If you bought a house in a "hot" market

[bananapancakes]

How did it go for you? Advice?

The market is here is nuts. Multiple offers, bidding wars, houses are on the market for less than a week, etc.

We saw 5 houses yesterday and one was a definite contender. It checked all our boxes and we both got a great feeling from it. Our REA has said we need to act quickly. Like make an offer today if we like it. That seems crazy! We've only seen 5 houses but we do really like it. If we wait, it will likely be gone.

Ahhhh, what to do?

[polarbearfans]

Make an offer! We made some offers while still in the houses and they were already sold.

[wavepool]

Offer!!

[nsl]

We lost out on at least two places due to bidding wars when we bought our first home, and almost lost out on the home we're now selling for the same reason. It's unnerving for sure. Just make sure that you're really sure this is the house you want and a price you're comfortable paying before you make an offer. I think it's really easy to get sucked into the mindset that you need to make decisions NOW even if you really need a little time to think things through.

[karinothing]

We walked in to the foyer and made an offer You have to move quickly.

[Willis Jackson]

Make an offer!

Good houses are under contract within a day or two around here. We were 95% sure we were going to make an offer on our house before we even saw it.

ETA: there ended up being two offers on our house, and the sellers went with us because we wrote a heartfelt letter about how much we wanted to raise our children there. We included a family picture.

[ryry]

Make an offer! We haven't bought in a hot market yet, but we anticipate doing so in another year knowing that we need to be ready immediately to jump on something we want.

[Deleted]

We basically found the house the day it was listed, saw it at the first available appointment before the open house and practically ran out of it within 5 minutes to get back to the office to draft up the offer as two more couples showed up to view it. We offered $1k OVER list with our initial offer and set it to expire an hour before the open house. We were trying to entice them to not get into bidding wars and it worked.

I think it also helped that we were preapproved for well over our offer and although we requested an approval letter that showed just the offer price it was clear that we were were approved for more and had a specific letter tailored for the offer. So they knew our financing was set.

Also, the owners were flippers. A new investment income tax was set to go into effect in January and we set our offer up with very tight turn around so as to close before the end of the year and save them that money.

[Deleted]

Offer! Buying a house is such a huge purchase, I don't know if you ever feel really "ready." You just have to jump in! Kinda like having a kid KWIM.

We looked at dozens of houses online over the course of several months, none met our criteria. So when I finally found one, we didn't hesitate. I found it the day it came on the market, DH took the day off work to tour it, and we made a full-priced offer that day. We asked for closing costs but the buyers said no, b/c there was a LOT of interest in the house, they had several more showings lined up. So we accepted their counter of full price, no closing costs.

DH and I talk all the time about how glad we are that we were confident enough to move quickly. We LOVE our house, it's perfect for us. If we had hesitated we would have lost it.

[Susie]

Speed, basically. We had previously lost several in multiple offer contests, we knew what our needs and wants were and we got faster at making decisions.

One offer, a couple before the one that worked out, went for something like 20% over asking, the day of the open house, when they weren't entertaining offers before the open house. Awesome.

We saw the one that finally worked out (it was our 6th or so offer) before the "for sale" sign was even in the ground, and offered full price plus the sellers' desired 4 month escrow period on the spot. (That turned out to be a PITA for us, but at least we got the house.) Basically, we didn't give them anything to counter for. We got a verbal acceptance same-day, signed the contract the next morning, and that afternoon another offer came in that was higher. Fortunately they had to stay with us because we were under contract.

[rugbywife]

Our market was hot, very hot. We put an offer in, with one other potential buyer and we offered 10k over to 'guarantee' that we got it. The house has been on the market for 4 hours.

We had previously offered 3k over and the house went for 25k over!!! (Different house that we didn't get).

My advice is known your hard limits price wise and what you are willing to sacrifice/not sacrifice house wise.

[Deleted]

Don't rush on the first day unless you love it.
It is a hot market and it is tiring how fast things do but you can't feel too pressured.
There is no such thing as the perfect home and there is no such thing as a lost chance - there are more homes out there. You aren't in a crazy rush - you could rent if you had to. We took 8 months to find something. And a friend of mine looked for a year. It's hard to find the price range and the location and win the bidding war. But I feel like you can get carried away in the market and also after a while you lower standards because you are so fed up.

[sunshine608]

Make an offer! WE lost one but I was ready for the next time. DH was abroad so I was alone and had to act fast. Our house came on the Market on Friday afternoon. I saw it Saturday morning and even while we were there it was hopping with people coming to look. I signed the paperwork and wrote out the earnest check Sunday and on Monday there were multiple offers.

They asked for highest and best by Tuesday afternoon which we gave them going $25K above asking and we ended up getting the house. The appraisal dropped it back down though.

This house was a foreclosure that had previously sold for $400K and was listed at $198K so that's why went up so high. It was in excellent condition.

ETA: A good REA is key. Our first one was too slow for the market which I why I ended up finding another one.

[patbutcher]

Before I got my house, I lost out to 4 others in the neighbourhood.

I got my house before it was listed because my realtor asked around all her realtor friends to see if anyone had a house in the pipeline. We looked at the house then made an offer an hour later, no one to think on it. H feels that we rushed into it but it was the only way to get a house in the street we wanted.

[auntie]

We bought our first in a ridiculous market.

It was an unusual property and probably underpriced as there weren't really accurate comps out there. I was the second person to see it. We beat out an investor with a cash deal because the HOs wanted it to go to a family; they had bought as a shell and DIYed the entire place. There were several higher bids that came in after they accepted ours. Their agent really let them down; the value of the house doubled the first year we bought it. (DH bought it alone, we refinanced when we got married a year later and added me to the deed/mortgage- it was appraised 2 x within the year)

I guess it boils down to whether you'd be unhappier to lose out on the house or unhappier to buy it with the potential of finding something you like better. It's a bit like dating.

[konapoppy]

Our market is hot, and sellers (ie their agents) love bidding wars. Normally there is one open house with bids due in two days, then they do rounds of counters. We bid on 3 houses totally I think and got two (walked away from one).

If you love it, bid. You will probably find something else you love though if you don't get it!

[Deleted]

Jun 30, 2015 6:52:31 GMT -5 @this said:

Yeah, the days of leisurely browsing are long long gone here.!

Yep! See also, houses going for $70k over asking price the first day on the market, cash sale, 15 day close.

[turtlegirl]

We lost our dream house by 4k. I think there were 5 or 6 offers and we were #2. We are still bitter about it and dream of that house still.

Shortly after we saw our current house and we ended up bidding 10k over because we were told it had multiple offers already and they had priced it a bit under market value to get the best offers they could. I think there were 3 or 4 offers on it total.

[barefootcontessa]

How long have you been following the market? How certain are of you of your location and needs/wants? I would not rush if you are just starting to look, assuming you do not HAVE to move. We bought in a hot market in 2006 and ended up taking a $100K loss when we sold last year. We had to move for a work relocation but even if we did not have to move that house was not going to work for us beyond a few more years. At the time we got caught up in the pressure of the hot market and probably should have been less aggressive. You might be better off looking for once school starts since there will likely be less competition among buyers. All hot markets cool off at some time.

[mlt]

We saw a house we liked in our ideal school district so we made an offer three hours later. It was nuts and we kept looking at each other and asking "are we making a huge mistake?" But we had seen about thirty houses so far and none in our budget in this neighborhood. So that was what pushed us. I like our house but it's not at all what I would have chosen in another neighborhood.

ETA we offered below asking but ended up at $3K over asking. So. It was stressful. We saw it during an open house when a ton of people were there and so we knew we had to move fast.

[whitemerlot]

Make the offer. My neighborhood is really hot and all of the houses in the past few years have had offers within 24 hours of listing. It's crazy.

[namasteak]

Make an offer!

The house we bought was only the 2nd house DH saw in person and we are so happy we didn't wait.

[pooh8402]

Make the offer!

We walked into our house before it was officially on the market and made an offer that night. It had 2 other offers at the same time, ours was the best (I think right at asking price).

[Marmee]

Definitely make an offer! Four times we bought houses without actually "being in the market"...we just browsed & something came up we knew we wanted. Everytime we offered full price without the selling of current house contingency & they took it (the house we live in had 5 offers by 1st weekend). The house we bought in 2006 was cheapest in hood so while it didn't really increase much in the downturn, we wouldn't loose our shirts. We planned & have held onto for a rental....now we could sell it for nearly double what we paid because the market is crazy here now.

[hocus2]

We're in a hot market. We lost out on some houses because we didn't understand how hot the market was. We made an offer 24 hours after seeing the house we ultimately got.

[grover]

We lost two houses before we got the third one we liked enough to put an offer on this time around. Both that we lost on this time had had recent price drops, and even though their realtors claimed there had been no interest, one actually accepted an offer while we were looking at the house/drawing up our offer and the second had no interest until all of a sudden during our second showing.

The house we're currently under contract on had been listed for three days. If we hadn't offered when we had, the next day's open house would have gone on as scheduled and most likely would have had more offers.

[robyn]

I say make your offer. The house we are currently under contract for went on the market on a Monday, we looked at it Wednesday night and it had already had 2 contacts on it (one the buyers flaked, the other was actually pending when we made our offer but the potential buyers were not wanting to pay full asking). While we were looking at it the first time there were 4 other showings. The market is crazy right now, and it's totally a sellers market. Make a strong first offer. We had to pay full list price, but we were expecting that.

[jenn248]

Jun 30, 2015 6:43:26 GMT -5 @vicmo said:

I would say offer if you want it, but also don't feel pressured into convincing yourself that you want THIS house just because the market is fast.

Ditto this.  If you're pretty sure you're interested, put in an offer; if you're just lukewarm on it, don't bother stressing yourself out.

I looked at our house on a Saturday afternoon (it had been listed the day before); the owner was leaving for Bosnia on Monday and wanted offers before she left.  My realtor called a friend who was a mortgage broker and they pre-approved me on a Saturday night, we put in an offer, and it was the next day accepted.  There was one other offer, and he decided not to counter-offer, so I ended up getting the house for $6K more than the asking price.  I was willing to go up to $36K more but was very glad not to end up in a bidding war  

[mslhb]

Make an offer! We bought a new house last August. Our market isn't "hot" but definitely getting there. The house we bought had multiple offers. We also had the stress of selling our little starter home and then buying a new one at the same time. Were very lucky all of the timing worked out. The house we bought we put in the offer while I was out of the country for work. So I had litteraly seen it for like 5 minutes. If it checks all the major boxes then I say go for it whether it is the 1st house or 100th house.

[jaybird]

We are currently under contract in a house in a hot market. It was the seventh house we bid on. We went and saw it about four hours after they listed it in the MLS and had our realtor call theirs to say an offer was forthcoming after we walked through. We offered to close in 60 days and the feedback we got was that it was the main reason they took accepted our offer (they had already moved out).