The Most House for the Least Money

The Most House for the Least Money

Our real estate work places us with many out of town buyers and we take pride in helping those individuals or families to find the neighborhoods, school systems, and homes that fit their wants and desires. Many preconceived ideas come along with those buyers…one of the biggest is that we only want to sell homes listed by our company. This is furthest from fact. Our job is to show any home and every home available that meets the needs of our clients making no difference as to the listing company; and this is exactly what we accomplish. We have met many clients who tell us that they have had experiences with Realtors who do just that, but our goal is to find a home that suits your needs, no matter what company has the listing.

The next biggest idea of course is a normal one and that is, how much house can I get for my dollar. This will always be true and especially in our market where it is very well known that you get much more house for your dollar in our area anyway. Of course, the home selling price range will also depend on what size home and location of that home the buyer is requesting. Now that the market has turned into a buyers market, the buyer’s are on the hunt for the elusive “bargain” home. Many people come here not understanding that our market did not go through years of tremendous property value growth as did many areas of the country and that our home values may have risen, but have done so slowly and gradually; which of course is why we have such a stable market where you do in fact get more home for your money. But if you move here from a market where home prices have skyrocketed over the last ten years, and you have seen home prices drop by 25%, 30%, or more; well that just has not happened much here because we never had that huge appreciation in home value in the first place. This becomes even a larger hurdle when those buyers had to, in fact, drastically reduce their own homes where they moved from, in order to sell. This may also cause additional frustration when they feel they could in fact purchase a home in the area where they moved from for tens of thousands of dollars less than the asking prices-- but not so much here.

When I have asked buyers what they mean by finding a “bargain” home, even they are not too certain. If they are still looking for great school zones and good resale somewhere down the road, then they need to look at neighborhoods and suburbs that offer those perks first, and then decide to look at available homes located there. Obviously, this puts location, location, and location as number one as it has always been. Even in these areas, you may find foreclosures, but those homes are ones that may have been on the market for a while, no one else wanted to purchase them, and now a bank owns it. The bank may be willing to sell it at a deflated price, but for some reason or reasons, no one else wanted to buy it before it was foreclosed on, so it may be in need of repairs and fixing up or worse. This may be exactly what some buyers want…but in my experience, many buyers still want a move-in ready house at these low low prices; and this does not really happen too much in our market. In other words, if a really great property went into foreclosure, it most likely would not last too very long on the market, as someone at the bank or someone who knows someone at the bank or some realtor would have bought it already.
So now we are back to looking for a “bargain” house. I guess it will always depend on what some buyer considers to be a bargain, but if you are looking for homes that are neat and clean and move-in ready, you can still get a bargain, but not a giveaway. If a home is selling for a giveaway price, it would be wise to do some due diligence regarding everything about that home; especially location but also and mainly the general condition of that home.There are many great deals to be found in our market. It is the perception of what a “great deal” happens to be that has the biggest variety of conclusions. Buyers need to understand the things that add value to property and of course we are back to location as number one. Next would be cost of ownership, then quality of construction, and the laws of supply and demand. As native Memphians with years of real estate experience, Connie and I offer the expertise of knowing neighborhoods, builders, demographics and other data at our fingertips that can help you to make those choices best for your family. If you start by finding the neighborhood you want and then purchase a home from a motivated seller in that area, that one day, you will feel like you did find your “bargain” home.