The market is such that nowadays most of our inventory is bank owned properties and short sales. Rarely will we see a "regular" sale and if they exist you can tell right away in the disparity of asking price!! Banks don't care about making a profit it seems like. They will unload the property their way! I wrote an offer on a bank owned property and the seller= the bank demanded we do our inspections prior to their signing any papers!!! So verbally we are in contract yet I have not received anything short of an email stating that our offer was accepted! My clients are spending money doing inspections. The rationale according to the listing agent is the bank does not want to negotiate so we do our inspections and decide on our final price and that is it! I put the agent on speaker phone so my clients could hear the bank's point of view and then followed up with an email to all parties explaining what had been said during the phone conversation. This is a CYA move just in case another offer slips in while we are doing our inspection and I am told I did not know that!!
Banks are notorious for dealing with real estate their own way. Their addenda supersede anything in the contract. At least now they agree to pay for owner's title policy after forcing their title company upon the buyer. They impose their timeframe and refuse to clear any title or code violations or point of sale ordinances which put the buyers in a precarious state. But once negotiations are done it becomes a smooth transaction unless financing prevents closing on time.....then the beast comes out and the buyers must pay for any day the escrow closes late etc... I think NAR and CAR and all of our state associations should put pressure on the banks to treat real estate the right way and if the banks hire an agent to represent them which is always the case then let the agent do something and not be a mere puppet at the mercy of the banks' whim.
I guess it is still better than waiting months for an answer on a short sale!!.......
catherine
I keep wondering why we are supposed to bail out banks when they have not been too keen on saving money themselves.... I wrote an offer last year for a short sale and the bank completely ignored me for 4 months which happens in 80% of the cases. The house finally went into foreclosure and was sold. By then my clients were not interested anymore and had made an offer on another house. However, had the bank accepted our offer they would have cashed/saved another $100,000 from the proceeds. But no they preferred to ignore my offer.
Yesterday I wrote an offer on this big house in Berkeley and on tour today heard that the bank had refused an offer for $1,800,000 as-is!!!!!!!!! Now that the house is bank owned it is listed for just under $1,000,000. There is something seriously wrong with that. I have not heard back from my offer so maybe the buyers who wrote the offer came back this time around and they will get their money but that is a huge bet on their part.
Time will tell if they were right or wrong but I have my doubts.
Everything is spinning in the Bay Area! Suddenly buyers are back after taking a nice festive break. This week has been very busy with rates dropping and then rising and then dropping again. Refis are on the way up and more houses are coming onto the market.
Today I wrote an offer on a house that was previously on the market for $2,800,000! Beautiful 4500sqft home with gorgeous views of the bay on 1/2 acre!!! The seller unfortunately lost the home to the bank and the agent put it back on the market for under $1,000,000. Well, talk about chaos. Everyone wanted that property.
Then another client called me about writing an offer on a property in Richmond! Wow it is nice to be busy again and get back in the groove after a slower period in 2008.
Looking at prices in the depressed areas it is easy to understand why this frenzy from investors. Most homes are listed under $250,000 and even $200,000 so with some money down these houses are positive cash cows from the get go.
We'll see if that trend continues. Last year 20% of sellers sold because they were in trouble. The California Association of Realtors is predicting a drop in median price of 10% for California. We will see what Berkeley and surrounding communities hold up.
Inventory in the Berkeley area, CA is so low!! Clients are waiting for a decent house to come up. I checked yesterday and in one week only 18 new homes in the East Bay!!! Some of them are overpriced and others are your typical REO or short sale listings... How can you sell those?? We need more homes to sell. Market is holding steady in the East Bay. I have seen a slight increase in sales prices in the last month as well.
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My succes in real estate: my professional and cultural experiences, personal relationships and expansive knowledge of the market. I combine personal attention, hard work, persistence and enthusiasm.
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