We just started the home buying process and, of course, our first offer was beat by all-cash investors. This market is insane and Im just wondering how long it took others here to get into a house? How many offers did you end up making? At what price range?
You must mean 1840sqft. 840sqft is barely a house.
I'm currently looking into the laws for adding a mother in law suite to our property, and 800 sq ft is the maximum listed online. So I looked up floor plans at that size and was pleasantly surprised. You can get two bed one bath one large living space and full kitchen at that size.
You really are subject for deletion.
We gave up. ☹️
Same, it's just not likely we'll ever own a home around here.
I feel you and I’m sorry. Right there with ya. Hugs.
Youre kidding?! Well, Im definitely scared now lol
It was really hard to adjust our expectations. I was depressed for months about it. Try to manage your expectations and realize it’s super rough out there and just take your time, I hate saying this but don’t get your hopes up and you will feel better if/when you do get your win.
It is totally doable and possible to buy a house right now. But you should be prepared to have a lot of cash on hand, a huge down payment, and maybe not being able to get exactly what you’re looking for.
We are doing 20% down but unfortunately we just dont have any cash on hand besides that 20% so Im nervous
There are all kinds of costs / things that you will need after buying a house, I would save some extra as well.
Oh I know, this isnt my first time buying a home. But both me and my fiance just got very substantial pay increases so Im not worried about the costs once we're in. It's just having cash on hand in this exact moment that is an issue. Weve got 100k but itll be basically just our downpayment and closing costs with that extra appraisal cash thing people are doing now
22ab is the appraisal cash thing. Just learned about it
That's enough but a lot of stuff is going for on average of 40K over asking.
I’m sorry, I’m not trying to make you feel nervous or any other type of way. I’m only giving my side of the story, which is one sided and biased towards me, lol. I do know I’m not the only one in this boat though.
If you find yourself being outbid and thinking about what you could have afforded with the money you have now a few years ago and think, shit, for this much I could have got XYZ 4 years ago, and other similar trains of thought, try to just take a step back, look at what you’re doing, and re-evaluate.
It will help to reassess your expectations, your down payment money, the market, why you are buying a house (!), where you are looking for a house, is your realtor helping or hindering (my teacher brain is showing 😝), could you live without ABC or is it a must have, do you think the market will cool down, if so, would you be getting yourself in over your head right now, are you wanting to sell in a few years? All things to think about and many more I’m sure.
Research, relax, do some self care, don’t pressure yourself, prioritize, and communicate. You got this!
Best of luck to you!
No, thank you, I appreciate your honesty! Thanks so much!
You’re welcome. May your wings take dream!
FYI, you can get loans with as low as 5-10% down. These are non-FHA loans, but you'll still need to pay PMI until you have a ~80% loan to value. And you can get prelim loan approval... if you haven't already.
In some cases you can prepay the PMI at closing at a substantial savings
Yup!
I bought my first place 10 years ago with a 0% down mortgage from Navy Federal Credit Union that didn’t require any PMI. They still offer a similar 0% down loan today. I’ve since sold that place, and bought my current home with a conventional 30 year loan, which I just refinanced down to a 15 year loan, both from them.
Anyone who’s had a parent, grandparent, spouse, child, or grandchild in any branch of the military can open an account. They are not restricted to just active duty/retired military.
We bought in March, looking in the $400K-$600K range. The market was hot but not at its peak. We put in an offer on one house- above asking, but not enormously so- and got beaten by somebody who offered even more. Strongly considered an offer on another but the seller obviously knew which way the wind was blowing and their disclosures omitted issues that you could see just by walking the place so we passed on making an offer. Finally we offered on the house we ended up buying and I think we just got lucky in that the listing photos were during the earlier phases of construction and the listing itself was pretty sparse on details- so I don’t think it was attracting as much attention as it could have. We offered exactly at asking, waived the inspection during the contingency period, and are instead planning to do an inspection before the warranty period expires (it’s new construction so there’s a 1-yr developer’s warranty on it). Ours was the last home to be sold in the development so I think the developer was happy to just be done with it.
We ended up spending in the middle of our range. I found that the houses in the low end of our range were the most dramatically overpriced which is why we ended up having to spend closer to the middle. Sixteen days from the time we engaged with our realtor to the date our offer was accepted, and then we closed in about 30 days.
Thanks for this! Sounds like you guys lucked out, couldve certainly been a more painful process.
It was definitely stressful even if not super painful. A better realtor probably would have made it less stressful but unfortunately we had to do quite a bit of the legwork ourselves. Everything is just moving so fast that unless your realtor is super on top of it you’re going to have to really dedicate a lot of time to the search yourself.
Just a heads up, the first and last houses in a community tend to be the worst in terms of build quality. The first homes while all the trades are getting used to the layouts and everything, and the end everyone is fatigued and ready to start a new project.
Don't be surprised if your 11mo inspection turns up some interesting things.
East Vancouver?
No, although the first house we offered on was in Cascade Highlands. It ultimately sold for $10K over asking.
On the brightside our homes are worth 80k more in a span of 4 months.
Not so good on taxes, but nice to have the potential ROI so early.
Unless you know for sure you are going to downsize either in quality/location/quantity of house in the future, there is no ROI for your primary residence. Well, I guess there is if you take out a HELOC and invest it.
Very unlikely you'll own you first house for longer than 10 years. So that ROI will pay off when it sells but who knows how much a house will be at that time.
That’s my point. People’s subsequent houses are usually “better” than their first house, unless they are retiring and maybe buying a smaller house or moving to a worse location.
If you buy a smaller house at $400k in 2020, then the house you wanted which was $600k in 2020 will most certainly increase in price more than the $400k house.
Not all locations share the same issues. But it depends on the job and occupation surrounding that location. So worse is a very subjective word.
We are downsizing from two homes (ours and my MIL’s). In May we started looking for a new house with a walkout basement so there is room for all three of us.
We were allegedly in a bidding war for a house in Ridgefield that was for sale at $580k. The realtor finally told us to come back with an offer as close to $700k as we could, which seemed ridiculous so we backed out. That house ended up selling for $610k, which was less than we bid (full cash offer from us). So there were definitely some realtor shenanigans going on. Probably trying to drive up the price and it blew up in their face.
Then we moved on to a house in Mt Vista selling for $525k. We bought it in two days for $585k (all cash offer again, and we beat out at least two other offers).
My MIL’s house sold before we even listed it. The realtor we bought the Mt Vista house from had a couple from Arizona that needed a place. So we sold that in a day for $412k.
Then we just sold our house in Salmon Creek for $515k. That actually took a couple weeks because we had an original buy that backed out when some idiot that works for the city of Vancouver told the buyer that any house in the entire Salmon Creek region was “prone to serious and possibly devastating erosion”. We relisted it and sold it in a couple more days.
I’ve bought and sold a few homes in my days and have never, ever seen a market anything like this. Not even when we were buying a house in Arizona in 2006 at the peak of the housing bubble. The realtors now are somewhat predatory and it seems like a lot of them are trying to drive up the prices even more than the market allows.
That’s a great question that their realtor could not answer for us. Perfect inspection. Good assessment. None of it made sense.
Yep. We assumed they just found another house they liked better and needed any excuse they could cook up.
Welcome to Mt. Vista. The HOA sucks
I don’t mind it much so far. They might even be a little more lax than our last HOA. One of those ladies straight up told us (and another neighbor) to move out of the neighborhood.
I freaking hate HOA's.
That's a very depressing story. You were doing the lord's work there. Too bad the devil won.
Yep. COVID made sane people into assholes. Nothing but time on their hands and staring at 4 walls does things to people. I was called a communist, accused of being being paid to be president, and that we operated in secret to the detriment of the neighborhood.
Now I just grab a beer during our Zoom HOA meetings, and laugh my ass off watching people fumble through holding a simple meeting (last meeting took 20 minutes to get to the first agenda item "approve last meetings minutes".)
Have you seen the non usable pool that you pay for?
That shit is a joke. That entire rec building/area is terrible. I kinda can’t wait until the first in person HOA meeting so I can have someone tell me to my face why that area is good for the community.
If you want to form a neighborhood HOA Coup, let me know. I have thought of running, becoming president, then dissolving all the rules.
My parents did this twice to an HOA when I was a kid in the complex I grew up in. It can be done!
Speaking my language right there.
Also checking in from Mt. Vista, I could support this.
Someone in our neighborhood told us to move out too. I hate people!
Yeah, I didn’t want to pay over value, but we’re stuck behind the eight ball of an elderly MIL that just can’t live on her own anymore. We put it off since last March when the pandemic started. Not everyone is doing it just to throw money around but thanks for the fuck you anyway, I guess.
lmao I love all the "why are you buying a house now, you idiot" people. Like, maybe, I actually... need a place to live? I mean, even at these ridic prices, an apartment with AC rent is comparable to a mortgage on a house with actual bedrooms. Im heat intolerant so I HAVE to live in a "luxury" apartment with AC and im just tossing money out the window anyway.
And im not really convinced there is going to be a crash like people are expecting. I think its going to stabilize out instead, hopefully at slightly lower prices, but not astronomically lower like I think a lot of people are expecting. And the interest rates will rise sooo how much lower is it going to get in order to have that even out?
I agree, this isn’t just a bubble. It’s high inflation.
I'm waiting for the bottom to fall out, and I'm going to laugh my fucking ass off.
Hate to tell you, but there's going to be no magical decrease in prices. People are buying houses they can afford. There's nothing like 2008 where the houses were being bought as speculative assets and not owner occupied.
And by the way "when the bottom falls out", it's taking you, me and everyone else with it. A rapid decrease in housing prices would be disastrously locally (and nationally). You wouldn't be sitting on the sidelines laughing buying up a great house, you'd be screwed just like the rest of us as lending stops, people lose jobs, and local governments are forced to slash services.
That's what house hunters need to do, in my opinion. Because the bottom will fall out.
Did you have to pay 6% to the realtor when selling?
No, we worked that down since the realtor was doing three houses in a couple months.
So you know it sounds like you're being swindled by a realtor, fire the realtor. Go to a builder and buy a home in construction. Safest bet. Just be sure to check on the construction weekly and hire your own inspector.
You can’t fire another person’s realtor though. It’s not our realtor that is driving prices up for us. It’s other people’s realtors.
Yes, there was a home listed for 299k in Gladstone, and when we asked our realtor what that was all about, she said that agent has really irritated others in the profession because it was actually an auction and not a serious asking price. We knew something was off because it was a REALLY nice home in Gladstone. It sold for 545k.
Looking in the 450-600 range. Shopping all year, but not willing to go into a bidding war. Most recent rejection was $490k we bid $510 on, went for $580 or so. Be patient and wait it out. Don't listen to realtors who tell you to jump on it now and pay way more, that's what they want. Supply is steadily ticking up, and homes are staying on the market longer, and not commanding huge premiums as they were a couple months back. Pay attention to days on market and if a home has survived 1 or 2 weekends without pending.
I sold an "starter home" in April and we received 34 offers in the 4 days we had it listed.
Jesus fucking Christ. That’s all I can say.
My buddy and his wife bought a new construction cookie cutter home just last month as first time home buyers. Their process was fairly painless.
This is basically the best/only way to guarantee you'll be able to buy a home in today's market. Find a new subdivision, get a contract with the builder, and have them build you a cookie cutter new construction home. Also best if it's with one of the local builders and not a national outfit.
My dude also got in before lumber went to stupid price levels, his design is already selling for 40k more for a new one.
Do you know what builder they went with?
LGI Homes I think the 'neighborhood name' is 5th plain creek station
We’d been actively looking since January and got an offer accepted just last week. So … prepare to wait. This was our 6th or 7th offer.
Holy crap. If its not too inappropriate to ask, what was your guys price range?
Not the poster above but my wife and I were hunting in the 400-450 range. We put in about 10 offers over 26 weeks.
475-575k. We were focused on Camas School District.
Probably 80% of the things we saw went for at least $25k over list, some as much as $80k.
We started in March/April with a maximum budget of $450k
We were aggressively putting in offers but were constantly being beat out by investors w/ all-cash or people willing to skip inspections/repairs/appraisals. It's going to be our first home, so we weren't comfortable purchasing under those kinds of conditions even when the sellers gave us the opportunity to adjust our offers to remove them.
BUT We finally got under contract a couple of weeks ago and are expected to close in <3weeks if things continue to go smoothly! We're probably paying a more inflated cost given the current market, but we made sure not to compromise on our estimated monthly costs and we're just happy to be on this side of the process.
For anyone trying to a buy a home right now, especially first-time home-buyers, I feel for you. The process is really hard and starts to feel very defeating when you’re constantly giving it your all. This is all anecdotal, but I do think things are softening a little bit. I’ve been seeing a few more price drops as of recent (compared to the 2 I saw for ALL of May and June).
We put at least one offer in every week (sometimes two depending on timing) starting Mid-January until like March? I think the highest we ever went was 55k over asking. It's incredibly hard to compete with all cash offers when you only have financing. That was continually what we lost out to even if we had higher bids.. We wound up getting our house because it was being sold as part of a bankruptcy and they were required to take the highest offer. We also offered to pay 15k cash if it underappraised, which the realtor said helped seal the deal. The good news is the house actually overappraised so we didn't end up having to deplete all of our accounts to come up with that cash 😅
Everyone always says you end up with the house you're meant to get and while I wanted to punch all those people in the face during the process...looking back I love our house more than all the other ones we put offers on. It was worth the effort.
6 months. Every single weekend for 6 months we were house hunting.
We had to offer about 50k over but we finally landed one near downtown.
Same
How many bedrooms?
What. No way. We're in your price range buy haven't seen anything for 4 bedrooms in since April. Where is it about? Is it outside Vancouver?
Ok now that makes sense. Yah I didn't want to pay hoa or parking space. Our budget is 1900 mortgage payment p&I, mortgage insurance, hazard insurance and tax
Thats awesome. We got our offer accepted! Inspection is tomorrow!
One offer, 50k above asking. Put it in within 48 hours of the house going on the market, and narrowly got the house. The actual process from that point on took about 1 month for the paperwork to be sorted, moving in later this week.
I was struggling to beat cash bidders in 2016, I feel sad for anyone trying to do it today
I've lived here for almost 30 years. My wife and I are finally in a position to buy a house, have $30k saved up for a deposit, took the first time homebuyer's class, got all excited to buy, then watched the market for a month and sadly I don't think we'll ever be able to afford a home in this area.
Apparently I got really lucky/bought at a really good time because my process was a breeze - my price range was anything under $425k. I toured 6 houses on 12/19. Had 2 that I wanted to make an offer on, but one of them already had an offer that they were close to accepting and it was my second choice anyways, so I passed. Made an offer the next day on 12/20 (it was listed on 12/15), and it was accepted. My offer was for list with inspection and financing contingency. Then everything else went pretty smooth, we actually ended up getting it for below list because the inspection showed that the roof needed to be replaced in the next couple of years, so we negotiated a lower sale price as well as seller paid closing costs. Closed on 1/29.
I think it helped that the listing had terrible pictures and was mistakenly listed as an attached home, so it wasn't as popular. Plus the timing so close to Christmas I think meant not a lot of people were house shopping?
A lot has change from Dec. Prices started taking off around late Feb.
Prices have been taking off for 2+ years. A lot of homes have doubled in appraised value in just the last few years. The last sold price I found for homes on the street we ended up buying on were a quarter to a third of the listing price of the one we bought, some as recently as five years prior. We searched for the entire last half of last year and closed in December. Most things were going for cash. Everything was going for at least 20% over asking. I have no idea how we got the place we did. We were the only offer on it but the appraisal came out perfect.
Yup. I struggle when I bought 4 yrs ago. I kept getting out bid. I finally got a house because I knew my coworkers parents were planning to list. We did a FSBO transaction. Worked well for both parties.
I been keeping track of the market since I hope to sell in the next few months. The price difference from Dec compared to March is crazy. I feel bad for the FSHB.
We stumbled upon our house, seller listed it Labor Day weekend so I think a lot of people were on vacation and we lucked out. Listing price, had some sewer issues that the seller paid for. Ended up paying $450k and the house is worth now around $520k. We are downtown Vancouver in the hough neighborhood, absolutely bananas.
We started looking in November, and had an offer accepted in March. It was our 5th offer I think. Every time we offered 10% above asking. We were looking at 3 bed/2 bath single family homes for less than 500.
ETA- also any halfway decent house would be listed on Thursday or Friday, offers due by Sunday, and an offer accepted by Monday. It moves very fast.
Holy crap lmao the Gods of realty really favored y’all. But at least there’s some hope!
700k houses go slower, getting into lots of money past this, at this time anyway. So not so much a unicorn.
Not that much slower from what I’ve seen at least. Good houses are gone within a week…at least in Fishers Landing/Camas.
We close on Friday.
First offer: $475k list, we offered $525k and were supposedly beat by a $575k all-cash offer.
Second offer: $425k list, we offered $450k and then withdrew the offer the next morning when we realized we were compromising. The house went to Pending on Redfin later that day.
Third offer: listed at $450k, we offered $500k then changed it to $480k with $20k towards a low appraisal. Offer was accepted, ended up appraising at $460k. Supposedly they got offers of over $500k.
Just a note of caution for all of those waiting on the side-lines thinking that this is a bubble. I lived in Silicon Valley from late 80s til 2019 and went through at least three cycles. For every cycle everyone kept saying that it was a bubble and it'll pop (that did happen once during the 2008 recession but came back stronger than before).
The way I see it is that given a lot of tech, as well as other, companies that has a good percentage of employees that are able to work remote, this is going to be the new normal for a while, until the work/lifestyle shuffle board slows down.
This seems to be a perfect storm of:
1) Folks living in major tech centers that are tired of the crap surrounding and has major equity in their tiny little homes
2) Tech and other high-pay companies allowing more flexible and remote work
3) The relative cost of real estate here (as well as the attraction of our location) - which is starting to resemble some popular suburbs of tech centers - is still very doable for folks migrating from major tech hubs
I just wanna know who the hell is buying these houses at crazy prices with cash?
Investors from what I’ve seen. People who wanna rent it out
Leaving folks who need homes and trying to get away from high rental prices to struggle. So friggin sad.
It’s downright evil of them
I rent a 3 bedroom with 2 full baths. It is currently valued at 600k...
I'll never own a house.
We bought our house last summer after making 6 offers and searching for 3 full months. We were seeing multiple homes a week but had the same issues - being outbid by cash investors or those who had more of a down payment than we did. The home we ended up purchasing we initially lost out on due to being outbid, but they backed out and we were contacted and submitted another offer on it and it was accepted. We got lucky. Prices are just skyrocketing here. Even after only a year, we’re noticing the home prices for mid-size homes jump by $50-$60k.
My advice would be to keep saving up, keep going to see homes and keep putting in offers. Find a realtor that is determined and will stick this out with you. Just be patient and consistent. I know it can be a frustrating and disappointing process (especially after so many rejected offers), but just hang in there.
You could also look at areas a little bit farther out, such as Ridgefield, Battle Ground, Washougal, etc. where you will likely have better luck and get more bang for your buck in terms of housing and property. We didn’t want to go that far out, so for us it was worth it to wait, but that’s another option.
Either way, I feel for you and wish you the best in your home buying journey!
We close on Friday.
First offer: $475k list, we offered $525k and were supposedly beat by a $575k all-cash offer.
Second offer: $425k list, we offered $450k and then withdrew the offer the next morning when we realized we were compromising. The house went to Pending on Redfin later that day.
Third offer: listed at $450k, we offered $500k then changed it to $480k with $20k towards a low appraisal. Offer was accepted, ended up appraising at $460k. Supposedly they got offers of over $500k.
Bought my first house last year. Started seriously looking in July (had lurked on listing sites for a while and was getting some listing sent from a realtor, but July is when we first went to see things in person).
We saw 5-10 houses in person, and put offers down on 3-5 of them, and were lucky enough to be accepted for one in September. Everything was finalized the first week of October, so the whole process was under four months.
I had done a lot of preparation beforehand (talking with lender and realtor, getting documents ready, figuring out our actual comfortable limit vs hard limit in terms of cost and what the house had, that sort of thing), which I think helped speed it up.
You'll probably need to go a little chunk over asking, so don't search for houses in your budget - search for houses 2-10% below your budget so you can offer more and still afford the payments comfortably.
I think ours was accepted because of the additional conditions we added to the offer (willing to go over appraisal up to a certain amount, escalator addendum, won't ask sellers to make any repairs under certain amount, etc). Ultimately I think we did get lucky, because we could have easily still been looking to this day.
Hope that helps!
I’m so sorry to hear this! One thing I’m trying to be conscious of is feelings of desperation and whether they’re clouding my judgement. I try to look at each house as if it’s a real possibility for us in a normal market. I’ve def walked away from plenty for not meeting my standards
Am I the only one who thinks that DT pushed interest rates as low as possible so that his assets would gain value? I’m pretty sure we are in a massive, unsustainable bubble of housing investments that will be a huge crash at some point. Once prices go down, all of the investors will play a game of chicken until there’s a ton of Airbnb’s losing money and coming onto the market.
The federal reserve decides interest rates, not the president(or Congress for that matter). Trump had no real say in the interest rates, that was all Jerome Powell.
But apparently everyone just does whatever trump says with no question. It’s quite obvious he was behind it since he was harping on it for so long, even with a good economy.
Except they only dropped when covid popped up, were low throughout Obama's presidency, and were on the rise through trumps until covid. Rates got dropped because the Fed fucked up in 2008 and didn't want to repeat the same mistake. Furthermore, jpow was nominated to the Fed board by Obama in 2012 prior to trump nominating him to the head spot(and being confirmed bipartisanly both times). You're attributing shit to trump that he had 0 hand in making. It took a global pandemic to get what he was asking for after 3 years straight of getting the exact opposite of what he wanted. If the Fed was "just doing whatever trump says with no question" why on earth did they wait for a global pandemic to do it?
Trump was pushing for lower interest rates loooong before COVID. They dropped before the pandemic.
They were going up from the end of 2015 until the end of 2019, and didn't drop like a rock until the pandemic. But yeah, it was all trump😂. Just because he was pushing for it doesn't mean that's why it happens, fed dicks with interest rates to keep the economy floating and keep inflation in check, not to cater to the whims of an orange in a suit. Rates historically go up and down all the time, it's just been the last decade and a half that they've basically stagnated at rock bottom.
They’ve been steadily going down since 1980, and boomers have been able to capitalize on that. Trump managed to get interest rates back under 2% long before 2020 began. It was not all the pandemic and no amount of fluff from you can change that. I was following it very closely because I was trying to buy a house, so don’t fuck with me. Trump pushed them lower even in “the best economy ever”. It is basically just handing them/him wealth on a shiny silver platter.
Few months isn't "long before"😂😂😂. And they went under 2% from 2.5, over a few months, compared to dropping to 0 in a day. And no amount of fluff from.you can change the fact that rates were lower during Obama's years, and rising through 3/4 of trumps. Or that Trump didn't push a damn thing lower. The drop prior to the pandemic was due to inflation(as that's one of the feds primary jobs, to keep inflation rolling but within a certain percentage), not trumps whining. Correlation doesn't equal causation.
Trump pushed for cutting interest rates for nearly 2 years before the pandemic. He also invented a trade war to destabilize the economy so the fed would lower rates. The fed lowered rates and Trump's properties got a value increase, along with all of the other boomers who were handed wealth. It isnt rocket science.
And yet rates continued to go up during the trade war and while he was begging for rate cuts. Trade war also wasnt started to get the Fed to lower rates😂, that was pure blatant pandering to his base. But go on with your mental gymnastics, it's fun to watch someone with no clue how the basics of the economics they're talking about work be so confidently incorrect. Your statement about rocket science just makes it even funnier, cause you're right about it not being rocket science. rocket science is easier, with less variables to finagle, than economics. None of this works the way you're trying to say. Last response I'm giving, cause while it's been fun, I don't feel like trying to explain it anymore to someone with their head buried in the sand.
That's a pretty spot-on observation.
Never tried. This market is absurd.
I’ve been looking for 2 years and have put in 15 offers most over asking and have been continuously outbid many with cash offers. I haven’t “given up” necessarily, but I don’t waste my realtors time anymore unless it’s one I’m for sure going to put an offer in on.
2.5 years. Not kidding.
The market really only got stupid in the last year. Why couldn't you come up with something before that?
- Not true at all.
- What are you smoking?
Lmao dude I bought a house 2.5-3 years ago. The market was nothing then like it is now. From mid 2020 on the market is extremely tough i have nothing but sympathy for anyone trying to buy now.. but before that? Either you were not financially equipped or your expectations are all out of whack.
- The only way I was able to afford a house was because my mom died of cancer.
- Good for you getting “lucky” on the housing market. It was much worse then than it was even 2 years before that.
I'm sorry about your mom. But I worked for it and had a down payment and bought a cheap small house. It wasn't me getting "lucky"
Just wait it out. You will 100% regret buying at the retarded market peak we have right now.
People have been saying this since 2015 in the Portland metro.
Instead, better advice is people should buy when it makes personal and financial sense for them. The rest is white noise. If you plan on staying at least 5 years (which you should if you're buying) small fluctuations won't end up mattering.
I'm in AZ currently and spent a week up there looking at homes and putting in offers. I was low on time and wouldn't be able to make another trip up anytime soon so I was motivated with my offers. I ended up getting the 2nd house I offered on in Battle Ground. Was listed at $455k and I got it at 475k over two other offers. I didn't waive inspection but said we wouldn't ask for any repairs not required by my loan (FHA), the others apparently waived it altogether. Appraisal is on the 26th so we will see how that goes, I offered to come 7k out of pocket if it's low.
The first house I offered on was listed at $450 and I offered 475. The winning bid on that one was $510k with up to 25k out of pocket if the appraisal was low. Great house but goddamn that's a lot to come out of pocket.
If it isn’t super urgent id honestly wait until the market crashes. You’re going to be stressed as hell putting as much money as you can down on a house against rich ass Californians just to inevitably lose half of it in a year or so when the market catches up to itself.
The market will slow down but it will not crash. See: California
Uhm… I’m Californian… 😬 but if I was rich this thread wouldn’t exist lol. We moved because I’m chronically ill and heat intolerant and was trapped inside six months of the year in the Central Valley.
I’ll prob get a lot of animosity in this thread now lmao but might as well be honest. I wish more of that animosity was on investors that are clearly buying up rentals to mark up at ridic prices. I’m just trying to find a home to live in within a town I’ve fallen head over heels in love with and allows me to go outside all year round
Don't ever feel bad for saying you're from California. Anybody that actually complains about Californians moving to this area are rude dickheads, and honestly nobody you want to associate with anyway.
Just wait for the bubble to burst
"Try to time the market" is pretty much the worst financial advice possible.
“Buy 1,500sqft with a converted garage in rose village for $400k” is pretty much he worst financial advice possible.
Clark County increased 3% in population in one year last year.
Clark County is the cheapest county in the entire west coast west of the Cascades/San Fernando Valley with more than 450k people.
People are moving to Clark County, and you are seeing the result. Unless Clark County starts losing residents, the housing prices will remain stable, if not increase.
1 day. flew in, saw some houses and put in an offer
Not sure if this helps, but it took 3 months for us to buy a house in 2019.
We sold our house last September and we had 16 offers in two days, house sold for 15k over asking.
My neighbor just sold her 2 bedroom 2 bath duplex for 228k cash offer, was listed for 225k. Its doable, but really really hard out there.
8 offers from October-December 2020 between Vancouver and the suburbs outside of Portland. Shopped in the $400-$500k range, but needed an ADU or walkout basement for my mom. Bid at least 10% over asking each time, 20% down, and appraisal gap most times. Conventional loan, did not waive any contingencies. We ended up finding a beautiful home FSBO, toured as soon as it hit the market, and put an offer in just over asking to cover our agent’s commission since the sellers wanted to be able to receive the full listing price. Inspection and appraisal came back as good as we could expect, which meant we had no need to negotiate on price any further. Quick close and both parties happy. After all the disappointment, it really felt nice to have something so perfect fall into place.
Was looking throughout the pandemic but was located in Phoenix. Was having trouble finding what we wanted and when we did we were to slow. We found several spec homes from builders finishing up their subdivision. The home was originally scheduled for completion in December but it wasn’t done until February. Moved in on Easter Day. The builder sold all of their spec homes within a month. There was no outside advertising it was on the builders web page. We know we lucked out. Our lender offered us a home equity loan with $50k more than we put down one week after we closed. The lender emails us with monthly updates on the value of the home and according to them it has gained $80k since February.
My company transferred me here from Arkansas in late April. I didn’t want to spend a lot of time getting outbid by people since I saw how fast this things were going pending and I needed to get my family out here. I looked at houses for 3 days with my realtor. Already had financing nailed down and exact specifications of what I wanted and price range. Put an offer for $10,000 over asking and it was accepted on a house right at border of Vancouver and Camas. Moved in July 1. So maybe I got lucky getting one on my first try.
Ahhh you’re the only other lucky one monther ive seen! But this gives me some hope haha
it wasn't this year but we started last year around end of may and closed in september 2020
Took my parents 8 weeks to find a house. They were bidding anywhere from 25k-60k over asking price with cash. Their price range was 550k-650k. They lost to higher cash bids on the first 4-5 and then finally won this one by 2k. Crazy market!
I'm not buying but I had a kid that was going door to door trying to find a property to buy and I was like... 'Is this the state of the market here?'
Got lucky, bought the second house I looked at. Undesirable to anyone with kids (busy street, only 1 bathroom) so I got it under market plus concessions. Closing took 2 months because of repairs.
A little over 3 months of actively looking every week, but we didn't get it outright. The original winner (lol, feels like a sweepstakes) overpromised on contingencies and couldn't deliver when the house came in under appraisal. We were second in line so we ended up lucking out. Still feels like a fluke.
I looked at probably 100 homes before buying last year. Can’t imagine how wild it is now.
It’s not a local issue. Big investor companies are moving their cash out of the stock market and into real estate nationally. Because renters pay out more than what they see in 5r stock market. I honestly expect a big crash soon due to hedge fund fraud.
Had the first offer accepted at asking and I think we got lucky with a couple of things:
- Pictures online honestly didn’t do the house justice. They didn’t include pictures of a number of amenities and storage areas so I could see people online just skipping it.
- Got super lucky with timing - they had an offer with a ton of contingencies that they had just walked away from and the sellers needed to sell quickly. Luckily we were in a position to limit contingencies, but didn’t waive inspection. When you find a property that didn’t sell in one weekend, a bunch of questions come up but thankfully with this property it was just the seller not wanting to agree to the original offer’s contingencies.
- We’re a little further out than expected, but really loving where we ended up.
- We were obsessive in our house hunt and reviewed properties as they popped up online. Not the healthiest approach but we were able to make quick decisions and worked with a realtor that was happy to make appointments quickly.
On the other hand - it took my brother buying in the Portland suburbs 6 months and almost 10 offers to get a house and their offer was only accepted because the seller was on good terms with their next door neighbor, who happened to be my SIL’s best friend and they were willing to rent back for 2 months. It can really run the gamut.
As a side note from the seller’s side - a big factor in the offer chose when selling our house depended on how responsive the buyer’s realtor was and the confidence that the offer could close. Even when some offers come in crazy high, some people were using lenders our realtor never heard of (risk of delays in closing or having odd stipulations, etc) or the buyers agent was unresponsive, sending in paperwork on the wrong property (disorganized) or otherwise unpleasant to try to work with. All of that to say - as a buyer, make sure you have full faith in the realtor you choose to advocate in your best interests in an effective manner.
I got really lucky and started looking around last July. A house popped up walking distance away got to check it out and put in an offer shortly after to which they accepted! Ended up closing in September. Listing was for $400k ended up paying $390k.
Edit: don’t give up keep looking and saving any cent you can along the way. And don’t believe the fear of a market crash and all that crap. End of the day people need a place to live!
we went new build because we kept getting outbid. so about 9 months to finally get into our house.
We made over 10 offers and it took a year and a half to buy a home. I’m glad we got in when we did, because our house is now worth 100k more than it’s last appraisal… Realtor said buyers are making cash offers in houses 1 million and up. When those are gone they will start buying old ones and having them knocked down. Get in now before it goes up more…
Went across the Columbia and still ended up maxing our budget. For a condo.
Inspector here - hearing from my agent friends, they've had anywhere from 6 weeks to 6 months. I think basically everyone has either lucked out an had a list price offer accepted (or lower for condos in the pearl), or is in the 70k+ over range. Worst I heard was 250k over asking, on a 600k house. Worst i've been a part of was 150k over on a 550k house.
Lately i've been hearing more people getting less ridiculous offers accepted, but for the most part, 70k+ is the starting point. Seems like inventory is slowly increasing, but I don't see a big change happening anytime soon. So just keep at it, and eventually you'll find something worthwhile.
We lucked out.. after meeting our second realtor we got an offer accepted within about 10 days.
The house we loved just went on the market that same day we saw it and we put in an offer the next day with a letter included.
We ended up paying 15k over listing. Had one party outbid us by 10k but they actually loved our letter and chose to close with us!
Best of luck — total shark show out there.
11 offers lmao. This is our first home. Ppl waive inspections, drop cash on you. Persistence above all! An absolute dystopia.
Look for houses that look unkempt or vacant and look up the owners on Clark County’s website. This is what happened to the house behind mine. It had been vacant for over a year. A guy in the neighborhood noticed the rundown appearance and tall grass, looked up the owner, wrote him a letter and offered to buy it. Owner sold it to him without it ever being publicly listed. New owner has started renovating it and plans to turn it into a rental.
Started in April for our first house, we're locals.
Price range up to 340k 3bed
4 offers total, won the 3rd offer due to their first offers contingencies, owners have renters not moving out till mid August. Only 2 offers on the house and they didn't want to relist. We also lucked out because this house went online on 4th of July weekend. Most people were out of town. Actually got the call about the 3rd house while waiting to see if we got accepted for the 4th house.
First house we offered on had 14 offers, 2nd had 8, 3rd had 2, 4th had 6?. So the offers were definitely going down in numbers. We looked at around 10 houses probably, didn't want to waste my realtors time on houses we didn't think we would win. We won mostly because we didn't have a move in date.
Inspection is tomorrow hopefully all goes well then appraisal time. Expected closing is aug 20th due.
Good luck.
Forgot.to mention we offered around 20k over each time. 2k 22ab (that's all we had). And no move in date.
Got qualified for $250k, every house I made an offer on I was outbid by $30k or more.
I bought in 2017 and it took a year, went under contract 3 times all the way through inspection. Cannot even remember how many actual offers we put in first though, double digits at least. Constantly beat out by all-cash (though usually it was big corporations from over seas rather than the Californians everyone here seems so up in arms about) offers, but after everything we are so grateful we got the house we did and not any of the others we saw before. I would love to move in the next couple of years but I don't think I'll ever be afford to buy again the way things are looking, it's crazy out there all you can do it keep trying though.
We bought last year. It basically came down to dumb luck. We happened to look last July and found a move-in ready house near downtown (no HOA) for around $275,000. Everything else in that price range we saw, and have seen since, was a condo. We had been saving for years and it just felt like the right time to buy. There were at least 10 other offers on the place in 24hrs that we know of, and our wasn’t even the best. I don’t really even know how it worked out since it was our first and only offer, which just... doesn’t happen. I think the people selling were a young couple and so are we, and I am convinced our realtor did an excellent job of selling us. Our neighbor told me that we are basically identical to the couple who used to live here, which I found fascinating.
TL;DR Make sure you are a literal clone of the existing owners, apparently. Having a realtor who can sell your situation is helpful. Also dumb luck.
Hey! First off good luck! I bought out on the way east side ( mil plain probably more camas still have Vancouver address). I had to put 50k over the offer 500 instead of 450 selling price, but the listing was up 2 days. Boggled my mind. First house I saw on redfin was up on Thursday and removed Friday with 8 offers. 😭 The struggle is real, but if you're in a space you can be safe, make sure you try and buy something you'll be happy with. Everything I'm reading is people are rushing just to get a home and then being unhappy later. I passed on several homes in my price range because I knew it wasn't what I wanted at all. You'll get the right house!
Question for you, did you do just 50k over asking with no appraisal gap? Or did you say if it underappraised you would pay the difference in cash?
Sooo I am new the home buying and did it all through redfin. The one thing I learned is redfin helps the buyer and seller, and are only looking for the highest closing cost so they get the highest amount. My agent told me to put 50k down more than the asking price. Then they had me sign a 22ad and put money on that. The 22ad guarantees the seller a portion of appraisal gap money . Because yup, the house came back appraised at even less than 450, so I still had to pay a chunk of the difference. All things considered, it was still less than 500k which is what I was going for, and the whole thing took less than 30 days because they pushed everything quicky saying I only had a day or 2 to sign and if i do it quickly I'll get 1k off.. It felt crazy fast and rushed. but glad to have a place i can call my own. I think if I buy again I'll find an independent agent, but Redfin did make it fast and easy.
Got it, interesting, hadn’t heard of anyone doing it solely on Redfin before!
They even did the mortgage and got me a 2.2% rate. But then 10 days after close they sold it to mr cooper. So that was weird, because i got all my log in stuff set up for redfin mortgage and they were like oh its changing!
I'm not in Vancouver but in Central Wa State. We started a month ago with a limit of 360K for a 3 bed 2 bath house. 4 offers and 3 rejections later, we got our offer accepted yesterday. At 32K over asking. Interested to see what the appraisal comes back at. Lol. Good luck! It's not impossible, just hard...
Appraisal will come back at your offer price, always does.....
You would have to be super outside of the average price to have it come in lower... And over your ask could happen but no more than 10% I would imagine.
Appraisal will come back at your offer price, always does.....
You would have to be super outside of the average price to have it come in lower... And over your ask could happen but no more than 10% I would imagine.
House was on the market for 2 days. Offered 300k on day 2. Mine was best offer out of 5. List price was $289,900. Closed in a month and a half.
Edit: this was Dec 2019/ Jan 2020
This was the first house I made an offer on. I had seen just a couple of others though
We got really lucky- we put in an offer in on the second house we saw because we fell in love with the property. This was last July and because the listing photos weren't very compelling and in rural La Center, I don't think there were any other showings and no competing offers. We offered 100k under listing (with no contingency on the sale of our old home) and settled on 60k under. We gave ourselves 3 weeks to find a house and we found it on our first outing with our agent. It was about a month and a half from first looking to move in.
We made five offers in a week and a half. Our realtor was super busy (but I think she appreciated our drive). We first started with homes we love, and then when we got a good taste of how competitive it is, we looked at the homes we hadn’t considered before, but would be okay with. We offered asking price and it was accepted that day. Our realtor put a 24 expiration on the offer and the sellers said OK! We were also using my VA loan eligibility, so we had very little cash, and closing times are a bit longer (40-45). Basically, we weren’t the most desirable type of buyer, but we managed to do it. I’d say start by setting your expectations a little lower and keep making offers. Redfin is a really good resource for appraised value (our appraisal was close to what Redfin had), and zilllow and Redfin are great resources to see what homes are selling for in any area. We didn’t land the perfect home, but we landed a perfectly nice home that we can have fun improving upon over the years. And we love it. Just keep swimming, eventually someone will bite.
Started looking last Nov, found a place in Brush Prairie I liked. Place was on the market for 2 days when I looked at it, made an offer the same day. This was around the middle of Dec. Was looking in the 500k range. I think I got the place because they just wanted to be finished with the sale and I offered asking price.