Tuesday, November 27, 2012

Holiday Buying


The inventory of available homes in east King County is at such low levels that it's driving up home prices and frustrating buyers alike.   If you have been looking for a home lately, you may have notice two things:  The good homes sell quickly and the really low bank owned homes are next to impossible to get. 

Those bank owned deals, the ones that are so under priced, are just getting eaten up by investors and buyers looking for a great deal.   Buyer frenzy is common and the prices get driven up and you have to put in an offer way over asking price to even have a chance. 

However, during Thanksgiving week, I showed and put in a bid for a client for one.  The home had just come out this week and was in very excellent condition and should go quickly but there wasn’t a lot of activity on it even though the bid ended the day after Thanksgiving.  Still waiting back on it, but I didn’t get a sense of any frenzy.

I was talking with another agent in the office today and they had put in an offer almost $25,000 over asking price, expecting a frenzy and didn’t want to be outbid again.  The listing agent asked why they put in such a high offer and after they explained about other missed deals, she said…”Not this week” it’s Thanksgiving, not very many offers came in”. 

Moral of the story:  A great deal doesn’t take a holiday or a vacation but your competition does!