Fifth Avenue Forum

Posted: **Fri Apr 10, 2015 9:28 am**

As noted elsewhere, after dragging my feet for a few years I'm preapproved and need to buy a house within the next 7 weeks or so. I'm not very picky, so as long as it has a few main features, passes an inspection, and incomes in around my desired monthly payment, I'm in.

I have a friend who is a realtor on the side. I didn't think he was doing much business with it, so I wanted to help get him the buyer's commission. After getting my first preapproval last friday I sent him the letter and told him I wanted to sign the buyer broker agreement paperwork and start looking at a few places.

He's been slow to call me back, and last night kind of said on the phone "between me needing to buy a house and close by July 31 and a half dozen other clients, I need to look over my schedule and see if I can do this to help you." Which I really appreciated - I don't want him to feel compelled to work with me because we are Pitt tailgating buddies.

But now I'm waiting for him to make a decision on that and I have a slightly compressed time frame. One house I'm extremely interested in just dropped about 8% and is doing an open house on Sunday. If I like it as much as I do from the pictures I want to buy it - and I'm willing to offer a bit more than the new lower asking price to make that happen. But I'm afraid its going to slip away.

Do people make offers AT open houses? Or is that something they leave and potentially discus with their realtor?

Posted: **Fri Apr 10, 2015 9:33 am**

People absolutley make offers at open houses.

Not always, but it does happen.

Posted: **Fri Apr 10, 2015 9:34 am**

Tell your buddy to "Giroux" or get off the pot.

Posted: **Fri Apr 10, 2015 9:38 am**

If I were having an open house to sell anything I think I would wait 48 hours or something like that to see if I get any other bites before I accept one. Its not like a car, right? If you make an offer you are bound by it if accepted.

Posted: **Fri Apr 10, 2015 9:41 am**

I would imagine you have a 3 day right of recission.

But, that may only apply to refis or HELOCs. I'm no lawyer.

Posted: **Fri Apr 10, 2015 9:42 am**

If you offer asking price for a house that has been on the market long enough to drop in price, I don't think they'll be sleeping on it

Posted: **Fri Apr 10, 2015 9:44 am**

Also, why are you buying a house? Unless you are a big DIY guy and/or desperately want a space to make your own, I don't see a lot of practical reasons to get a house right now unless you're about to start a family.

Posted: **Fri Apr 10, 2015 10:08 am**

A couple of reasons, but I mostly miss being able to entertain and screw around with projects. I can't grill, work on my car (that I'm paying $70 a month to keep in storage), home brew, watch movies at reference volume (let alone use my subwoofer), have large crowds over for football games like I used to, that kind of stuff.

I'm paying roughly $1000 for 500 square feet and storage in a decrepit building.

Plus the interest rates will rise when Yellen starts screwing around with them in the coming months. Now is the time to invest.

Posted: **Fri Apr 10, 2015 10:27 am**

Don't know if we're at the point where you can treat a house like an investment again. Depends on your taxes and how much home improvement you can do yourself, but I wouldn't necessarily go into it thinking that way.

Posted: **Fri Apr 10, 2015 10:58 am**

There are certain things I would never want to use a friend for help... a realtor is probably one of them. I want to be able to yell at you and not ruin our friendship, ya know? Kind of like an attorney too. I wouldn't want my lawyer to be my friend. What happens if I lose? Then I hate you forever

Posted: **Fri Apr 10, 2015 11:11 am**

Don't know if we're at the point where you can treat a house like an investment again. Depends on your taxes and how much home improvement you can do yourself, but I wouldn't necessarily go into it thinking that way.

I'd rather spend 1k towards a house with the possibility of building equity than throwing 1k away in an apartment.

Posted: **Fri Apr 10, 2015 11:18 am**

If you offer asking price for a house that has been on the market long enough to drop in price, I don't think they'll be sleeping on it

As someone who recently did just this I can say shemnguin is right. We had 2 more showings scheduled at the time of the offer and we could have waited to see if either of them wanted to bid higher but the odds of that are very low.

There are certain things I would never want to use a friend for help... a realtor is probably one of them. I want to be able to yell at you and not ruin our friendship, ya know? Kind of like an attorney too. I wouldn't want my lawyer to be my friend. What happens if I lose? Then I hate you forever

We have a friend who is a realtor and we used her. Well, we used her group as she is a buyers agent. She is the one who ended up bringing our buyer to the house and the fact that she is a friend helped us. A house down the street went on the market for less than ours and she steered the buyer in our direction.

Posted: **Fri Apr 10, 2015 11:21 am**

For selling a house, I absolutely would. But for buying, probably not.

Posted: **Fri Apr 10, 2015 11:32 am**

For selling a house, I absolutely would. But for buying, probably not.

That makes sense...

Posted: **Fri Apr 10, 2015 11:39 am**

I wouldn't use a friend to sell but I would use one to buy.

Posted: **Fri Apr 10, 2015 11:56 am**

I wouldn't use a friend to sell but I would use one to buy.

Thats kind of where I'm at. I'm paying my friend nothing. I know I won't be a particularly difficult or time consuming client so in my mind its an easy commission for friend to help me make an offer and push through the closing process with me.

Contrast that with selling the house, where a friend could potentially cost you a lot of money.

Posted: **Fri Apr 10, 2015 11:56 am**

I think with selling, you could probably just put it on zillow and have just as much success as with a realtor.

Posted: **Fri Apr 10, 2015 12:17 pm**

Don't know if we're at the point where you can treat a house like an investment again. Depends on your taxes and how much home improvement you can do yourself, but I wouldn't necessarily go into it thinking that way.

I'd rather spend 1k towards a house with the possibility of building equity than throwing 1k away in an apartment.

PMI, taxes and extra utilities/maintenance costs more than rent in many cases. It's generally not worth it to buy in those situations unless you have an explicit need.

Posted: **Fri Apr 10, 2015 12:32 pm**

I think with selling, you could probably just put it on zillow and have just as much success as with a realtor.

Success in getting showings and/or interest in your home? Probably. It's what needs to happen after an offer is made where an agent shows his/her value.

Posted: **Fri Apr 10, 2015 12:33 pm**

As someone who recently did just this I can say shemnguin is right. We had 2 more showings scheduled at the time of the offer and we could have waited to see if either of them wanted to bid higher but the odds of that are very low.

Whoa dude congrats, must have been tempting

Posted: **Fri Apr 10, 2015 12:54 pm**

If I were having an open house to sell anything I think I would wait 48 hours or something like that to see if I get any other bites before I accept one. Its not like a car, right? If you make an offer you are bound by it if accepted.

When we sold our house in 2012, it hit the MLS on Sunday with the first open house scheduled for the following Saturday. We had a broker's open on Wednesday, and got an over-list offer (sight unseen by the buyer) that same day. Our Realtor suggested we accept, and Mrs Tif agreed, so we ended up not even having the open house.

In retrospect, I think it was a huge mistake; we listed at $599k, sold at $604k, and I think we probably cost ourselves probably in the region of $10k by not having the open and seeing what other interest there was.

Posted: **Fri Apr 10, 2015 12:59 pm**

I think with selling, you could probably just put it on zillow and have just as much success as with a realtor.

There are far too many intricacies involved with real estate law. To the point that when we've been house hunting, I explicitly excluded FSBOs from our search.

Chances are good that your house is likely the single most expensive investment/transaction you will ever undertake. There's no way in hot Hades that I'm not having an expert guide me through that process.

Posted: **Fri Apr 10, 2015 1:39 pm**

I just want a few very basic things:

-at least a one car garage
-within 5 miles/10 minutes of downtown
-at least 2 bedrooms
-small patio, deck, or backyard space
-a finished or finishable basement

Beyond that I really don't care, so long as termites aren't eating it, the roof isn't collapsing, the furnace is younger than me, and mold isn't going to kill me.

Posted: **Fri Apr 10, 2015 1:55 pm**

I think you need to be honest with your buddy. Tell him that you'd love to do business with him, but if he is too busy, you understand. put it in his shoes, and if he can't help you, then you go solo and bid on the property you want. You took your friend's financial well being in consideration when you offered the business. If they are a good friend, they'll understand and consider your financial interest if they can't meet your needs. There shouldn't be any hard feelings. If he can't help you, move on, and invite him over at the housewarming for a beer or beverage of choice.

Posted: **Fri Apr 10, 2015 3:12 pm**

School district rankings in the Pittsburgh area:

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