How do you buy a home in today's market? It is a seller's market, let's be honest with
that. But that doesn't mean you shouldn't buy a house. If it's the right time for you and your family to buy a house, it's time to buy a house. Especially if you're going to live in the home 10 years. The average person right now when they buy a home, they do stay in it for 10 years. In 10 years that home will appreciate. It might go down in the short term, but in 10 years you're going to make out.
So if now's the right time for you to own your own home, how do you do it in a seller's
market? Should you low ball a seller because they're going to price it high. Sometimes, I mean, if you're the only offer going in, sure, low ball. But if that seller has multiple offers and you go and try and low ball, they're just going to throw your offer out. They're going to say, "Hey, look, this guy's already given what I want."
So there are two ways to compete when you have multiple offers coming in and you
want to buy a house, but you don't want to just pay over the roof for it. One is be reasonable with your terms. What do I mean by that? Obviously price can be a factor in that. But there are other things like when are you going to close, do you have everything lined up for your loan to be able to close on time so you can work with the seller and close on a date that is beneficial to them? What about things like asking for a home warranty or asking for a washer, dryer, refrigerator. You can leave some of those things behind. Maybe the seller needs those for their new house, and because you are more reasonable with your terms, they will take your offer over another offer that might even be higher. I've had that happen multiple times.
Now, here's the other thing you can do to compete in a seller's market when you're
buying a house. Look at the emotions. Sellers care about who's moving into their home. And you've all heard, yeah, write a letter about your family, but really talk about what the home would mean to you. Who are you? What is your family about? What are you looking for in a home and what would this home mean to you? People want to sell their home to other good people. Look, they've lived in the neighborhood a long time. They know the neighbors. They know that the neighbors want good neighbors. They care about people that care about them and show that.
So if you can be reasonable with your terms, if you can show the emotion behind the reason why you want the house, you stand a good chance of getting a home that you like. Now that doesn't mean you'll always win it, but if you stick with it, you'll get something good.
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