Buying a house can be stressful. Who knew?

[groupw]

Realtor and oldest daughter toured houses for us yesterday. Daughter sent us videos with commentary. She is brutally honest! One had good features listed, but only 1 photo. After the tour, we know why. The video was hilariously honest! The realtor wants her to start a YouTube channel of some of the horror houses she has seen. 
From the tours available, we narrowed it down to 2 houses. We decided to make an offer on the last house. It had only been on the market for 24 hours and had 8 offers! We made an offer over list that the realtor felt was solid but fair. We had to scramble to get a pre-auth with the new job and income. Now we wait…

While it is our first choice, we are trying not to fall in love with it until they accept the offer. The biggest difference between the #1 and #2 is the 3 car garage. So if we don’t get first house we will offer right away on choice 2. The market was not near that competitive when we were buying 25 years ago..

[Ralphie ★]

Buying anything is stressful in direct proportion to the price!   

[maddmaxx ★]

From the horror stories I read you may be looking at choice #14 before you're done.  I wish you the best of luck though.

[Thaddeus Kosciuszko]

9 hours ago, groupw said:

The realtor wants her to start a YouTube channel of some of the horror houses she has seen. 

A fun idea but it might be a good idea to check with a lawyer before posting disparaging comments about someone's house, especially if the comments could depress the sale value.

Or, write up a hold harmless agreement for the realtor to sign where the realtor agrees to pay everything and anything that arises from putting 'horror' house videos on YouTube.  That will give you an idea of how committed the realtor is to the idea, once he/she holds the entire bag of responsibility.

(And good luck with the offer!)

[Airehead]

Good luck. 

[groupw]

9 hours ago, Philander Seabury said:

Buying anything is stressful in direct proportion to the price!   

 

3 hours ago, maddmaxx said:

From the horror stories I read you may be looking at choice #14 before you're done.  I wish you the best of luck though.

Several we liked online were sold before our agent could even get to them. 3 that were for sale the day we made the list for her to get showings we’re sold before they could set up a time. That’s why we have decided not to get too excited until an offer is accepted. 
On the good side, house #2 doesn’t seem to have quite the competition. If we lose out on #1, we feel confident we can get that one. Biggest differences from our perspective is #1 has a 3 car garage and a slightly nicer kitchen. 
Daughter and agent were a bit perplexed why #2 hadn’t sold as the price was fair. The listing agent for the house said some people were put off by the “herbal” smell in the house. My daughter is very sensitive to smells and doesn’t care for that scent. Even so she said it was barely noticeable. The owners evidently are willing to play for an ozone cleaning. I want the bigger garage, but I would be fine with #2 as well. 

[maddmaxx ★]

1 hour ago, groupw said:

 

Several we liked online were sold before our agent could even get to them. 3 that were for sale the day we made the list for her to get showings we’re sold before they could set up a time. That’s why we have decided not to get too excited until an offer is accepted. 
On the good side, house #2 doesn’t seem to have quite the competition. If we lose out on #1, we feel confident we can get that one. Biggest differences from our perspective is #1 has a 3 car garage and a slightly nicer kitchen. 
Daughter and agent were a bit perplexed why #2 hadn’t sold as the price was fair. The listing agent for the house said some people were put off by the “herbal” smell in the house. My daughter is very sensitive to smells and doesn’t care for that scent. Even so she said it was barely noticeable. The owners evidently are willing to play for an ozone cleaning. I want the bigger garage, but I would be fine with #2 as well. 

The only thing that would put me off in today's market is dead body smell.  Everything else can be fixed.

 

On the other hand you might want to check the yard for skunks.  

[groupw]

Update- someone beat our offer on house #1 so we are making an offer today on house #2. We are hoping that one won’t be as competitive. It seems 2 story houses are also not as desirable to some. Anyway. Wish us luck!

[Parsnip Totin Jack ★]

Good luck! We began the year in the same predicament. Houses closer in to DC were getting 12 bids over the asking price. As we couldn’t compete in that market our search moved further out. Two bids weren’t accepted including one that lost at the 11th hour. The bid we did win included an escalation clause to keep our bid on the table. Headaches and stress will keep us here for a while. Maybe for a long while. 

[MickinMD ★]

I was fortunate to avoid much house buying stress - except in searching among hard-to-find stuff when my burned-down house was rebuilt: the major appliances, siding, roof shingles, windows, doors, countertops, sinks, flooring, etc.  I spend weeks and weeks and weeks searching area stores and online and was able to get everything I wanted or something close to it, except I wanted Dutch-lap (bent) gray-blue siding and had to vertical (straight) siding.  Still looks great.

I was still living with mom and dad and took a couple years before deciding on  the first home I wanted to buy.  It was a fixer-upper selling for $80K in a $120K neighborhood because the daughter of the nursing-home-living owner let her drug-dealing sons live-in and trash the place.  I tore up the ugly wall to wall carpeting, sanded the beautiful hardwood floor underneath (my dad had worked doing that at some point and helped me), replaced the interior doors, painted the aluminum siding (a sponge applicator left it free of streaks!), and slowly cleared the broken beer bottles, etc. out of the lawn.  I was young enough that I had fun doing it and was an instant hit with the neighbors after what they had put up with.

Later, I considered buy a bigger house and yard but but then decided the extra work wasn't worth it, paid-off the mortgage, then downsized into our late parents' house when I retired, buying out my siblings' interests.

Then I had that fire and the rebuilt house is worth about $75,000 more than before.

[Kirby]

Good luck!

[Bikeguy]

Building a home in 2019 was stressful enough...   I don't want to do that again.... ever.   

We did sell our old home in less than a week in the late fall of 2019.  That was the beginning of the housing shortage.  We didn't get over the list price.  

Good luck...   finding a home to buy.  

[MoseySusan]

Housewarming on the horizon!