It definitely has been awhile since I posted and up until recently a bit discouraging. My wife and I actually have previewed about 15 properties since the last post and made about 10 bids unsuccessfully. It seems there is a ton of other people searching for a good deal in this tough real estate market.
I think because financing is tough for bank condo REOs or nearly impossible, most buyers that we were competing against were also cash buyers. Every time we made a bid, the real estate agents kept coming back to us claiming there was a lot of interest in the same property and the bank wanted our best and highest offer. This was something new to me and frankly I think the bank was lying. More on that later.
After the many failed bids we put in, I think we were rationalizing about the things we wanted and lowering our standards. We were making more compromises in what we were searching for in a new home. One real estate agent said we should just make multiple offers on different properties simultaneously until one offer was accepted. I was hesitant at first but after a few failed bids, it seemed to be an efficient way of increasing our chances of winning.
The good thing I got to observe with the multiple bids was that I could see the bank trying to get the maximum price by creating an illusion. By that I mean I was aware some of these bank REO condos were on the market for many month with some up to 6 months with no bids. Now every single offer I made came back with the bank stating there were other bids. That seemed very strange indeed. A few came back stating they had accepted higher offers and the others just went into limbo, even though there were multiple offers.
At that point, I advised my agent to withdraw all my remaining offers that had not been accepted or rejected. I advised him that I didn't believe there were other offers on some of these properties. He was extremely offended and that seemed to end our business relationship. He may have taken it the wrong way and may have thought I was calling him a liar. That wasn't my intention, but I got the feeling he dropped the ball a few times when I was following up with my offers and secondary offers.
My wife and I regrouped. She located a property that met all our needs and wants with little compromise. With some research, I located the listing agent representing the bank. We figured he would be more diligent since he would be receiving double commissions brokered from the dual listing and selling agencies. We saw what the listing price was and asked him point blank what he felt the bank would accept based on comps and whatever factors we could not see. He gave us a ballpark figure and told him we wanted to make an all cash offer, 10 day escrow, and would provide proof of funds with the offer. In less than 24 hours, the bank countered, and we countered the counter offer and the deal was made.
We viewed the property, ordered a home inspection, and dropped off the good faith deposit the same week. We did find some problems with the property from the home inspection and asked the bank to give us credit for the repair even though this property was being sold as is. Amazingly enough, the bank accommodated our request. Escrow closed early and now my wife and I lived happily ever after.
The previous agent contacted us in regards to some of the previous properties where we withdrew our offers and mysteriously the other phantom buyers pulled out. They wanted to see if we wanted to resubmit our previous offer. We declined and when I looked at those properties online again on the MLS, they were relisted at lower amounts. I don't know it for a fact but I suspect with a high degree of certainty, there were never any other buyers. There is no way to confirm since the bank doesn't and can't disclose any information of the other parties if they did exist.