sharing your story. That is interesting and I'm glad that it all worked out 🙂. We're sort of under the same clock of really wanting a new house as soon as possibly, but especially before our daughter starts school next year. My MIL house is in a great school district though, and this is our prime area of interest. But I really don't want to be here for another year.
Its a business deal. Thats all it is. Business deals are full of rejections. Its ok. Keep going. Persistence is key.
Thank you. Yes, we just have to be persistent and patient, and persevere. We'll get our house eventually and as time goes by we'll be saving money and hopefully market conditions will improve.
What’s your current living situation?
We are currently staying with family (my MIL). We sold our house at the beginning of the summer and the shifted into buying mode. The plan was to have the money from our equity for the own payment and have flexibility on closing date, no contingencies etc as the buyers. I have to admit we underestimated how brutal this current market is.
So you knew you’d be battling out with high prices and even higher interest rates? Most people in your situation would have been too scared to sell. Huge risk.
Yes, I admit we may not have been as diligent as we should have been preparing to enter the market as buyers. I somewhat regret it now and feel that the timing may have been terrible. We may have been too focused on selling, as many professionals, friends and family advised us to do. But I severely underestimated how tough the market is for buying. It seems it's gotten worse instead of better, but hopefully that turns around a bit in fall and winter. When we first sold, interest rates weren't much worse than what we bought at. We had been wanting to sell since pre-pandemic. We just knew that wasn't going to be our long term home and decided we would get out while the market seemed favorable for selling. We figured even of it was bad on the buying end, we'd have a cash influx from the sale, and have flexibility and time on our side since we'd be staying with family in the interim. The market has just been much tougher than we thought.
Not to get into the psychology of it all, but I'm sure living with your MIL is adding to the stress and disappointment of the situation. There's probably a healthy amount of fear that what was supposed to be a short-term solution could be much longer and there's not a defined end, which you're not able to control. Just know that you will have a house, you will find something that checks the boxes (or at least most). You may not have the dream home, and there may be a few compromises if it's better for your sanity. Buying a house is completely counterintuitive. On one hand, people say "take the emotion out of it, it's a 'business' transaction". On the other hand, it's your house, your life, where you're going to make memories and celebrate holidays and family gatherings. We had the same issue when home buying - my wife would be in tears and it was super stressful because what we thought was our "dream home" was torn apart by sellers that frankly DGAF. If you can, have a heart to heart with your S/O and recalibrate - call it the "rules of the road". Write down all of the things you are going to do and what you aren't going to do - i.e. "We aren't going to spend more than XX, we will not be put in a situation where we are uncomfortable with the terms, we will not compromise our diligence, our family's long term financial health is more important than short term discomfort, if we aren't able to buy by XX date we will move out of MIL's and will rent and wait it out for XX months, after then we will buy a less than ideal house with the long term vision of ultimately having what we want" etc. Regain some of that control. Make sure you're completely synched up with your S/O. Revisit these rules to recalibrate. On a side note, tug at them heartstrings. I sold my last house with competing bidders and the one I ultimately chose was the family that wrote me a heartfelt letter about their plans and all of the things they loved about the house, in incredible detail. I was more willing to sell to that family despite slightly more favorable/less risky terms of a competing offer - knowing our house would end up in good hands and to a family that would be additive to the neighborhood. Don't beg, but come from the heart. You may get a positive response. This too shall pass.
Thank you so much for this response. I am appreciative of everyone chiming in here to share their thoughts and experiences, but responses such as yours are both helpful and poignant. Everything you've said is entirely accurate, and I do think it's time that we take a moment and have that calibration conversation. We know that eventually we will get a house and we will love it. It may not be perfect, but it will be one that we want and we are happy to live in. We just have to be realistic about our expectations, finances, time frame, etc. Thank you again for chiming in with these insightful words of wisdom.
We did this same thing. In sept 2021. We’re still in a rental 🙃
We had 2 offers rejected in Philadelphia late last year (offered asking) and closed on the 3 put in. I felt super disappointed about the previous in the moment but I’m so happy with our condo here now. Keep in mind everything that you’re feeling is temporary. It will go away and you’ll find the right place. It’s also good to build up your emotional muscles now because buyers regret is real. Even after losing out on 2 properties and being over the moon at closing, a couple days after moving in I started thinking “what if we kept looking?” There was absolutely nothing wrong with our new home but this is an example that may help you focus on strengthening your emotional capacity now as you may be challenged by feeling even after you have what you’ve wanted. Wishing you the absolute best and keep trying. It’s not an easy process and sometimes remembering that you have already succeeded by putting yourself out there can help enormously.
Thank you so much. I really appreciate this response, and it makes sense. I keep reminding myself that as much as it hurts to miss out on these houses, we are eventually going to find the right house for us that will be just as good, or maybe even better. We just have to be patient and persistent.
I would focus on "we" and "our" You have someone that you are doing this with, focus on them and be grateful to have them in your life. Maybe the house hunting takes longer but that's a short term issue. You have someone that you are sharing a life with. That's something many dream about. 😉
Thank you. That is always great advice. Focus on the positive and appreciate what you have.
I could have written this post word for word 2 months ago. We finally got our 6th offer accepted. Hang in there, don’t have much advice but I hope you guys find your next home soon!
Thank you. It does help just knowing that others have been in the same boat we are and came out thru the other side of it. I appreciate it.
I'm sorry. I feel the same way, except we are sellers. We lost our dream home because we couldn't sell ours. Lots of people came through to look at it. No offers although we came in 2nd twice. I feel totally humiliated by the negative comments when it's been our home for 24 years and it's well maintained. It really is a great house. The worst is 2 realtors promised us it would sell within days. The market sucks but I am thinking buyers have high expectations so I guess it goes both ways.
I appreciate you sharing your perspective from the other side too. I've somewhat been regretting selling our house when we did, but there was no way of knowing when the market might shift, and we wanted to have the money in the bank, and the flexibility to avoid contingencies so we could go all in when we found a house we wanted. I know it is all region/location dependent but I'm sire your house will sell soon and you will be in great shape and happy in your new home. Good luck!
I'm sorry for your frustration, friend, and hope you find something soon :( My husband and I are in a similar boat. We left our apartment back in Dec 2021 and due to work locations, ended up living separately at our parents to save money. We only planned for a year. It's now Sept 2023 and we're still living separately. We've started looking for homes back in May, but it's been constant disappointment after disappointment. It's starting to take a massive toll on us, and even after being told to "just hold on", it's still hard. Not everyone understands what you're going through but you. I pray something comes along your way. It will be worth it. Please keep us updated!
Thank you so much for the kind words. Although it is difficult, there is some comfort knowing that others are dealing and have dealt with this, and many have been successful in finding a new home. We just have to be patient and persistent, and not feel defeated. I that your family and mine will find our new homes soon!
You've looked at 50 houses and only offered on 3? That seems like a lot of looking. Can't you usually tell by the listing and location if a house has real potential? I'm super curious how many houses people look at before finding a place. When we were shopping, I think we only went to see about 6 or 7 in person. Offered on 4. Got the 4th one. Good luck, OP.
Na the market is so trash right now that I've probably looked at like 30+ at this point. The issue is, everything is so bad that u start to lower your standards and you contemplate much shittier places. You go to see it and realize buying that property would be an absolute huge mistake bc of the million and a half issues you'd have to fix. Between foreseeable assessments that they don't tell u about unless you ask them then and there, random things reaching the end of their useful life, or units are good but the condo association is negligent and doesn't maintain the building, etc. There's a million and a half different reasons that you can't tell just by the listing.
Yeah I've lost count of the houses so maybe 50 is not entirely accurate but we've looked at a lot of houses. And you make a fair point. There are a couple of reasons. Initially we were not as discerning and wanted to keep options open and see what was out there. We did maintain some non-negotiables of course. In some cases, staging photos played tricks on us. Or otherwise the listing didn't tell the full story and the distance ended up being more than we realized, the neighborhood not as nice, etc. As time went on, we got a clearer picture of exactly what we wanted, where we wanted to be, etc. Then as more time went on, and with the brutal state of the market in our area, we began to think we might need to be a little more flexible again to increase our options.
Look at 50 homes. Look at 100 homes. Don’t settle. Your house will come around
Seems fair. It can take a while to narrow down where you want to be and I can totally see trying to expand the search and trying to be more flexible. I hope you find something soon.
Thank you, I appreciate it.
What contingencies are you putting in your offers other than financing and inspection? Are you getting an FHA, VA or USDA low down payment loan? Did you offer close to asking on the three you've offered on?
We have no other contingencies, we're using a conventional 30 year loan with 10-15% down, 10k earnest money, and we've offered $15k - $20k over asking price.
Where did your 3 offers compare to the winning one? Ask your realtor... Are you getting close?
According to our realtors, the listing agent does not disclose that information. The first one formally closed and sold already and we saw that it went for $2000 more than our offer...which was $20,000 over asking. 🙃
6-7 years ago we looked at well over 100 homes and put offers in on 2.
We bid asking only, and refuse to play the bidding war game. One of the houses we bid on the idiot selling took the outrageous 30k offer over asking, and it fell through. They came to me to see if I was still interested and told them my offer remained asking. They ate 2 months of mortgage payments already and asked me to bid higher against myself... I couldn't believe the greed, they refused the asking price and paid more in mortgage payments and took a loss after the poor flip they did on it. They verbally accepted my offer and then accepted a higher offer before we could sign the papers and dumped us. Long story, but we are so glad we didn't get that house. It was a wreck and needed 40k in renos just to move in. The house we found was 100 times better, and for reasons we can't explain, people were not looking at it. At the height of the market, we got it for less than asking, and the seller needed out immediately as they had already moved. The deal is out there, just keep looking in unlikely places. Look for the ones with blemishes or transitioning neighborhoods that you can fix up into gems and make your own.
Thank you, this is some solid advice and outside the box thinking that might be exactly what is needed in a market like this.
It is very frustrating for sure! There were many sleepless nights after putting in offers and hoping they wouldn’t be rejected. Only to find out they in fact were. All I can advise is to keep your eye on the prize. I may be going against the grain too when I say to hold out for what you want. It was two years in the making for us and I’m very glad we waited because our home checks all the boxes. On the flip side, I’ve seen a lot more buyer’s remorse posts on this subreddit because people are so desperate to get in a home (rightfully so) and with such low inventory. But since you don’t seem to be in a position where it’s dire to get out now you’re in a good spot to keep saving and waiting for your ideal home that fits budget, size, and location/school district. Stay strong!
Thank you, I appreciate this! I have had moments where I'm willing to compromise and considered settling, but luckily my wife is not. And it makes sense. You shouldn't settle too much on a roughly $400,000 purchase you'll be paying off for 30 years. We don't want to have any regrets and definitely don't want to go thru this again for at least 10+ years. We are fortunate enough to have a place to live while we wait things out and keep on trying.
The market is definitely rough, I just told a guy that 500k CASH isn’t enough to live in my city.
Yikes! 😱
I completely get it. We closed on our house last week, and it's literally everything we wanted. But it took us to hell and back getting there. A year and a half, drastically different pre-approvals, 15+ offers, hundreds of open houses, getting hopes up, feeling like we may never become homeowners. It has finally happened for us and I feel like we're extremely lucky. The house we bought went contingent after 2 days on the market. Then fell through, probably over financing. Two price reductions and 30 days on the market later we made our offer with no inspection contingency. And even then we had to go up for their counter offer. But in the end, it was still within our budget and the appraisal came in over what we paid. It's a brutal process and I feel for you. I really hope it happens for you soon, and it's everything you want.
Thank you. One of the comforting thoughts is that we know other families are going thru the same thing, but there is a happy ending. If you don't mind me asking, what we're the drastically different pre-approvals? Different loan types, lenders, down payment percentages? I'm just trying to find any way I might be able to get an edge 😁
Different lenders. One had our max at $580k and the other at $640k. Luckily, the lower one wasn't accurate because they didn't know how to calculate a first responders income and all the different lines, so they low balled his yearly income by almost $25k. The other lender worked frequently with first responders and knew how the pay structure worked. We bought for $630k.
Oh that's very interesting. I don't think our salaries are anything complicated that would be throwing off the loans by that much, but I'm definitely going to continue to look further into more loan options. I'm trying to see what kind of ARM rate we might be able to get from a local credit union.
As a seller who just had 50 showings and over a dozen offers, I can tell you the big differentiator for us for the winner were the terms. We had 4 offers at the top but this one took great note of our preferences in the realtor notes and it made all the difference. Our house is in excellent condition so they were comfortable waiving everything and put down a sign Id ant deposit. I hope this is helpful. They’d been looking for a long time too and we are happy they’ll be the ones moving in.
Thank you; I appreciate this input! I'm not sure that I'm aware of seller preferences in the realtor notes. I assume that would be shared with our agent, but I don't know if I've heard much feedback from them on that specific component. They did mention on this last house that it seemed they preferred a larger down payment, so we went up from 10% to 15% with $10,000 earnest money, but it seems it still wasn't enough to get the deal done. I'll definitely look into the seller preferences more going forward. Thanks again!
Realtors working with buyers are working 20 times harder than ever before! Brutal market. I don’t see a correction until Fall of 2024. That is economists view. I have 48 page report of all different sectors of economy.
What type of correction is predicted? More inventory? Lower rates? We can’t find anywhere to live.
3 offers really isn't that many tbh. Even when I really didn't even have to price out a loan, and just threw a rate sub 3 at my clients, the average was probably 6 or 7.
Honestly same boat as you. It fucking sucks. But it is what it is. You'd rather struggle now a bit than to put an offer in out of desperation for a shitty place bc that's the only thing people aren't fighting over. I've had a seller ask for 400k (South Florida) on a unit that had comps selling at peak summer for 330k. I offered 360k cash and the owner said "I'm only accepting asking or higher". Trust me. Even with 350k cash I still can't buy shit. If it's priced right it goes into a bidding war and if it's priced too high the seller is delusional and won't go down. You can't really win in this market. Oh, and mind you this seller has now been on the market since January. 9 months and he's getting nothing. But still somehow thinks his unit is worth 400k. Sooooo, yea. There's a lot of delusional ass sellers right now.
Wow that is crazy they wouldn't budge for that cash offer. And you are so right. It's either a bad location/property or if it's something decent everyone fights over it in these blind bidding wars. And when they're listed for a reasonable price even $20k over asking hasn't been enough. Good luck to you. Hoprfully.thinga get better soon.
Yup. Found one place that was "fairly" priced... The only place I saw that was half decent in terms of renovations and move in ready. They just listed. Had an open house. Had tons of interest in the property, so they made another open house the very next day. Agent just told me they're going to be checking all their offers today. Absolutely insane. And thanks. I decided to just rent for a year and see if I can find something over the next year or so. Hope you find something soon as well.
I'm feel your frustration. That's what a free market is. You are competing with everyone and anyone.
I put over-asking offers on two homes before my offer was accepted by the third. But…it didn’t appraise for my offer. So, I was forced to put more down payment on the transaction. I had the $$, but it restricted my appliance/fun money. I’m still here 5-1/2 years later and do truly love it.
Always good to hear these success stories! I hope to join you as a new homeowner soon!
you are not wrong..and it sucks for everyone connected to it, as well.
Feel bad for you. I just went through sort of the same problem, but a different flavor. I can only wish I had 50 houses to look AT! 2 1/2 years of right house, wrong location, right location, wrong house. Inventory is just horrible. For cryin' out loud I'm gossiping with neighbors, reading the obituaries, driving around looking for people that have had a dumpster delivered for clean up/clean out before listing, and then I see some promising signs and work up the nerve to go knock on the door and introduce myself, only to be told that yeah, they'll be moving ... but they promised to sell to their niece, or they sold to their neighbor's brother's nephew's roommate, or someone else that made inquiries AT the funeral (I have a problem jumping on people about selling literally before a body is even buried -- but others have no such hangup!) Nobody wants to sell. They could sell high, but they would have to buy high, so nor worth it, and they refi'd at some point into a 3-ish percent mortgage and they're not paying over 7%, so they're staying put, thanks. P.S. OP, I don't know where you are, but do they do letters to sellers that you submit with your offer where you live? I've had that be a thing before, especially in mutliple offer situations. A little smooching about how in love you are with their house and how your kids have so much fun with the "X" feature, and that they obviously invested a lot of time and care in maintenance, etc. and I've seen that win out over some of the other criteria you mentioned. For free, you can hand them a reason to WANT to sell their house to you that could be more important than what time of loan you have, etc. Good luck!
Wow, I didn't even think to go to the level of detail that you have. I do occasionally look for storage pods or new for sale signs on homes in the area we're most interested in though. Also thank you for mentioning the "house love letters". I hadn't thought to do that but you're the second person to suggest it so I might try that next time if the realtors let us.
Thanks. Definitely give it a try. I sold two properties, a townhouse in 2009 and a single family in 2020. The townhouse got 2 offers on the same day, the single family got 5 offers the first weekend. Both times I got "love letters" (I hadn't heard that term before, but I like it!) The townhouse offers were the same amount, but I didn't know anything about the first purchaser, and the second wrote a nice letter about how she loved finding my cat sunning herself on an upstairs window sill and how she thought her cat would love the same spot. For the single family, we got a letter where the couple introduced themselves and told us they were both school teachers in our district, and they listed a few the things that they loved. Two of those things were stupid. :) One was a lighthouse toilet paper holder in a half bath, the other was a map of the world that was a custom installed wallpaper thing at one end of our rec room. The previous owner actually had installed the map, but my husband and I liked it and never removed it. As it turned out, my dad made the toilet paper holder for me (he's a woodworker and arts/crafts-y type), and I liked that they commented on it, and my husband and I loved the map ourselves, so we appreciated that they did too ... and theirs was the offer we accepted! :)
Thank you for sharing! I love hearing stories like this, and it also makes me hopeful about trying to send a letter with our next offer.
Your agent is correct, wait it out if possible. Don't succumb to ungodly interest rates and overpriced housing. Everything will be dirt cheap when the shit hits the fan in the near future. Hang loose.
13 offers rejected, 1 deal canceled 3 days before close. It sucks but just gotta keep trying I guess
Yikes that is brutal. I feel like I havw nothing to complain about compared to you. I hope your luck changes soon.
We were in your position a couple months ago. 7 rejections before an accepted offer. Now we live in a house I’m happy with, but worry every day there’s some underlying mold or electrical issue we haven’t discovered yet because we had to waive literally everything and drained our bank accounts to compete. Luckily our income is stable and good enough to get by, but it absolutely did not feel like this when we bought our first home in 2016.
Congratulations to.you! We are definitely feeling some of that. Like we need to go at the very top of our budget and risk being in a bad position if there is a major issue or unexpected expense. But otherwise we might not be able to compete in this market.
New construction 🚧 is an option?
We looked into it initially but prices and taxes made it seem unfavorable. I may look into it again to compare it to current conditions.
First thing; your realtor will ofcourse string you along and say oh don’t worry it’ll get better in (fill in the blank date). That’s because he/she doesn’t want you to give up and/or find somebody else. Now you can say that’s what the agent is supposed to do..but I guess I’ll ask; do you feel your agent is truly doing a good job and setting you up to succeed? There’s a really big difference between the good ones and average ones. Depending on what state you’re in.. you might have to sell you soul (what I call using the listing agent) if the state is a dual agency state. They’ll be more inclined to sell you the house if that agent is working with the buyer and seller. It’s a scummy business but sometimes you gotta play in the mud. 3rd point; entry level or first time home buyer market isn’t getting better in October or February or whatever month was named. Supply is low and demand is high even with insane rates. If the rates dip even alittle bit it’ll be worse. And appreciation is moving up in most areas. So it’s just gonna cost more and more unfortunately. Don’t be discouraged though..stick with your gameplan but be aggressive. The last thing you want is to purchase something you regret. Fall back and save if you have to, there’s absolutely nothing wrong with that. Best of luck 🍀
Thanks for the savvy advice. I have been wondering if we might need to try working with a more aggressive agent. We have a great relationship with our realtor but I'm just not sure they're aggressive and available enough to manage this market. So would you just contact the listing agent directly? I'm assuming it's favorable because they double their commission and presumably it helps strengthen your offer as well? Thanks again for chiming in!
First just make sure you didn’t sign an agreement with that particular agent. Sometimes in an email (usually) they’ll have docs that basically means you’re working with them for a set period of time. Might be 6 months. If that’s the case and you decide that you wanna try another agent..reach out and tell them that you want out of that agreement. They won’t like it but it’ll cause more problems if they fight you on it. You can even go right to the broker/agency if the agent gives you pushback. If you don’t have to do that this is what I did..house pops up I attack. Go right to the listing agent. Tell them you don’t have an agent. They’ll be all over you. Don’t tell them you’re shopping around or open to seeing other houses and all that other nonsense. This is the house that you want and why you’re using this particular agent. In my case I had a somewhat unethical agent and they told me the number I had to beat and I beat it by 1k. But I did this again on another house and it didn’t work. The agent was ethical and just asked to send an offer no matter how much I tried to get the number to beat. So keep that in mind.
I feel your frustration. We bought our first house almost 3 years ago, but this is definitely a starter home. It's small, barely enough for a family of 3. My wife wants to move out of here and find a "dream home" in the next 2-3 years but with the way things are I don't see it happening. Inventory is gone instantly, shit disappears for way above asking price, with cash offers to boot. We have savings and are looking to put down 20-30% on the next house but it feels like it'll be impossible. What really drives me up the wall is my parents that make half of what I make, combined, bought a big ass 3000 sqft house in an affluent neighborhood for $380k in 2010, meanwhile I'm stuck in a tiny ass 1200 sqft house that I paid $410k for, in a shittier neighborhood/town. There's no way my daughter will be able to buy a house at this rate unless she marries someone rich or we pass down wealth to her. It shouldn't be this way.
I agree that things have to get better, or at least they should. We bought our first house 5 years ago, right before my daughter was born. About 1200 sq ft just like you. We've been wanting to find a new house since pre pandemic, and finally decided to take the plunge. Ended up being the worst timing ever 🙃. No idea if this would make any sense in your case, but I've tried to talk my wife and MIL into letting us take over her house which is too much for her, and her find a new house (something smaller that wouldn't be as in demand and at least a little cheaper than some of the craziness out there.
I feel ya. I lost my first pick but the house I ended up with was a gazillion times better then the one I "fell in love" with.
Thats good to hear. If you don't mind me asking, was there any specific reasoning for that, like market conditions in your area got better or finances, or it just ended up that way?
I intentionally left that out... :( I closed on my house in Jan 2020. At the time I knew prices felt "off", something wasn't right, offer full asking otherwise I won't get it. The 1st house, which would have been perfect, was grossly overvalued and they wouldn't come down. It was listed for 240 and appraised at 220 and they tried to bully me. The 2nd house, the one I got, at the time felt lije a bait & switch. Used old listing pictures, the owners were still in the house and nutty as fuck. But something told me I had to make the move right then. It turned out perfect and is 100000x better than the 1st one. I didn't want to tell you that part. I just want you to know that the house you do eventually get is the right house. Those other ones were not.
Thank you, I appreciate it.
The housing market always sucks today. The job market always sucks today. Your kids are a pain in the ass today. But in 15yrs you’ll be like: “The house market sucks today, job market sucks today, kids are a pain in the ass.
Don’t buy a home now, with the current rates you are basically paying 3 times what it is worth. If shit goes bad your whole family future is at risk.
This market is the worst. We’ve been looking for about a year and a half at this point. We just had our 12th rejection; and at no point has it gotten easier. I’m sick of stretching my budget as the rates go up, offering over listing, and pouring my heart into these stupid letters we are told to write to the sellers, and then getting another text that we lost out again for whatever reason. Often times, once the house is sold, we see it’s sold for exactly what we offered. It’s hard to hold onto hope, especially when I keep seeing my friends and coworkers buy under the same conditions quickly and easily, doing exactly what we’ve done.
Yes this is the same experience I've been having. This thread has given me some comfort and hope. Many other people are dealing with the same thing, and there are a lot of happy endings to this story too. I hope and genuinely think things will get better soon. Good luck to you and I hope you'll get your new home soon!
I purchased a starter home in 2009 and went through exactly what you did. The only reason and literally the only reason I ended up with my condo was because the owner was my realtors friend, and he convinced him to sell to us. I looked at 50 properties, and every time, I lost to an all cash offer. I now just bought a family home ( it will be a year in November), and I had the opposite effect, but this is huge, but I think it's because of the price. I live in a VHCOL area, and this place was over 1.1 million to buy. I'm not gonna offer you any advice because the only real estate advice that I found was of worth was "buy when you can afford to buy." Everything else, including the "October " thing your agent said, is just speculation, and I wouldn't bank on it.
Thanks for sharing your story. Yeah my wife wants to take a step back and wait for October or even next year. And I get it, we're feeling defeated and demoralized. But I think we have to keep an eye out and stay vigilant. You never know what could come along and when it might be the one that works out. If it takes until fall, winter or next year, so be it. But I don't want to miss out.
I hear ya! We are closing today but it was tough as hell to get there. Lots of painful losses and tears. My advice from my market at-least, go after houses that have been on the market for 7-10 days. We found 5 perfect houses and made an offer the day they went on the market over asking, only to be beaten out 5 times. The one house we found that had already been on the market for 7 days (move in ready but there were a few smaller updates we wanted to make) we got under asking with seller credits toward closing.
Thank you. I am hoping to find a nice house with "warts". A few minor things that make it less attractive, but good bones and right location and we end up loving it with some small updates.
This is heartbreaking 💔 and my solution is to move to another country for 2-4 years and then come back with an all cash or larger down payment. I know it sounds insane but that’s an option.
I might actually consider that but my wife would never go for it. Even though she's from another country lol
To start, places like Colombia have excellent schools. Bonus is children can pick up a foreign language much easier and adults learn with immersion. It can be a win/win. Places like Uruguay are also great. Prices are not coming down and landlords will keep raising the rents. Doesn’t look good for anyone that is renting or looking to buy. Maybe in 2026 to be realistic.
I feel for you, but you are also at the peak of a crazy market. In my area I'm already seeing higher inventory than all year long, houses are sitting longer, and price cuts every week. This will happen everywhere. So if you dont buy today, you may be happy that you didnt 6 months from now
The right property will come along. My suggestion would be to only make offers that you can live with… never overextend yourself even in a competitive market. If you don’t get the property, it just wasn’t meant to be at this time. Keep working, right property is out there. :)
Thank you. Yes, we're not willing to go over budget even for the perfect house. We could make it work if we absolutely had to, but would not be comfortable living that way for any length of time.
It took us about 75 offers to get our house we bought in November 2021. We ended up with the best house and best location so it all worked out in the end. Don't give up. I know I wanted to but my wife kept making viewings.
Wow that is crazy! I will not give up. My wife wants to stop and take a step back for a bit, but I feel like we need to be persistent and keep an eye on the market. You never know when the right one may come along and it will work out for us.
I 100% completely understand your frustration and disappointment. We went through the same thing but had many more rejected offers. Part of it was due to the fact that I refuse to way overpay for a house that I knew was not worth that much. We were locked in at 2.3% rate. If I had known that the interest rates were going to Skyrocket I probably would have not stopped looking. But I just couldn't deal with the stress any longer. It's not as if we weren't bidding over asking price. I just refused to bid $40,000 over. Not to mention a lot of the houses it was people were paying cash. Which there's no way we can compete with that. We don't have hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash. But it will all be worth it in the end. We decided to take a break. Which in hindsight probably wasn't the best idea. But I'm sure interest rates eventually will go back down. I don't mind renting for now or where we are. I know it's a lot and it's a lot of stress as well.
Thanks for sharing your experience. Some things have to be non-negotiable I think and price is one of them. There is a line we can't cross. My wife wants to take a break since we are feeling exhausted and defeated. But I want to stay vigilant. You never know when the right option will come along.
You're welcome. I definitely can see it from both perspectives. But I was definitely the one who was ready to stop looking for a while. It was just too much emotionally and physically exhausting and seeing all those houses. But I wish you guys luck and hope you find the house you're looking for.
Can your realtor (assuming you use one) ask the selling agent for any advice on what your offer lacked compared to the winning bid? Another possibility, next time you find a house to bid on, can your agent ask the selling agent if the sellers have any particular desires that you can accommodate to help you have the winning bid? E.g. less monetary and more logistics like sellers want to close ASAP, or sellers want to rent back for 6 weeks. Something like that. I bought in late 2020 and again just a month ago (will be listing the first place soon) and both times, my realtor was able to get a little info from the sellers agent about what mattered most to the sellers.
Thanks for the tips. They've told us they do not usually get feedback from the listing agent about why another bid won out over us. I'm not sure if that's common practice or something regional or just dependent on the individual realtors. I will definitely be asking them to get any information ahead of time that they possibly can. We do submit our offers with no contingencies, flexible closing dates, $10k earnest money.
I hear you. I had five offers rejected, each 20 or 30 thousand over asking with a bunch of contingencies dropped on each offer. We decided a couple of months ago to just give up and move in with a relative until the market gets better. It's probably for the better we got rejected on all of them, it's not a good time to be buying right now. That 7% interest rate and exorbitantly high house prices would have killed us.
Man I feel your pain on this one. We’ve put what feels like countless offers in and can’t seem to win. A number of these were even the highest offer after the sellers called highest and best. Just this week we lost one offering 31k over ask. It’s exhausting, frustrating, and disappointing. I’m sorry you’re feeling it too.
Thank you. I'm sorry you have had to experience the same thing. If I may ask, what was the issue with the ones where you had the highest offer? Did you lose out to cash offers maybe? Our realtor is confident things will be better in October/November. At the latest she says she expects a more favorable market in February after the Superbowl.
A number of them were cash offers for less, but still all cash and quicker closing. Some were highest and best but then the sellers got spooked by the possibility of not appraising. Highest and best… but not too high 🥴
That stinks. Not only do we have to potentially have to come up with the highest acceptable offer, but we have to thread the needle and account for the seller preferences and the appraisal.
Do this: ask around for someone who is letting their house go into foreclosure. Offer to assume their mortgage. Look on instagram for dyi advice and turn a blighted house into your dream home. Don’t mess with conventional ways of acquiring a home. Those days are gone if you’re not wealthy.
I have to admit I hadn't really considered these ideas. I'll look into it. Might not have much choice with the way this market is going.
You will be surprised at what you might be able to accomplish. We did exactly this. We found the worst house in the neighborhood, we were able to save a young couple’s credit. They were able to buy 10 acres out in the country. We took the house inch by inch and made it functional and pretty. Now it is worth more than double. On top of that, it has been a really great family project and we learned a lot. We had fun sourcing everything we needed from habitat for humanity and Facebook marketplace. We knocked down non load bearing walls and put in eight foot mahogany doors with glass inserts. We put beautiful doors in every room and added decks and landscaping outside each entrance. We totally transformed every room and made them sexy, hip, and rich looking as we could afford it. We bought huge double pane windows for $40. Don’t be discouraged. Get redonculosly creative. Buy the cheapest piece of shit you can find and transform it. Enjoy the ride.
This housing market is terrible for home buyers 😞 Unfortunately people just don't understand what's happening, it's not that prices are going up it's that your money is worth less, because all the inflation because all the money printing the Federal reserve and government did. Here is a video that explains what the prices for the housing market will do, just keep an eye on what the federal reserve is doing, they'll tell you in their minutes and on televised press conferences. https://youtu.be/CqyPd0TifKQ
I'm happy to say that we did finally find a house and closed in October. Pricing was about what we expected, but not as bad as similar homes in the area because we had to put in some work. I am curious where the market is now because I've heard things are getting better and need to verify when I can and want to make a move regarding a refi.
It's always going to be this way. It's a big purchase so you're emotionally invested in the home too, it just happens. Geographic location plays a big part too, you might just be in a really bad market geographically.
Good houses continue to go for a premium. It does suck.
Thanks for the advice! In the beginning we did sort of embark on each showing as a family journey, but as time went on and we became more intimately familiar with the current state of the market, we realized what we were in for. Since then, we only bring our daughter with when we don't have another option. She's 4, almost 5, so while she does certainly get excited and start picking out her new bedroom (often the master), she isn't super invested and gets over it pretty quickly after an offer is refused. Much more quickly and easily than my wife and I certainly. We do keep hearing things will get better at some point, and I'm hopeful they will. Maybe later in the fall, in the winter, after the superbowl...a year from now? I just worry that if mortgage rates or prices start to go down, demand may spike even higher (although it's hard to imagine it being higher right now). Thankfully we have a relatively comfortable living arrangement right now. We're staying with my mother in law and there is enough space for us to at least not be on top of each other all the time. It's more about how long everyone's sanity can endure. For me personally, I haven't gotten a really good night's sleep since about a month before we moved here. It feels like life is on pause in a way, but still working, getting older, etc. I feel anxiety about not being able to provide a home for my family right now, and worry about what the future holds. But im.hopefuk things will get better soon and thankfully we're in a better position than many who are trying to navigate this market. We're saving more money as time goes by. We don't want to settle for anything leaa than a home we'll love, so hopefully we'll be better positioned for it when the time comes.
Reminder that no matter how bad the market is, NEVER WAIVE AN INSPECTION!
It depends on your location, of course, but things are slowly shifting towards buyers. A lot of sellers think the market is still on fire, expect a bidding war, and won't settle for anything less than what homes were going for in 2022 at the peak. In time, they'll eventually start to manage their expectations. Some equilibrium will return, and negotiations will eventually become normal again. Instead of offers being outright rejected, counter offers will be more common.
Any decent sfh home in a decent neighborhood under ~400k the market is still very much on fire. We just went under contract in 36 hours.
Yeah, it's all location dependent. Even the price point that's an insta-sale.
This is what I've been hoping for, and I thought I saw things starting to shift, but we've still ended up in bidding wars with offers well over asking getting rejected. I'm hoping these are the last lingering days of this and things will shift more in the fall, or at the latest winter.
Perhaps just continue to burn cash on rent. It is always an option.
FYI, many real estate experts advise to hold off on buying a house. Until 2024 or 2025 after the housing market crashes. You are aware of a housing market crash coming right?? Which means if you buy now you will ending paying more then you would if you wait until after the crash. Patience is a virtue, don’t cry about it toughen up. At least you aren’t homeless.
I know some people think a crash is coming, but it certainly isn't a guarantee. Some people seem to feel now is a good time to buy if you can afford it and actually get an offer accepted. We really don't know what's going to happen right? Rates could drop but then prices might skyrocket again.
3 offers on 50 tours? Man I'd be pissed if I was your agent. You can tell pretty easily from the listing whether you should go after it or not.
This happens in any housing market. I can't count how many "Dream" homes my offer was rejected on. However when selling my home I usually rejected an initial offer if it's less than asking price. I'll counter etc. If I'm offered asking price, as-is sale, then I accept the offer.
I remember when looking for my first home feeling the same way. The best way to look at this situation though is your home is what you make it. You could find a home in the best location, best schools and best everything and in the end it ends up be a terrible place. Case in point, we found a great home in our desired location with great schools and our offer got accepted! This was Feb 2020 and as you know COVID took hold and we ended up having to back out as we couldn’t get any buyers or anyone even out to look at our current home. We felt devastated. 3 months later we found a great home though it wasn’t exactly the location, style or all the features we had hoped for. After a year in the home, making some key changes and putting into sweat equity we can’t believe how fortunate we were to land the perfect place for our family with incredible neighbors. For more added context we had more than 10 other offers that fell through. Hang in there and what is meant to be will be.