Quote:
Originally Posted by JKnight
So my Fiance and I are trying to buy our first house right now. I held off on buying a house out of college in 2005 because I felt like housing prices were unsustainable. Turns out I was right and it has been one of the best decisions I ever made.
We will be staying in the Phoenix area, so we figured with all of the news of the soft housing market, short sales, foreclosures, and bank owned properties, we would have no problems finding a decent place with a little potential.
Reality of the situation is that there are absolutely no indications that the housing market is still soft. Some even go so far as to call it a buyer's market. I don't think so. Every decent property has 4+ offers by the 3rd day on the market, all of which are significantly above asking (35-50%) and many are full cash offers (investors?). Its no wonder the supply of homes isn't going down. The investors buy these places up by the handful and relist them the next week for a 10% premium. Many of these places still need a good bit of work to be livable.
It's starting to seem as though there is very little opportunity for normal buyers to buy a humble house to live in. We are prequalified, first time buyers with no skeletons in our closet and USAA as a lender. Why in the sam h$ll I can't seem to buy a decent house is beyond me.
Thank you for allowing me to rant....
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If you are buying with a conventional loan I would not waste your time looking at Foreclosures or REOs. The banks will take a cash offer over a loan anyday. Even on a short sale, the bank will look at the cash offer over a loan. Most houses under 200K are bought full cash these days (at least here in CA) because you can buy them for cheap and rent them. My advice is if you are paying with a loan, look for a non distressed property. I look at homes every single day and yes, they sell within days of posting. I just bought a condo 2 weeks ago and it had 8 cash offers within 2 days of listing.