piqué, I wonder how much the realities of this college town will impact the real estate market in terms of a season…

Although separate from that, we have a rental contract and there is definitely a “season” for that, if we want to get out of our lease early. Based on what I can tell from talking with people locally, finding a subletter will probably be very easy in the May-Aug. window, and very difficult most any other time.

So if we find a house and buy too soon, we could be on the hook for months of double housing payments, which would not be good!

If you let things like that determine what you do, you will just make it harder to find the house you want at a price you can afford. There is always the possibility that the seller would be willing to rent back from you so you can finish your lease, or that they would be willing to postpone closing until you have someone to take over your lease.

Don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good.

quote:

Originally posted by piqué:
If you let things like that determine what you do, you will just make it harder to find the house you want at a price you can afford. There is always the possibility that the seller would be willing to rent back from you so you can finish your lease, or that they would be willing to postpone closing until you have someone to take over your lease.

Don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good.

While I agree with this in theory, in reality there are so many moving parts…

When we bought our house, the idea of renting back to the sellers was discussed and I found out there were several problems with it, including insurance (which is probably resolvable and maybe state-specific) but the biggest issue was with the terms of the mortgage — our mortgage was based on the house being our primary residence, but the renting to the sellers thing would void that. I’m not remembering all the details at this point but it was clear that the rent-back option would not work.

We’ll be in a better position next time, and in a different state, so maybe it would be more viable. But I have a pretty low tolerance for risk as it is, so the rent-back option is not super appealing to me.

But this is another thing to add to my list of things to discuss with my agent. I’d like to know if she sees sales with those kinds of contingencies, and whether having those kinds of concerns/requests (delayed closing etc) would make it more likely that we’d have an offer rejected.

In any case, we’re already watching the housing listings and we’ve been going to see ones that fit our criteria, so if something pops up that is really attractive, well, we’ll have to decide at that point. For example, back to the moving parts, I suppose another option (if we didn’t have others) might be that we could lower the down payment by the amount of rent time number of months…

We’ll see how things look in the new year. So far we haven’t seen anything that would be worth jumping through so many hoops for.

Which, actually, underscores your point — if a house comes on to the market that we really like, we probably better pursue it because it’s not likely that another similarly attractive property will come up soon.

Ugh. It’s a NYT article headline: there’s never going to be a good time to house.

Or as a broker friend of mine used to say:

“EVERY day is a great day to buy (or sell) real estate!”

quote:

What rent-back agreements mean for the seller

Getting more time to buy your next dream home can be a lifesaver, but don’t dawdle—a rent-back period won’t buy you much time.

“Typically, lenders won’t accept anything longer [than] 60 days,” Beaven says.

https://www.realtor.com/advice...rent-back-agreement/

We each have a different risk/reward profile and need to evaluate the various approaches that are available to us when we're in the process of buying a home.

Rent-back agreements are pretty common, but like just about everything in life, they aren't risk-free. Just another possible tool to consider when buying a home. Might be you find a house that is so desirable that you decide the risk is worth it.

yes. that was my point.

we are still looking to move back home to the college town, but much less intensively as inventory has been abysmal.

but i keep one eye on the market because if that unicorn of a house did appear, we would make it work, however we needed to.

i'm speaking more of a mindset, which is focus on finding the house, then figure out the rest of the particulars and moving parts later.

of course one moving part you should not leave for later is getting pre-approved by a lender. and of course the conversation with your agent to ask all your questions is important. but the agent probably has a lot of wannabe buyer clients, and if you sound like everything has to be perfect she may call another client first when the unicorn comes on the market.

get the mindset that you are full ready to move on the right house, and make sure she knows that.

quote:

of course one moving part you should not leave for later is getting pre-approved by a lender. and of course the conversation with your agent to ask all your questions is important. but the agent probably has a lot of wannabe buyer clients, and if you sound like everything has to be perfect she may call another client first when the unicorn comes on the market.

get the mindset that you are full ready to move on the right house, and make sure she knows that.

this is all very good advice! Esp re the real estate agent because I hadn't thought of it in that way. She needs to know we're serious so we can get good info from her!

I saw a place on a lake in a Denver suburb that I wanted.
The seller wanted a rent back. There were to chin high speakers in one of the photos. I could imagine the parties planned.
Bought my place in 2006. Appreciation has been very good.

My kid and her husband just bought a house. I'll post a separate thread about that. BUT one of the things they heard, which made sense to me, is that there is a ton of pent-up demand for houses as people wait for interest rates to drop. This can result in two different things, perhaps simultaneously.

1. People sitting on houses they would like to sell, but can't afford to move out of given their favorable rates, will now list their houses and there will be a glut of inventory on the market.

2. At the same time, people who've been renting and sitting on a nice down payment while waiting for interest rates to go down will suddenly flood the market, creating a sellers market and house prices will go up (at least for a bit).

or

2a. There will be so many new listings on the market that it will be a buyer's market as sellers pray that someone will make them an offer.

Both seem equally plausible to me, in theory. However, I do know that it will take a lot for sellers to reduce prices from their historic highs of around a year ago, so I suspect house prices will remain relatively high.

Anyone else have any thoughts on this?

Nina, thanks for those comments. Time will tell, of course. In the meantime, we’re all just trying to read the tea leaves!

I think prices will go up. I'd rather buy with a high interest rate I can refi later if rates go down than wait for rates to go down and risk prices going up.

The housing market in my town seems to have peaked and is retreating a bit right now. I follow it pretty closely and am seeing nice homes that are not unreasonably priced not selling despite lots of lookers. After a few weeks the seller drops the price, sometimes more than once, and eventually the homes sell. Gone are the days of pandemic bidding wars and rapidly rising prices.

I'm a little surprised that sales have slowed and prices retreated, as inventory is unbelievably low and mortgage rates have gone down recently. This trend goes back to autumn, so it's not just a holiday slowdown.

It will be interesting to see what happens post-Super Bowl. A couple of realtors I know consider that the beginning of the spring season for selling. They say they see an uptick in buyer interest once winter starts winding down.