By: Jen Nowakowski, Guest Writer/Danberry Agent (Perrysburg)
I’ve been quiet on the blog front due to being busy in life with lots of changes. Over the summer, I sold the #designtiptuesdayhouse and bought a really unique home in Perrysburg. It needed lots of updating. I buy and sell homes every day and nothing could have prepared me for what I was in for with my purchase. I have had so many clients say, “I don’t know how you do this every day. You are so calm and this is so stressful.”
I didn’t get it until I went through it myself!
As Realtors, I feel like we are kind of the Puppet Masters of a transaction. We are behind the scenes controlling everything and putting out all the fires that our clients sometime don’t even realize are burning HOT. We ride that real estate roller coaster every day and some of us live for it. In my case, (again, I do this every single day) I was representing myself and I didn’t have that shock absorption that my clients have with me as their human shield. I was the stressed-out buyer & the Realtor, and let me tell you....
IT WAS A NIGHTMARE!
Literally, things happened in that transaction that have never, ever happened before. Most days I felt like a gladiator in a coliseum. Like, what else is going to come out of that tunnel and try to kill me?! It was wild and the biggest, most bitter, non-keto slice of humble pie that I have ever been served. But what I did get out of it, besides a beautiful home, was a lot of knowledge that I will always have to share with my clients. Basically, I went through the transaction from hell so you don’t have to. Here are a few of the things that I learned:
Shop.
Just look at these Smarties...
I have this awesome app on my computer called Honey. It checks coupon codes, sales, and sites to make sure I am getting the best deal before I check out. Pretty awesome, right? Why don’t we apply that “hard shop” mentality to buying a home, too? I love my lender friends, just as I love my Realtor colleagues, and we all have something different to offer. I have lenders that I work well with and that I refer to my clients, but I did not fully understand the differences between financing through a mortgage broker and a bank until we bought this house. You should interview several lenders and see who can give you the best options. It’s not just about your rate. Borrowing money costs money. You want to ask about their fees and costs to close. It can vary greatly from lender to lender. Because the title of this blog is about being a “Smart Homebuyer,” you are going to buy your home with the help of an agent. It does not cost you anything and you have someone who is knowledgeable guiding you through all the perils of the transaction.
Buying a home can be very emotional....
It brings out the best and the worst sides of people. You need a buffer between you and the sellers. I am confident enough in my skills and abilities to say this, but why not shop your agent, too? I have only had one buyer ever do this to me and at the time I thought it was so odd, but he was being smart! I realized as we were talking on the phone that I didn’t for sure have a lock on his business and I was going to have to win it, (side note: I did, J) Don’t just use an agent, use a GOOD agent. Just because your cousin got his real estate license and is hungry for business doesn’t mean he is the person you want to trust with your most valuable investment. If you have a really nice car and need a repair, you are going to ask for referrals for the best. Shop for your buyer’s agent just as you would with any other trusted professional that you work with.
Know the Game you are in.
Pick it up, Realtors…
Here’s the thing. Just because you write a full price offer in this market, it does not mean that you will get the house. You need to know the sellers’ motivation for selling their home and what their story is. Maybe they are building a home and need a buyer who will wait 60 days for possession. In that case, even if you offered a few grand over asking but ask for possession at close, that’s not going to get you the house. Again, in this scenario of “Smart Buyer” you are using a killer agent and the first thing a killer agent will do is pick up the phone and call the listing agent. We want to know why they are selling, where they are going, and what would the ideal buyer look like to them. You would not believe how often this does not happen and an agent just sends over an offer without ever finding out “what game they are in.” You can’t win if you aren’t playing it right. I closed on a home earlier this year where the most important thing to the sellers was a buyer who appreciated the fish tanks that they built in the family room. No joke. If we had said, we were going to take those out or asked the sellers to remove them in our offer, they would not have sold this house to my clients. Everyone has a different goal or attachment to their home when they are selling, and you need to know that going in to submit your strongest offer.
S*** will go Wrong.
Cheers...
Man, was I cocky when I was buying and selling this summer. The home I was selling was marketing gold, I had the closing dates all lined up back-to-back on both homes, I negotiated possession 30 days after close on my sale so I had time to renovate the new house before we moved in … I mean, I was patting myself on the back. Well, guess what... Everything went wrong. My purchase went sideways 3 days before we were set to close on both homes. I did not want to lose the perfect buyers on my sale because I got everything I wanted out of the deal, so we closed on our old home not knowing if we were going to get our new one. The home we were buying is so unique that we were not sure that we were going to be able to get it to appraise appropriately. Without boring you with all the gory details, I was looking into apartments to move my family into because the days were ticking by to give the keys to our buyers, making us closer to being homeless. The tears and the vodka/sodas were flowing daily. We were able to close with 6 days to spare. My brilliant plan of living in our old home while the new one was being renovated was a bust. Instead, we lived “Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory” style in one bedroom for the first few weeks. It was … intimate to say the least, J But the point of my story is that in real estate, as in life, things rarely go as planned. You have to be able to let go and to go with the flow. I am used to things going wrong with deals, but it wasn’t until I fully went through it myself, (and let it be known that the universe made sure I had the toughest transaction in history to prove this point), that I was able to put myself in my client’s shoes and see how that felt.
It WILL be Worth it.
Look how happy they are...I did it for them!
I love hard work. Outcomes that are worth it will sometimes be really hard. The battle that I went through made me appreciate our home that much more. We still look around and can’t believe that we did it and we get to live there. It is funny how quickly a new place feels like “home.” You start to make new memories while still fondly recalling the ones you made at your old home that you thought you were so attached to. Sometimes buying a home is easy, and sometimes it’s hard, but going into it “Smart” will give the best shot at it being a positive experience. In my case, in the end, it was all worth it.
Jen Nowakowski, https://www.danberry.com/agent-search/info/JENNNOWA