So, outside of my regular 9-to-5, I am also a realtor. I look at houses in my area; when I think it is a good buy, I will share with my wife. We have been looking luring houses that's near my mom's home.
Our price target is between $450k to $650k, single family homes. We've been looking, and we have identified some just unable to submit an offer due to we also will need to include a financial contingency in order to qualify for the 2nd mortgage. Unless we already have a tenant that is going to move in which will cover our mortgage, and we will have the monthly income to qualify for the 2nd mortgage.
Last year, we saw a house with swimming pool went from $850k to $650k at a prime location that we were very interested in pursuing on submitting an offer. However, we didn't submit the offer it is because the house is in-fact a historical home; and things historical homes. You are very restricted in terms of on how you want to update your home, the roof, window, color of the exterior cannot change. For me, I don't think it is a big deal, and having a historical home gives you a retro feeling while you live in it. The house was well maintained by the original owner. except the kitchen layout is quite odd. Giving the fact that my wife will want to spend extra $100k and plus to renovate the interior, and build a garage killed our trigger on submitting the offer. At the end the house were sold for $632k, and I believe the buyer also had financial contingency in their clause.
I've been eyeing on specific locations primary because of it's location's home sold price and how convenient to the freeway access, also no or low Home Owner Association (HOA) cost. I like homes with out HOA is because there are no restriction on how I want to do with the house, as long as the city/county allows me to build with the way I want, I can do it; no restrictions. However, the downside of these house at our price point it is often sold or under-contract within weeks if not days. I realized, the houses that I think it's great, others buyers think so too. In fact, I think they are also interested because of the same reason I am interested. Price is great, but the house might need a little "Tender Loving Care" (TLC). However, if they are in that condition, my wife won't like it because she think the ceiling is too low, the cabinets are too old, bathroom tiles is so old/ugly. She said that if she lives in it, she will keep on nagging it and we will end up with fights; and fights aren't great for couples.
Enough with my back-story on house searching. The COVID 19 might be slow down a lot of business, but it is not effecting real estate, believe it or not; at least in our area that is. A lot of people are still buying homes and houses in area are selling fast. My community the houses are sold within weeks, it could also because of purchase rate is a lot lower than refinance mortgage rate.
Homes in my area are under contract in 2 weeks. So COVID 19 is actually not affecting the real estate market. There aren't enough houses on the market which made houses on the market easy to sell, based on analytics, homes in my area are under-contract within 10 days in 20876 at home price between $300k - $750k for the past 90 days, if price changes from $500k - $750k, the average on the market day before secured a contract is 9 days.
The zip code 20850, homes are within $500k to $750k are under-contract within 11 days. However, for zip code 20854 the average days on the market is 36 days for the homes priced between $500k to $750k. I would think zip code 20854 homes will sell fast, I think it is probably because of the zip code is covers be area of homes.
Bottom line is that homes are selling like hot cakes, if you ever need a realtor is analytic, I am totally approachable, reach out to me at yuly@rlahre.com.
