Your Exceptional Life

When I was growing up the best fighter around was Muhammad Ali.  He was always good for a quote and he won a lot of fights.  “Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee” has always been one of my favorite Ali quotes.  It is particularly prolific in today’s real estate market.  If you want to play in this market, you’d better be ready to float like a butterfly and sting like a bee.  Let me explain.

Most properties are flying off the shelf in under 3 days now.  The only reason their days on the market is more than 3 is because the listing agent is leaving it open so more potential buyers have an opportunity to see it.  In other words, the property goes on last Tuesday.  The seller will review offers a week from Friday so the property remains on the market 10 days.  At the end of 1o days the listing agent is bringing the seller 15-20 offers to review.  The REO properties are staying on the market long enough for the Asset Manager to make a decision.  Usually 5-10 days again.  Some banks require that a property age on the market 3-5 days before they will review offers.  The offer deadline is 3-5 days from when it comes on the market, the rest of the days on market is just everyone standing around waiting for the bank to sign one of the offers.   As Realtors, if we’re not ready to show it right away and write right away, we’ll be watching that property sail into the sunset.  If our clients are on board with that tight timeline, the ship will sail without them.  The term I use is “Food fight”.  And it is.

I sent a client of mine to an open house in Oakland a couple of weeks ago.  He told me it was like waiting in line at a rock concert.  He estimated over 40 people at the open house.  I had previewed the house for him earlier that week and there was somebody there when I arrived and somebody waiting for the keys when I left.  I estimate that over 200 people saw that property.  We submitted, at 15 percent over asking which amounted to a little more than $51k.  We lost out to numerous offers that were more than 20% over asking.  And this is not a aberration, this is the norm for this market.  Think you can lowball a property in this market?  Think again. Oh, well that property must have been perfect.  No, actually it was in a good neighborhood and it was clean inside.  Not updated, just clean.  Termites, foundation, roof, fungus, 100 year old electrical, plumbing, faulty systems, the list went on and on for that property.  That’s the reality of this market.

If you want to play in this market, you have to be ready to strike.  And you have to want to sting like a bee.  You have to be agile, you have to float like a butterfly.  I ran into a couple and their agent at a property I was previewing last week.  We exchanged pleasantries on the stoop.  The wife told me she left work to come look at the property, she wasn’t taking a chance waiting.  That’s what people are doing out there in this market.  That’s the competition.