Are you thinking of buying a house in Santa Cruz County in 2023 I'm here to prepare you and get you ready first, get your running shoes. I'm only kidding. Well, maybe not so much. I saw property online last night. I emailed my buyers and I said, “Hey, we should check this one out.” It hasn't even been on maybe eight, 10 hours. My client said they want to see it. And I was informed there was already an offer on it. I think this is how the early part of 2023 is how it's going to be. So how do you prepare? First, get your pre-qualification letter or your pre-approval letter from your favorite lender. Make sure you understand what the interest rates are doing, if possible.
Talk with the lender to see about having the seller can give you credit towards your interest rate to actually lower your payment, not necessarily the purchase price, but your actual overall cost of purchasing it, which would be your, your rate, right?
The other thing is to be careful with pricing. Pricing is going to be low. What I mean by that is you are going to see a list price on a property and you're going to be like, oh boy, prices have finally come down. This is my big chance. Well get in line. There's going to be a lot of other people thinking that too. Especially all the people that came from 2022 that thought, “I'm going to wait because interest rates are going up. There's not a lot of inventory. I'm reading all this bad news, the market's going to crash. I'm going to wait.” Everybody's thinking that. So there will be a few other buyers actually coming to see or write offers on that property with that price.
And it's a strategy used all the time, when a seller wants to sell and they're not worried about the market, they just need to sell, you know, divorce, people pass away, life changes, they need to move for medical directives. All of that can change people's situation. And they sell. They then ask the agent, what do I sell for? The listing agent may explain “I know buyers are, are a little iffy about the market right now. I know the interest rates are up. Let's do this. Let's price it under the last sale in the neighborhood and see where it goes.” The market sets the price. The buyers and sellers are just kind of tied to whatever is happening in the market. Remember, the market is where the buyer and the seller meet, and that is the decision between the two of them that actually sets that price.
When you see that lower price, be careful thinking “I'm just going to go grab this and, you know, just move in and everything's going to be great.” You might have to work for it. There might be multiple offers. I explain more, facts versus fantasy in real estate.
The other thing I really encourage is flexibility. You work hard all week and you don't really want to spend your whole weekend looking at properties, right? You want to go play and relax. I recommend that you're flexible, so maybe put one day aside, or if you have concrete plans, make sure your agent knows that and make those appointments in advance. Waiting till the last minute, or not giving the agent enough time to make that appointment may make it hard to get into to view. And I'm not saying, my clients are difficult and that happens to me all the time. It rarely happens this is to prepare you to win.
Be prepared to jump and go see a property when it's available to be shown. Feel free to reach out to me and talk about any of this. In summary, I will say, be ready with your pre-qualification. Have your lender ready to go understand financing that you can put together to make the deal work better for you. Understand that some houses that seem like they're a low price and a great price, you could be in for multiple offers. That's okay. I've got strategies we can win those. Don't be afraid.
And then just be flexible. Be ready to go. Maybe understand when you make the call. Explain these are the times I have. Can you make those times work? Sometimes I have people go, oh, we want to see a property. And then I try to squeeze it in between my schedule, the seller’s schedule and the buyer schedule and gets a little tricky. So more time is always better. Having some flexibility to go at when a time is better for a seller always really helps. I believe this should prepare you for this coming year. And it's going to be a rollercoaster ride, as every year is and I'm going to keep updating you to make sure that when you are ready, you need to sell. I'm here for you and I've got good information for you.
Posted by Michele Replogle on
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