What Albuquerque home buyers should be doing before looking for a home

(Transcript Snippet):

“Tego:

So tell us some of the things that that home buyer should be thinking about before they, they be, let’s say even before they start going out, looking at homes what’s, what are some of the top things that buyers should be doing right now? Let’s, I’ll, I’ll throw that to you first,

Melissa:

Making sure that you’re working with a local reputable lender that makes it easier to get, make sure you’re pre-qualified pre-approved versus qualified. And that basically just means that the lenders taking those extra steps to check your financial qualifications in versus just saying guests, I believe what they said versus actually looking at it and verifying that it is true. It makes you a little bit of a stronger buyer. And then also having some flexibility, if a house hits the market and you can’t see it for four more days, you may not make it to that house.

Tego:

If it’s a good house. I mean, median days on market for March was, was four days, which means what was the stat I pulled the other day? It was 65% of the homes in our current market are selling within six days, basically immediately, as soon as they come on the market. And so, so Corey, what other things are you doing to, without giving away any?

Corey:

I know, I get nervous.

Tego:

No, we don’t mind educating other realtors. We want everybody to be good, but what what other tips would you say for buyers when they’re, when they’re thinking about getting out there,

Corey:

Especially when they’re first time home buyers, you really want to say put the seatbelt on because we’re going to go for a ride because there is a lot of offers that are being put out there and you want to make sure that you’re looking out for your buyer. And so when somebody comes in with, you know, 40,000 over cash and no appraisal, when everything looks so good, that may not be the best one for your buyer. So I like to definitely talk to them about the reality and just talk about how exciting it’s going to be and how we’re going to get there.

Tego:

Yeah. And I think, you know, preparation and setting expectations is anything. Obviously, we’re kind of doing that right now. So, so what are you telling like Corey, what would you actually tell a buyer right now? Let’s say you just pick up the phone and somebody, somebody, you know called, called and said, Hey, I’m interested in this house. I want to make an offer. What are the things you’re going to be asking them?

Corey:

Well, I want to make sure first that they’re pre-approved with the lender. Obviously we’re not going to write an offer without going to look at that house, whether I’m going to be FaceTiming home in that house and going through each room and showing absolutely everything of the home, absolutely closed it. And exactly, and then making a good relationship with the listing agent is extremely important.

Tego:

Right? Right. You want to, you want to know you want the listing agent to be able to basically pass onto the seller. That’s like, look, this is somebody that really wants a house they’re really engaged or communicating. Well, you know, they’re, they’re not just fly by night, Melissa, what other little tips or tricks should, should buyers be thinking about right now

Melissa:

In this market, they need to have some skin in the game. They need to be willing to pay for inspections, appraisal, home warranty, their closing costs, and potentially even some of the seller’s closing costs to make it just that much more of a competitive offer. Yeah. When it’s a buyer’s market, you could ask for the seller to pay some of your closing costs, but this is just not where we’re at, right?

Tego:

No, definitely not the market we’re in right now. And, and you know, we have earnest deposits. We also have this thing called time off market fee, or it’s just, the buyer pays the seller to take the home off the market to do their due diligence inspections and so on. I want to just talk about inspections really quick because we’re, we’re seeing a lot of people thinking well, to make my offer more competitive, I’m just going to waive inspections. So,

Corey:

Oh no, no. You want inspections. Absolutely.

Tego:

So one thing you can do, Melissa though, is waive the basically making, asking for, for major repairs.

Melissa:

You could see, you only want repairs that are safety concerns or lender required repairs because during the appraisal process, if the praiser might call out some dry rot, then that would be, have to be something that would get repaired during that time. But you’re not going to ask for the light bulbs to be replaced or whatever the

Tego:

Well, you know, cosmetic stuff or, or again, you know, we put a new hot water heater because it’s end of useful life. Right. You know, whatever that means. So, so yeah, it that could be one of those things that makes your offer stand out is to say, okay, I still want inspections. Right. I want to know what the property is like, but I’m not going to be, you know, asking for, you know, $5,000 in repairs. Right. Once we get to that point.

Melissa:

And then the other thing is with as many offers as we’re getting the seller could say, that’s fine. You just asked me for 5,000 in repairs when another offer came in and said that they’re not going to ask for any repairs. So yeah, go ahead and try to find another house.

Tego:

So Melissa, I just want to ask you about sellers because you work with a lot of sellers as well as, as buyers. And what are you telling sellers when you’re, when you’re listing them or meeting with them to get their home on the market? What are you telling them? What are you preparing them for?

Melissa:

Well, I just had a house that went active this weekend. We already have so many showings that they are planning to be gone for the weekend. And we’re going to review the offers on Sunday. There’s over 30 showings and that’s just, that can get overwhelming for somebody who’s living in the house. Cause you’re basically home for 10 minutes and then have to leave again. And especially if there’s pets or children plan a little weekend getaway or

Tego:

Yeah, well, and, and what what’s happened with this market, we know, you know, certain homes and certain price ranges, certain parts of town. We know there’s going to be multiple people that want to see it right away. Right. And so you can condense all those showings down into a very short period of time. Yes. Yeah. Which is nice. It makes it easier for the seller. They can just do their picnic day

Speaker 2:

For the buyers. It’s wonderful when they have a few days to look at it. So it’s not like, okay, I’ve got 15 minutes to write this offer and hope that, you know, we can get it being able to go into the house two to three times and say, yes, I love this house. And this is going to go to the finish.

Tego:

That’s a really good point, Corey, because people may think, Oh, it’s going to be the first one that writes the offer’s going to win. It’s like, no, that really, you know, we’re not seeing that much, most sellers are asking, you know, for, you know, showings like one day and then they’ll review any offers that come in the next day. And that’s really common now it’s not across the board, but just understand we’re seeing most of that, but

Corey:

It’s helpful for our buyers for that to happen. Well,

Tego:

The truth is it’s helpful for the seller too, right? Because that way now the, they have, you know, a handful of offers to choose from. And you know, obviously the, the seller’s objective is to get the highest and best that’s going to close. Right. That’s going to close Melissa, let’s talk about that real quick. Let’s go back to that whole conversation about reviewing offers. If you’re on the, on the seller side.

Melissa:

Yeah. I had a friend, then she was like, Hey, my friend, didn’t get a house in the wrote an offer 25,000 above list. And I was explaining that just because it’s 25,000 above list, that’s not always the best offer. Is it going to appraise? Probably not. If they were already pushing the value. So there’s just a lot of other components to an offer than price it’s are you offering the sellers to stay in a couple extra days so they can move out on the, you know, slowly and at their leisure, are you waving the repairs? Are you offering above appraised value, but bringing cash to the table? So there’s a lot of components and that’s where that experience comes to play versus saying, wow, we got an offer 50,000 above. Let’s take it. Well, when appraisal comes, that’s when there’s going to be a crash, right?

Tego:

Yeah. Yeah. We won’t go deep into appraisal right now, but you know, understand that if there’s going to be financing involved, there’s going to be an appraisal. The appraisal’s job is to justify the value to the bank that they’re making a safe alone. And so, you know, if they just can’t justify that the value is there, even though somebody is willing to pay that price, it’s going to be a challenge. It’s going to be a challenge. And so, so some people are, well, Corey, you know this right there, they’re making offers over list price. And you’re going to say what the wave wave the appraisal contingency or up to a certain dollar up to a certain dollar amount. Yeah. So that’s one of those other things that we’re seeing a lot.