If you are financially-qualified and motivated to buy a new home yet, frustrated with low inventory don‘t get discouraged. Stay positive!There are a steps you can take to increase your chance of finding a new home sweet home!   During this inventory squeeze, buyers are best served to cast the widest net possible when establishing their home search criteria. One way to bring more homes into contention is to open your mind to neighborhoods you may not have considered in the past. This doesn’t necessarily mean a compromise. In searching new areas, you may find a community you actually like better than the subject of your original search. Another way to see more inventory may involve your search criteria for housing type. If you are looking for higher density housing, like a town home; add zero lot line homes and villas to your home search. A slight tweak to your housing type criteria will yield more inventory to consider and possibly, a better fit in the long run. Another option is to ask your REALTOR to include “active contingent” listings in their MLS search. This listing designation indicates the seller of the property has accepted an offer but there are a few unresolved issues. Most often, contingencies are ironed out within one to three weeks. Contingencies may include stipulations like the home appraisal being required to meet or exceed the sale price; there may be costs for repairs under negotiation or time durations allowed for buyer inspections might be at issue.  In many cases, there is enough motivation on the part of both the seller and buyer to resolve contingencies and the property will receive a “pending” status indicating a closing is soon to follow. However, this is not always the case. If a contingency cannot be resolved, buyers will most often walk away and the property returns to market. If you are interested in a property listed as “active contingent,” you can ask your REALTOR to inquire frequently about any changes to the status, hoping it may come back to market. Or, you can also have your REALTOR submit a back up offer. If a home is particularly desirable, there may be multiple back up offers. In the event the primary offer falls through, the seller will then consider all back up offers and you could potentially have an opportunity to own a home that you once thought was off market.  Eventually, available home inventories will rise, bringing more homes to market for sale. Until then, buyers will benefit by being flexible as to neighborhoods and housing types and open-minded to submitting back up offers. These approaches will increase the amount of homes matching your search criteria and maybe, finding that cozy home sweet home is closer than you think! Happy House Hunting! Copyright 2013:Valerie Anne Martinetti |
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