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Home buyers buy a house. If all you do is whine about the market, get out of the way and stop wasting people’s time.

Posted by John T. Reed on

Interesting article about the current home-buying frenzy being everywhere other than NYC and San Francisco, including in small towns.
20% of buyers are investors. Makes sense. I just wrote a book saying the principal residence is the most advantaged investment on earth. Investors are buying rental houses not residences, but they compete against investors and will likely sell to owner occupants.
My wife and I are investors 70% on the house we just bought. Our son Mike is a resident for the other 30%.
The couple featured in the article looked at 50 houses with the same Realtor. The couple made over 20 unsuccessful offers.
Those would be three idiots. The agent joked he was making minimum wage.
Ya think?
Top agents will not show you a property at all until you convince them you are a serious buyer. Many brag that they never show a buyer more than three properties. If you do not buy one in three tries, they regard you as incompetent, a waste if their time. They will stop answering your phone calls.
When I looked for my first property, I found something wrong with every one I saw.
After about three months, I said, "Hey, Jack, I thought you were supposed to be a real estate investor. Real estate investors have their names on deeds.”
The future father-in-law of the make of the couple chewed them out. The reporter said it was because he did not know how bad the market was. Maybe it was also because he knew that a home buyer is someone who actually buys a home. Not someone who spends nine months whining about the market.
My son and I just got in the super hot market in the SF suburbs for home. We looked at one. No. Made an offer on the second. Too low. On the third, we made a much higher offer compared to asking. We got it.
That is called buying a home. Spending 9 months making 20 unsuccessful offers is called being an idiot.
If you want to buy a home, you have to out-bid everyone else on earth. How do you do that and not overpay? Buy a house with something "wrong" with it. Ours has too much traffic on the street in front. Also, the exterior is a bit crappy.
Whining about the market is infantile. Real estate is not like stocks or bonds. Each property is unique and each is imperfect. I got over the discomfort from all that in my early years. That is part of what it means to be a real estate investor.
If you are not the winning bidder, make higher offers. Look for properties with something that will turn off many buyers (although they must be wrong about it or it must be cost-effectively correctable).
If you cannot do those things, shut up and quit wasting your time and that of others. A home buyer is a person or couple who buys a home, not a person or couple who has excuses for not buying one.

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