How many houses did you bid on before getting your house???

We have been house hunting for 2 months. We just placed another bid yesterday on our 4th house...and still nothing.

Still waiting on this 4th house.. they want to wait until after their upcoming open house to decided wether to accept or counter our offer.

But really...this is crazy. I feel like we will be doing this so many more times before getting our house.

This is getting fustrating. The problem is there is nothing good out on the market...then one or two nice things come out and everyone is bidding on them.

Uggh!! Thanks for listening to me vent.

P.S Any good house vibes are needed for this fourth house!

Re: How many houses did you bid on before getting your house???

None - we put our first offer in on the house we bought (back in 2008). But for awhile, things got held up with contract negotiations (mainly over the closing date), so before we went into contract on our house, we bid on another house and the seller rejected our offer. Luckily, things worked out with our original accepted offer on the first house, which is the house we really wanted! (I was not in real estate at that time, but we did have a buyer's broker working with us, which was an advantage.)

Just out of curiosity -- what area(s) are you looking in? It is pretty much a buyer's market right now; there's a lot of inventory out there right now! Maybe it's just been a string of bad luck for you, but good deals are pretty plentiful (in the areas where I work) and there's more and more homes coming on the market as we get into spring.

Are you submitting bids that are significantly below asking?

What are you basing your initial offer on? Are you looking at comps to figure out whether the asking price is in line with similar homes in the area?

Is your agent making the effort to present your offer directly to the homeowner, rather than to the listing agent (when possible)? Have you talked to your agent about her strategy when presenting offers? Does she have one, or is she just lobbing out the number and hoping for the best?

I assume you are financially qualified (pre-approved, etc.) and able to close a deal, so aside from that, it can help to make things more personal. If you suspect a property is getting a lot of interest and there may be other offers, you may even want to write a letter to the owners, telling them a little bit about yourselves and why you want to buy their house. That can be very effective, and I've seen it work!

Sorry you've had a frustrating house hunt! Hopefully, this latest offer will work out for you. If not, feel free to contact me if I can help you!

Re: How many houses did you bid on before getting your house???

four houses:

house #1: We got it, and for less than we were expecting but we walked away after the inspection

house #2: We lowballed and insulted the owners I think :(

house #3: We made a very fair offer but the owner couldn't decide what she wanted to do. We walked.

house #4: the house we bought

Re: How many houses did you bid on before getting your house???

First house we made an offer on we bought

Re: How many houses did you bid on before getting your house???

We made an offer on one other house but after we countered the sellers offer we decided against it because we couldnt get over the fact that the bedrooms were really small

Re: How many houses did you bid on before getting your house???

over about a two year span and looking in many different areas of long island

house one - We lowballed and insulted the owners. the house was a tear-down so we offered what the land was worth. they didn't like that
flashforward to now: the house was torn down and a mcmansion was built on the land.

house two - offered asking but had another offer already. this was at the height of the market... we weren't willing to go over asking.
flashforward to now: house is back on the market for 30K over what they spent back in 2004, which they will never get do to the location.

house three: private sale. they knew what we could afford and said yes!

Re: How many houses did you bid on before getting your house???

We made offers on 3 houses before getting our house that we have now...but we looked at probably over 100 houses (for real) within a years time!

Re: How many houses did you bid on before getting your house???

4

Hpuse 1, wouldnt ask tenents to leave, we walked

House 2, wouldnt let us on the property to fix the fence, and then told us not to damage a fig tree. I lost it and walked

House 3, had no C of O for the house. Didnt want to pay to get it. Walked

House 4, the one we bought, best sellers ever. Fixed anything the inspector faound wrong, left all plans for the house, nice people. Self proclaimed handyman, so that is the only issue with them.

Re: How many houses did you bid on before getting your house???

We only put an offer in on one, countered back n forth like 5 times, and then got an accepted offer... We were VERY lucky! Keep your head up... All those other houses just werent right for ya

Re: How many houses did you bid on before getting your house???

2-but I am so glad we didn't get the first. The location of the house we are in (the 2nd bid) is so much better.

That first house we were competing against an all cash offer-no competion, we were out.

Message edited 4/1/2011 8:49:38 AM.

Re: How many houses did you bid on before getting your house???

Re: How many houses did you bid on before getting your house???

1 - we had the house inspected and were waiting for the our lawyer to get the contract and they accepted another offer $14K more... said they would meet us in the middle but we had already gone more than we should have... so we let it go

2 - loved the house.... our offer went in, took a few days to hear something, someone else had a higher offer, we lost it.

3 - our house now... put an offer, they rejected it and did not counter. they dropped the price I think to the exact amount or close to our original offer a few weeks later (they were dumb, they should have just come back to us, but it saved us a few thousand atelast!), we dropped our offer, they then accepted, we got that house. I really didn't think we were gonna end up with it.

Re: How many houses did you bid on before getting your house???

Third time was a charm for us.

Re: How many houses did you bid on before getting your house???

4 and by the 4th, i felt like it was never going to happen

1 - they wasted our time and just never got back to us. kept changing their asking price and conditions and then wouldnt get back to us

2 - one offer beat us out by 5k

3 - one offer beat us out. offering price was lower by 3k but it was an ALL CASH offer

4 - accepted offer but we had to walk away after inspection

5 OUR HOME just went into full contract yesterday!

Re: How many houses did you bid on before getting your house???

Our house was the 4th one we put an offer on:

1- bid wasn't accepted

2- inspection went bad

3- went into contract but then had issues with CO's and Variances

4- Our current home. We originally placed an offer and it was rejected. They accepted someone else's offer, went into contract, and the contract fell through. We made a second offer once we heard the deal was going bad and they accepted that

Message edited 4/1/2011 10:03:25 AM.

Re: How many houses did you bid on before getting your house???

We bought in 2005 when the market was crazy. We made three offers on just one day! The reason we didn't get those houses is that I refused to bid higher than asking on what were already inflated prices.

I think in total we bid on 7 or 8. Our house was the first one we saw and only one we didn't bid on because it was a pos house. But I had sold my home and we were desperate so we eventually low-balled and got it for a great price. Luckily for us it was a diamond in the rough.

Re: How many houses did you bid on before getting your house???

i was in contract 3 times!!

Re: How many houses did you bid on before getting your house???

2

1st one was a short sale and we walked after speaking with the seller's (or bank's) REA who said we needed to go up in our offer. The bank was also taking forever with these short sales so we said forget it. Good thing b/c that house now is worth $100k less than what we offered in '09!

2nd was the home we bought. It was a foreclosure, our offer was accepted after 2 days and we closed less than a month later.

It will work out!

Re: How many houses did you bid on before getting your house???

So far two.

House #1: We low-balled and the sellers wouldn't even entertain the offer. It sat on the table with no response for months.

House #2: Short sale. We low-balled the first offer with no response. Just made a second offer which is a very fair offer and we're still waiting to hear back from the bank.

Re: How many houses did you bid on before getting your house???

Re: How many houses did you bid on before getting your house???

Re: How many houses did you bid on before getting your house???

i think i hold the record at 11


eta: most were short sales or bank owned properties and we either walked away, were a back up offer, or a cash offer was accepted - we were buying in a competitive market and dealing with mostly bank owned properties...out of those 11 only one of the houses was an actually seller who wouldn't come down to what we were willing to pay...

in the end i'm glad we are where we are

Message edited 4/1/2011 12:33:26 PM.

Re: How many houses did you bid on before getting your house???

Hopefully this house is it! I know it is so frustrating, but you will find your dream home soon!!!!!!
Love you!!!

Re: How many houses did you bid on before getting your house???

Re: How many houses did you bid on before getting your house???

We were about to make bids on two homes but didnt do it fast enough so we lost them. We were the first to bid on our house now and it was countered so we countered and it was accepted. We ended up with a little bit of a money pit BUT there were many other reasons why we got a better deal in the end.