I held out, the place I almost bought but was kinda outbid (my verbal offer was outbid by a higher written one) went into escrow and of course fell out due to the failed 100% financing buyer. They called me yesterday and and offered it at 10% below my offer but I already moved and am in a 6 mos lease, so it looks like i have a front row seat for the next few months. Stuff is dropping like a rock right now so I’m raising my quality target away from a thrashed repo to something a little more turnkey at an even lower price. Gotta love the new look of redfin, they capture price lowering data now. Here’s a cut and pasted example from redfin regarding list price data for a partuclar place, I’m witholding the actual link because it’s on my list of places to buy and quite frankly I don’t need the competition.
Listing Price History
Date Price
Aug 25, 2007 $399,000
Sep 05, 2007 $389,000
Sep 17, 2007 $379,000
Sep 25, 2007 $369,000
Sep 28, 2007 $359,000
Oct 12, 2007 $350,000
Jan 16, 2008 $340,000
Jan 23, 2008 $330,000
Jan 30, 2008 $320,000
At the current rate they will pay me to take it in three years. I love the new redfin, it even sometimes captures the data on the relistings, you have to scroll to the bottom. This is pretty indicative of the market here, how can I possibly pull the trigger now, I’m saving 10k a week. When it hits 250k I might return their phone calls, then again, maybe I wont. Seriously I’m having a blast as the only qualified buyer with a downpayment left in town, now I know what Bill Gates felt like at his high school reunion. I love their polished sales pitches when they call to tell me the house I was interested is miracoulously back on the market. It goes something like this for price range of a property like the one above (this is from a real call and I really said this). Realtor “Great news, the house you were looking at fell out of escrow and I know you thought it was a good buy at 350k, the new listing price is even lower now, I say we meet today at the propery and write an offer before it’s gone.” TG- “before you tell me the new price let me just say that if the first digit is not a 2 and the second digit is higher than a 5, there better be a victoria secret model wearing lingerie and waiting for me in the bedroom when I get there and not one of the skinny ones either.” Long pause…I laughed for a week after that, I just laughed again remembering it. If it hadn’t been a female realtor I bet that joke would have gotten some traction. Thank goodness my fellow pigs talked me out of buying, this is going to be a blast.
