At this morning’s office meeting it was more of the same – Seattle area homes are flying off the market in the first time buyer range, especially in the low 300Ks. For the third successive week we had the busiest week of the year as far as deals turned in to the office.
The high end home market is a different story, especially over $1 million – many of those homes are sitting.
I have a number of clients who are thinking of selling in the mid-first time buyer range and buying into a higher end market. Even though prices have dropped around 19% overall since summer of 2007, selling in a strong market and buying into a weaker market at least sways the advantage in their favor. (As opposed to having to sell in a weak market and buy into a strong market.)
On a personal note, I just hung up with an agent after hearing, for the second time in 24 hours, that a home my clients were interested in had just received two offers. One home was in the mid $500Ks, not a short sale, and the other was a short sale in the mid $300Ks. Another agent in my office had three listings that all sold last week.
Considering how few people are in town this week (virtually no morning traffic on the freeways) this is especially surprising.
The bottom line? Finding the right house (aka, a good deal) all boils down to market value. What are you getting for your money? The cheapest home is not always the best deal. The more expensive home is not always the more valuable one.
Just yesterday I talked with some home buyer clients about how important it is to find a “Wow house:” one that when people walk up to it, or open the front door, their first reaction is a pleasantly surprised, “Oh! That’s nice.”
It’s an intangible feature, but one that translates into ‘ka-ching’ upon resale, and you can find it in homes of all price ranges. But it helps to know what you’re looking for.
That’s why it’s so irksome to hear people question the value of a buyer’s agent. Of course any dummy can find a home on the Internet, or let buyers into a listing.
Explaining to people what’s truly valuable or not valuable about the house they’re seeing (based on walking out of hundreds and hundreds of homes with buyers who are explaining exactly why they will or why they won’t buy the home), and helping them invest their hundreds of thousands of dollars into something that a) they will love to live in and that b) will appeal strongly to other buyers when it’s their turn to sell, is where the true value of a buyer’s agent lies.
(Please don’t get me started on agents who don’t even bother to show the home to their clients in the first place. 
)
