Common mistakes of buyers

The main culprit of wasting money, time, and mental power

1. This one is bigger than the remaining nine mistakes combined.

The biggest mistakes you can make in buying a home are probably the ones who don't buy the house, and the ones who shouldn't.

The most important preparatory work to buy a home is to have the “ conviction and willingness ” to buy a home (or to continue renting). Without this conviction and will, it is easy to be shaken even by small problems and challenges, and eventually, it is easy to temporarily put a house purchase on hold.

2. The sooner you prepare for this, the better.

Even if you can't afford to buy a house right now, getting a loan consultation once can help you in many ways. This is because you can prepare in advance and even make long-term plans if necessary. You will also learn how to manage your credit. I sometimes meet people who prepare in advance like this, but I have no choice but to go ahead of others.

Not to mention those who are interested in buying a house right away. If you plan to buy a house around the fall of this year, it is better not to wait until autumn and seek loan counseling in spring or summer. Correcting credits or preparing for shortfalls can take time.

However, most buyers look for a loan only when the time to buy a house is near. It's okay if there are no special problems. This is because the loan consultation itself does not take a long time. However, at least make sure to check it out before going home.

3. This is more disadvantageous. One or two are ideal.

Another persistent mistake of buyers is to look at the house without having to decide on a neighborhood.

Then the process of buying a house becomes very difficult. As the area expands, interests diverge, and good opportunities are constantly missed. And in the end, it's easy to buy a strange house in a strange neighborhood while tired and numb.

Also, if the neighborhood is not fixed, they tend to go farther in search of better homes. I bought a house like that and many regret it. The good thing about home is that it fades over time, but the tiredness of the hard commute increases over time.

Buyers whose neighborhood is not determined should first choose “neighborhood” rather than “home”. If I organize my priorities, see the neighborhood, and see a few houses to meet, the candidate neighborhood will usually be narrowed down to one or two. It is desirable to see the house in earnest after the neighborhood is decided.

4. Are you still browsing the newspapers to find your home?

As far as homes are concerned, 99% of the listings in newspapers are also on the Internet. Therefore, there is no longer any need to search through the newspapers for listings. If the newspaper has listings that don't appear on the Internet by any chance, most of them have already been escrowed or haven't been updated.

Sometimes, hidden property information appears in newspapers. Probably the following two cases are easy.

Houses for which the seller has not yet officially signed a listing contract. The listing agent receives an offer and tries to persuade the seller.
When an agent takes a listing and puts it in the newspaper first while “taking the time” for a while before posting it on the Internet. The reason for doing so is, of course, for the listing agent to find the buyer and do a dual agency (Dual Agency = double commission). (It is illegal to delay internet marketing for dual purposes. If you know a seller, you will get mad, and your agent is deprived of licenses.)

It would be very frustrating if you keep looking at the newspaper to follow the information on the sale, as if you were going to leave behind the normal 99% of the sale information.

In addition, there are still buyers who mistakenly believe that all of the listings in the advertisement are the exclusive listings of the agent that placed the advertisement. Almost all of the listings in the ad are listings from other agents. You don't have to buy it through the agent that advertised it.

There seems to be only one reason to look at a real estate newspaper ad. It is to find an agent. When you look at advertisement photos and phrases, there are always agents that are attracted to you. The more difficult the internet is, the more dependent on agents is, the more you have to try to meet better agents, and it seems that it is correct to see newspapers for that purpose.

5. The more this, the more disadvantageous. You don't need both. One is enough.

Another major mistake of buyers is getting help from multiple agents, not just one agent. Agents who noticed about 99 levels would not work hard.

The biggest reason buyers contact multiple agents is to get special offer information. However, due to the nature of housing real estate in Southern California, since all housing properties are marketed openly, all agents have the same property information.

What buyers need is not an agent with a special intelligence that doesn't even exist, but an agent who will "work hard" for me. When it comes to residential real estate, it is far more advantageous to get 100% service from one trusted agent than 50% service from multiple agents.

Then, you have to find an agent that you can trust, and to do that, you have to do “Find an Agent ” before the first “Find for Sale”. Think of the first meeting with the agent as a kind of interview process to grasp the agent's qualities. You can honestly say you're looking for an agent to work with and you're planning to meet a few people. Agents are thirsty for such frankness. Then, when you meet a trusted agent, it's a good idea to transfer your job. If you get there, finding a good home is like a 99% success.

6. Ah... This was a really nice house...

Whether it's $500,000 or $5 million, all buyers have something in common. That is, I always want a house that is a little bigger and nicer than the house I can live in. Conversely, the house I can live in is always a little smaller and worse than I expected. I think it is human instinct. However, if the degree is too high, the process of buying a house becomes very difficult. In addition, if you lack the will to buy a house, it is the perfect recipe for not being able to buy a house in the end. Buying the perfect house you like, but you can't buy a house at all, and you have to continue living in a much worse environment than that.

For buyers whose eyes are too demanding to see the house, the following ideas may be helpful.

I look around the house where I live and think that I am buying this house. You will probably see a lot of flaws that you haven't seen normally. The flaws in the new home now look enlarged, but if you live, you can adapt to some extent.
They think of conditions that cannot be compromised and conditions that can be compromised.
Consider whether the part you don't like can be fixed or not.
If I have to compromise five of the ten things I want right now, I'll probably only have to compromise three when I buy the next house. Remember that you also need the courage to start imperfectly to lay the groundwork for your progress.

7. “How much can you mow?”

There are questions that almost all buyers ask like a buzzword. “How much can you mow?”

Of course, this is a natural question from the buyer's point of view. And it's okay if this question means how much will I buy this house for? However, surprisingly, many buyers pay more than necessary attention to “cutting” the price itself. And if you say you can't cut a lot, no, at times like these days, there is a protest about how to pay for everything you ask for.

With a little thought, you can see why it's wrong to focus on “cutting” prices. That's because listing prices aren't absolute numbers. The listing price is set by the seller and the listing agent head-to-head. It is not that the listing price is set by any country, and there is no exact mathematical formula. In general, it is a principle to offer a little higher than the fair value or the fair value, but there are cases where it comes out too high, and in some cases it is deliberately lower than the fair price for strategic reasons. If the listing price is high, you will have to cut it down a lot, and if it is at an appropriate price, you can give it all as it is. Conversely, if the price is lower than the fair price, competition may increase and the price may rise.

It is obvious that if you do not understand these principles and focus only on cutting them, you will encounter frustrating situations without explaining them. There are buyers who miss the opportunity to buy a good house at a good price just because they can't mow a lot. Experienced buyers first pay attention to the house's objective market price rather than the listing price. And asks like this.

“Can I see some objective data on how the houses around here are selling?”

8. “0.5%” margin

Even if everything is done perfectly, and the agent does the job perfectly, there will be unexpected extra costs when buying a house. E.g…

In the process of moving, it is common to make double payments for the time being between the old and new homes. It seems to be about at least 2 weeks on average.
Failure to meet the end of the escrow can result in a "Per Diem" fine from the seller.
When you buy a house and move in, you will have one or two unforeseen problems within the first month. (This is what we can guarantee.)

One of the persistent mistakes of buyers is to pursue a home purchase without any preparation for these additional costs. Then, when a problem arises, your heart is struggling. Also, relatively small problems can make relationships nasty and eventually destroy the transaction itself.

0.5% of the cost of the house, or $2,500 for a $500,000 house. It's usually a lot of money, but when you buy a house, it's not. Does anyone get upset that after 10 years and 20 years, they bought a $500,000 house and paid an additional $2,500?

We will try not to incur an additional cost of only $1 from the point of view of the agent, but from the point of view of the buyer, we recommend that you take 0.5% margin.

9. Even if I was in the other person's position, I may be doing the same.

Another mistake that buyers are persistently making when buying a house is being overly emotionally involved.

I see a case in which the seller is excited to ignore me even if I am a little late to respond to a request. In a transaction that costs hundreds of thousands of dollars, he breaks the transaction after thinking that several hundred-dollar repair requests were not accepted. It's a pretty boring sight in real estate transactions, where people who are in good shape meet each other and fight for emotions because of relatively trivial matters, and end up losing both sides.

Real estate transactions must be thoroughly cool. Otherwise, you lose unconditionally. There is no reason or place for feelings in real estate bargaining. And it is worth thinking that even though I was in the seller's position, I would be doing the same as the seller now. There are some sellers who have really no manners and feel bad. Still, don't lose your cool. After the transaction is over anyway, he'll never see him again, but he doesn't have to worry about the humanity of the other party. Even if I lose money because of the unreasonable demands of the other party, in order to prevent further damage, I must know how to accept small damages coldly.

10. A very infamous word among real estate agents!

Another persistent mistake of buyers is that it is Buyer's Regret. We usually put in an offer, wait hard, and start right away when we get a notification that the seller has accepted our offer.

“Isn't this a house where no one lives alone?”
"Isn't it too expensive?"

At the same time, feelings of pressure and fear come from the realization that "Now I am really buying a house." The voices of people around me who are against it suddenly begin to hear loudly. The shortcomings of houses and neighborhoods that I didn't see crazy when I put an offer are now starting to come into my eyes. Almost all buyers are of varying degrees, but it is a psychological conflict that occurs at least once in the process of buying a house.

Usually, with the following two convictions, the Buyer's Regret can be easily overcome.

The most important thing is the conviction that you will also have to buy a house. Conviction to buy a home begins with an understanding of the benefits of home ownership.
The second important thing is the confidence in the objective price of the house I want to buy. This is where you need the help of a seasoned and honest real estate agent.