Oh, Please! (first of a series)
My job, as I see it, is to protect and educate my clients. This includes showing them both homes they should consider buying, as well as properties to avoid. It is often not obvious why a particular home should be avoided.
Last Sunday, I sent a couple to see a lovely home. What I explained to them beforehand was that this property, although sweet, was also the most expensive one in the neighborhood. This does not make for a good investment. My buyers agreed. Yet, only 2 days later, I saw it in the MLS (Multiple Listing Service) as a pending sale.
Recently, other buyers I am working with questioned me about a home they found on the Internet. I advised them that, although well priced, it had a daunting laundry list of deficiencies. Despite that it, too, was quickly in escrow.
My clients were grateful they were steered away from these properties. Mistakes like these often happen in a seller’s market, with its rapidly rising prices. This is when buyers, in order to “win” a house, compromise in ways that are not always to their benefit. In today’s buyer’s market, these mistakes are magnified given that they now have the option, if patient, to find a good value.
My observation is that not enough buyers take the time and make the effort to understand what they are buying. Without guidance, many act almost solely on emotion, not a good idea for one of the largest purchases they will ever make.