Attention all you K-Mart shoppers! The Great Home Bargain Sale is coming to an end!
When things are just chugging along, we tend to think that they will just keep chugging forever. This has been the case with the foreclosure market, which has, in turn, depressed the regular real estate market. But now, even though Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae are stumbling off the blocks in an effort to alleviate the nation’s foreclosure woes rather than making confident strides to clear up the mess, there is an end in sight. Soon, there will not be any more surplus of foreclosures, and the real estate market, no longer depressed by a plethora of cheap REOs, is bound to rise somewhat, and the great deals of the past will start to go away.
Last Saturday I took a client to look at 7 homes in San Pedro and Long Beach in the $350,000 range. We have looked at many properties in the past several months, and there has been no urgency in making offers; the properties have been turning over very slowly, if at all. On Monday, after both of us doing due diligence, (researching building permits, crime stats, etc),my client decided to place an offer on the one that he liked the best. It is a nice home in a very good area, but when we saw it on Saturday, the carpet had been torn up, it was in the process of being painted, and it reeked of dog urine. It also had a non-permitted garage conversion. Not the best circumstances to show a house. However, my client is a do-it -yourselfer, and these things did not phase him. Unfortunately, we did not know that 5 offers had been received on Saturday and Sunday, and the listing agent had accepted the highest and best that Monday morning, just before my call. I then called the other 2 properties that my client was interested in, which were also located in nice areas, but did not need any major renovation. and found that one, after 8 offers between Saturday and Monday, was pending, and the other, after 10 offers between Saturday and Monday, was pending also.
The week before, I had conversations with several Realtors in the Long Beach/San Pedro area, and they were telling me that in the prior several days they had sold properties with multiple offers and above listing price, some of which had been listed only a few days. At the time, I thought it was a fluke, but my experiences last weekend make me think otherwise.
So it looks like, at least to me, that many other people are realizing that the time to buy a great home at a bargain price is ending, and they are out there making above-asking-price, multiple offers on property in much greater numbers than before.
At the moment, there is still a large inventory of foreclosed homes out there, but it is dwindling rapidly, and it will go away, sooner or later.
If you are in the market for a first-time home, or are looking for investments, I would suggest that you immediately get your credit in tip-top shape, get pre-approved, not pre-qualified for a loan in the amount that you can afford, be prepared to offer above asking price for properties, and above all, both you and your realtor must act fast! Do not be shy about making an offer on a weekend. Others certainly aren’t, and they are getting the prizes.
