Can it actually be harder to qualify for a rental than a home purchase...YES

In this episode of Bed Bath & Banter, we discuss the differences in getting approved for a rental home vs. qualifying for a home purchase of your own. I know it seems silly, but sometimes it is easier to purchase a home! And can even be more cost effective (buying is always a better deal long-term but sometimes it can be cheaper than getting into a rental up front as well!)!! 

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Hello once again. Welcome to Bad Bath and Banter, Arizona Real Estate Edition. We are wrapping up our St. Patrick's Day episodes. As you can see, I love St. Patrick's Day. Love everything green.

SPEAKER_00 0:12

I'm a big fan if you haven't noticed.

SPEAKER_01 0:13

I know, I love it. I get to wear green every single day this month. It's my favorite month, even though my birthday's in October.

SPEAKER_00 0:18

No one tell her she can wear green anytime she's an adult. Okay, go ahead. Doesn't matter the month, right, guys?

SPEAKER_01 0:24

I know, but I love where I love.

SPEAKER_00 0:26

You can go get a birthday cake and throw yourself a birthday party every night if you wanted to. Not a big deal.

SPEAKER_01 0:30

I do love being an adult. There's something to be said for that. Speaking of adulthood, one of the biggest cruxes of being an adult outside of parenthood is bills and finances and housing. Um so we're gonna talk really quickly about renting versus buying and the process you have to go through for each one of them. Now uh we have been renters, it's been a very, very long time, but we also have renters and we've been homeowners for about 20, 22, 25 years.

SPEAKER_00 1:01

Yeah, it's more in that whole point.

SPEAKER_01 1:02

So uh we can definitely speak to both sides of it. Uh one of my biggest frustrations with my buyers is um they contact me when their lease is up in 25 days. And not necessarily ready to buy a house.

SPEAKER_00 1:19

Well they know that they don't want to rent anymore.

SPEAKER_01 1:22

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 1:24

That's about it. Yeah. That's all they know. Okay. They don't know anything else.

SPEAKER_01 1:27

So really um my own my only point in saying that is please prepare. You know, you know when your lease is up and life gets away from you. Trust me. Every time tax season rolls around, we all know how fast time goes. Um, you know, and we just don't prepare and we wait till the last minute. It's very difficult to do that with housing because it just takes more to prepare to get ready to buy a house. Um, or even if you're moving to rent, you know, it's it's really stressful when you're scrambling at the last second to find a place to live that's gonna fit you and your family and your needs. So, really, if you take, even if it's six months before your lease is up, take the time to get ready to look into buying a home. But I went off track a little bit. I want to talk about the requirements of getting into a rental versus getting into a home to purchase. It's actually quite a bit more difficult in some cases to rent a home, Ryan.

SPEAKER_00 2:19

It can be absolutely you hear all the time people um complaining online, uh, rightfully so, uh, about you gotta have three times, four times, whatever that number is. Two times two. Yeah, the rent. I mean, it just depends, honestly, from listing to listing. I mean, I've seen uh instances where uh, like if you have pets, right? Uh I don't know what it is about renters. They love to have pets. They do. We've always had pets. Yeah, and and you know, if you have two or three, maybe a couple dogs, a cat. Uh, I saw one in particular, they wanted a pet deposit for each pet, and that can range anywhere from three to five hundred dollars. Uh and then they want to have ongoing pet rent, and I want to say it was like$75 or$80 per pet per month.

SPEAKER_01 3:03

It's just crazy.

SPEAKER_00 3:04

It's just wild, right?

SPEAKER_01 3:05

It's and really COVID killed our real estate and our rental market. Things are starting to calm down now, especially on the rental side. It's still expensive. Everything is still expensive, but um, you know, what I'm loving is I I am seeing rents come down. I am seeing them come down to a little bit normal of a level, but it's still more difficult to get into a rental. Um, besides the pet situation, whereas if you own your own home, you don't have to pay any pet deposits, and you can have whatever pet you want. You could have Godzilla.

SPEAKER_00 3:35

Yeah, you know, you don't care.

SPEAKER_01 3:37

Your neighbors will care, but the mortgage company will not care.

SPEAKER_00 3:40

We hear from a lot of renters. Uh for and I'm not sure why this is. Maybe it's just um, I don't know. Maybe I'm I'm making up in my head, but almost always renters have pit bulls. They almost always have pit bulls.

SPEAKER_01 3:52

It's only the conversation because it only comes up when they have a pit bull.

SPEAKER_00 3:55

Yeah. Well, but yeah, and and right or wrong, right? Um a lot of homeowners don't want to rent to people who have pit bulls.

SPEAKER_01 4:04

And it's funny because they're probably the nicest dogs on the planet. You know, they have been groomed to be something opposite, but they really are like my sister has a pet pit, and that that dog is a lot nicer than my chihuahuas.

SPEAKER_00 4:16

Yeah, way nicer. She loves on me when I go over. Like, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 4:19

So um, but that is true. You know, some there are restricted uh pets that you can't have in rentals, and you know, it just makes life very difficult, especially when you have pay have to pay per pet. But another thing that literally rocks my world, and I understand why. I as a as a landlord, I have never done this type of background check. But you do have to pass a background check, and that includes never, you know, not having any felonies, not being in jail recently, not having a DUI. Um we don't care. On the mortgage side, we do not have to be a good thing.

SPEAKER_00 4:54

Yeah, the weird thing about that is you could buy a home and you have all those things. Absolutely. So yeah.

SPEAKER_01 4:58

So, in my opinion, you know, if you uh you take a little bit of time to prepare and get ready, you could definitely purchase a home and make the dream of homeownership a reality. You do not have to continue renting and continue signing that lease. You just have to look into it. It is not brain surgery. You don't have to have, you know,$50,000 down to buy a house.

SPEAKER_00 5:19

Um You don't have to make a million dollars to buy a house.

SPEAKER_01 5:22

Yeah, correct. I mean, every time I get in touch with someone who's never purchased a home, they always say, wow, I didn't realize it was this easy. It just takes a little bit of preparation and and it should. It's a very, very uh tremendous purchase. And it can make you a lot of money if you keep it long term.

SPEAKER_00 5:41

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 5:42

It's worth it. So, you know, I definitely recommend if your lease is coming up and you want to look into this topic, you know, we would love to help you. We'd love to answer your questions. You know, yes, we do this podcast to give information, and you know, there's just so much hard selling out there in our industry. And I despise it. We are not hard sellers. We are here to arm you or educate and arm you with the information so you can make your own decision. And hopefully you decide that, you know, you we're people that you would want to work with. If not, I hope we we helped you in some way, but definitely reach out and let us answer your questions and see if this is something that's in your near future. Um, my website is keeping at realistate with amyb.com. Um goes in line with my R radio show that we have on KTAR every Friday. I'm sorry, every Saturday, not Friday, every uh Saturday at 5 p.m.

SPEAKER_00 6:32

On 92.3 FM.

SPEAKER_01 6:34

Look at that. You know where we are. I like it. Okay, Ryan. So let's kind of switch gears a little bit. Sure. Um, let's talk about the five top mistakes buyers and sellers make when they are looking to purchase or sell their home. All right. So let's start with buyers.

SPEAKER_00 6:49

Yeah, let's let's do that. So uh one of the, I think probably the most typical uh mistakes that a buyer is gonna make, especially when they're in the process of buying a home, you know, I and I get it, they're exuberant, they're excited, this is a big deal. Like I understand all of that. Yes. But they will rush out and go, hey, I gotta furnish this home. I'm gonna go spend$10,000 on furniture for the home.

SPEAKER_01 7:13

I have an R V gate, let's go buy a boat.

SPEAKER_00 7:16

Um, or hey, you know, I'm gonna need a new vehicle because this is gonna be a different commute for me, and you know, whatever it is. Yeah. They they spend large sums of money while they're under transaction to buy a home. Um, and as we all know, homes, uh the prices are, you know, they're not cheap, right? Uh interest rates, while they have come back down some, they're still high, right? Um, you know, you can, you know, a major purchase like that can absolutely tilt you out of being able to qualify to buy a home.

SPEAKER_01 7:48

Definitely. So um mostly what Ryan is meaning is financing these major purchases, not necessarily outlaying up cash. Yeah. Um, but both of those can be difficult. So always make sure before you make any major purchase, whether you're financing or not, talk to your mortgage lender and make sure it's okay that you do that prior to purchasing on the home. You know, we have had situations where someone's gone out and and purchased a car two days before closing and it it came up and you know it ended up throwing a little bit of a wrench in our process.

SPEAKER_00 8:17

Well, I think if you think about it, right, especially now, uh just with the the price of vehicles. Um a$700 car payment, if you're financing it, is nowhere near abnormal. Well, I wish it wasn't, yeah. But that eats up a lot, right, of your income. It does. Um, and it adds to obviously to the debt that you owe consistently. Yes. So that definitely can impact you. Um and I know you touched on it earlier, but uh another uh thing that that home buyers or people at least in the market to buy homes, mistake that they make um is to wait till the last second when their lease is going to be due. Um and start the process. Yeah, start the process. It's you you don't need a crazy amount of lead time. Um, but I would say, you know, you could you could get some credit repair done, you can manage some some handling some paying some debt off, um, saving money, uh, you know, if you give yourself a handful of months to put it.

SPEAKER_01 9:17

Taking time to actually find the right home instead of having to make a rush decision because you have to move. That's my biggest concern is is people just rushing into the first home that they look at because they feel like they don't have a choice. Um that's where you make large financial mistakes. So, you know, just a couple of months, if we have two or three months, that would be ideal. That gives you enough time to make sure all your ducks are in a row, make sure you qualify for a loan, make sure you have enough money for the down payment, or that you're set up on the down payment assistance and that you have time to find the right house.

SPEAKER_00 9:51

Yeah, yeah. So you don't feel rushed. Absolutely. Absolutely, yeah, no, a hundred percent. Um, let's see, another one that we see routinely out of buyers. So, and this one kind of goes hand in hand with another one that's on our list. But um a lot of times people were, you know, maybe maybe Amy and I we get up in the morning, we're sipping our coffee, right, and we're talking. I'm like, hey, why don't we go look at some homes, right? We know our lease is coming up. Uh let's go check some out. And they have no earthly idea on what they can afford. Um, they haven't talked to anybody in the industry, a loan officer, they haven't talked to a real estate agent. We're just gonna go willy-nilly, let's go see. And you know, initially it sounds like you know, fun. I get it. I like looking at homes.

SPEAKER_01 10:40

So fine.

SPEAKER_00 10:40

Especially going to new build communities, doing that kind of stuff.

SPEAKER_01 10:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 10:43

Um, it's pretty cool to go and do that. Uh the problem is, walk with me on this one. Uh, you go and you look at a home that's in the 700,000s, but you only qualify for$500,000. Are any of the$500,000 homes going to compare to those$700,000 homes you see?

SPEAKER_01 10:59

Never again. No, it is that is so dangerous looking at homes outside of your price point or outside of your budget. Because again, when you see something that is valued quite a bit higher than what you're able to purchase, that's always going to stand out as the home that you want. So it's really important to make sure that you get your budget situated first. You talk to a lender, um, talk to myself, talk to another. There's lots of amazing lenders in Arizona. And find out what you can afford. Find out what, you know, if let's say your max monthly payment is$2,300 with your scenario, with your credit score, with your loan type, with your down payment or down payment assistance, find out what that means in a price point. Your lender can easily give that to you. And then really focus on that in below. If you decide that you can afford a tiny bit more because the right house comes up, fantastic. But at least you're not being forced into that decision because you saw something that you fell in love with and you just can't afford.

SPEAKER_00 12:00

Yeah. And what Amy's referencing there is um oftentimes the number that a lender will qualify you for to buy, right? To borrow, if you will, um could probably be higher than what you really want to spend.

SPEAKER_01 12:16

That's correct, yes. Right. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 12:17

So so that's what that's what we're talking about. Now, that being said, I have had a fair amount of healthy discussions with some of the buyers I've been working with recently around hey, if we went up 10 or 15, maybe even$20,000, I think the the class of homes that we're looking at takes a jump. I agree. Yeah. And then and then we talk about what does that mean for your monthly payment? Can you can, you know, can you handle that? We already know you qualify for it, but you know, we'll let you put your head on the pillow at night and not break out into a cold sweat.

SPEAKER_01 12:50

Absolutely. So yeah, I mean, the worst thing ever is getting into a home and within the first couple of months you realize you can't afford it. Uh, having that conversation with your lender and really getting that guidance is so important. If your lender doesn't have time for you, I just spoke to someone this week that they've been waiting for three weeks for their lender to get back to them on a pre-qualification. That's ridiculous. That literally takes I can't believe I just heard you say that.

SPEAKER_00 13:13

That's wild.

SPEAKER_01 13:14

Ridiculous. It takes an hour. So if they have, if you haven't heard back from them within a week, you are not a priority. Go find a lender where you will be a priority. Absolutely. I would love to help you anytime.

SPEAKER_00 13:25

She would. She's more than happy to do so. All right. So in the next one, yes, and this is really going to pertain much more to when you're actually under contract. You're ready to, you're, you're, you've already offered, the seller said that's fantastic, we'll accept. And now you're in what is called your inspection period, which is the initial first 10 days that you're under contract. There are buyers out there that don't want to do home inspections. They'll waive them. Andor say it my direction as an example, you start getting into homes where you know they're 25, 30, 40, 50 years old. Your traditional just a general home inspection is probably not going to be enough, right? To fully protect yourself. Um, you need to be doing a sewer scope. So they're going to run a camera line down through the sewer from the home to the street. Um, and they can even go into the plumbing in the home as well, uh, just to make sure everything's good. Those expenses can be, or those fixes can be very expensive. Yes. Right? They can be outrageously expensive in in some instances. I saw one in particular uh about a year and a half ago, a whole home had to be completely replumbed. It was about$80,000. So, you know, that's it's it's$300,$250 to$300 to have that camera through the lines. Yeah. Well worth it worth it to spend that money. Um and then, of course, roof, right, as well. Yeah, your inspector's gonna go up there. They're gonna tell you if any uh roof tiles are cracked, or the mortar caps, the joints there are are cracked. Um, they might even lift a couple tiles up and tell you how the underlayment looks. Um but what I will tell you is not only is a listing agent and a seller really going to take a cursory view of what the home inspector did and go, uh yeah, we'll we'll get a new roof, right, for you, no problem. They're not gonna do that. But if you go and you get an actual licensed roofer out there, um, and what I do oftentimes, not only do I provide that roof inspection to a listing agent, but I will also encourage a listing agent to go ahead and have the seller hire their own roofer to come out and take a look. A lot of times these roofers, um, you know, if they have the prospect of replacing a roof, a potential business there, they'll go ahead and they'll do it for free. They'll do the inspection, get you a quote, do all that kind of stuff. So um I encourage that to happen as well. But there are quite literally buyers out there that will wave all of those inspections and could potentially be walking into tens, sometimes in some instances, even 100,000 or more of repairs just because they, you know, they didn't want to spend the five or six hundred bucks for the home inspection.

SPEAKER_01 16:07

And any agent worth their salt would never allow or recommend a buyer to waive an inspection, but there are some out there that would. So that's a huge red flag if they say, you know, oh, the home is as is, you don't need to do inspections. That is definitely not the way to handle it.

SPEAKER_00 16:21

No, which it's not.

SPEAKER_01 16:23

No, but which brings us to our next point. Yeah. Uh the last, well, the fifth mistake, not last, but the fifth biggest mistake you can make is not hiring a real estate agent. Um, this is not a sales pitch.

SPEAKER_00 16:34

No.

SPEAKER_01 16:35

It is 100% true. You would not do surgery on yourself. You are not a doctor. Real estate is not as easy as it seems, and there's so much that the general public does not know about a transaction. Um, it is worth every single penny to hire a real estate agent to represent your interests.

SPEAKER_00 16:51

Yeah, I mean, just to give you an just a quick example. Um, so uh I have a client who's currently under contract right now. Um, we were able to get them initially uh$12,000 from the seller to pay for their closing costs.

SPEAKER_01 17:08

And this is on a$500,000 transaction, just to give you some Yeah, to give you some perspective.

SPEAKER_00 17:14

Um we found out through our inspections that the roof was shot. It absolutely needed to be replaced. Now, the hangu was this. The seller, I think they probably were aware that this could be an issue. And so in one of their counter offers to us before we went officially under contract, um, they said you're you're gonna be buying the home as is. Well, an average person, if you signed your name on a document and said you're gonna take the home as is, and you're going it alone, you're thinking, I can't ask this seller for anything. They said it's as is. Well, just because they said it is as is, um doesn't preclude you as the buyer from asking for some help with that repair. Correct. Right? You can absolutely ask, what is the worst that they can say? No, right? And then if they say no, then you as the buyer, you get to decide whether or not you want to move forward with the purchase or you want to cancel. Right? So uh I but Niels will say I was able to uh get another$5,000 credit to that client to help with the roof cost. So it's kind of split between the buyer-seller, if you will, uh, as opposed to having my buyer have to absorb the full cost of a new roof.

SPEAKER_01 18:27

Yeah, so just those two items, negotiating the closing costs and negotiating the roof repair, like more than paid for his services. They saved that much money, they never they love the house. They're so emotionally attached to this transaction that they were like, we'll take it, we'll take it, we don't care. And we're like, absolutely not, let us do our job. And they did, and it ended up benefiting them, you know,$17,000. Absolutely almost$20,000 when they would have taken it without those extra incentives. So hiring an agent is really important. Now let's move on to sellers. Now you deal mostly with sellers, so I'll let you do most of the talking. Um, but the first thing is um overlisting their property.

SPEAKER_00 19:10

Yes. So uh I we talk about it a lot on our radio show on KTAR. Yes, we do about how we have had to make a very concerted effort to re-educate sellers. So sellers, um, as recently as the whole COVID debacle, right? Uh have had it in their mind that, hey, I'm gonna need these buyers to fund my kids going to Harvard, to Princeton, wherever, right? Like you're just gonna pay way more than you ever should, Mr. Buyer, because I'm a seller and that's what I want you to do. It quite literally was that way and has been that way.

SPEAKER_01 19:42

It was really uh it was a seller's market. Yes, it was.

SPEAKER_00 19:45

And so it's guess what? It's no longer that. It is a buyer's market right now. There are 53% more sellers than buyers currently. If you were to call up listing agents for all the homes listed in Maricopa County right now and you give them truth serum, they would tell you the traffic is slow. We're not having a lot of showings, right? And so um, you know, that that leads into this topic of overlisting, right? Wanting too much for your home, thinking your home is worth more than it really is. At the end of the day, as a s from a seller's perspective, you have to understand that your home is only worth what the market is willing to pay. Right? That's it. It doesn't matter what what your z estimate says. It doesn't matter. Um, quite frankly, even if you got even if you got uh an appraisal and you do have a good idea of value, and that can help guide you in in how you're gonna structure uh your listing and and how much you're going to ask for it, uh an appraiser can say that the home is worth this, but if there's no one in the market willing to pay it, it doesn't much matter.

SPEAKER_01 20:49

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 20:50

Yeah. So so that's probably that is probably the biggest thing.

SPEAKER_01 20:54

And the first 30 days on the market is the is the the your biggest opportunity. So if you waste that first 30 days by being overlisted because you want to see what someone's willing, you know, someone's willing to come in with that price, you've lost your momentum. So then you see houses start, you know, dropping their price at day 30, day 45, day 70, and then they're having to continuously drop it. Now, this isn't across the board, but that is kind of the trend. So it's really important to go in strong right away if you're serious about selling your house.

SPEAKER_00 21:25

Yeah. No, yeah. It'd be a fair price that you know was going to attract interest. Um, weirdly, for sellers, the number two mistake that we see quite often uh is similar to what we talked about with our buyers. They don't perform a home inspection on their own home prior to listing. Now, I think as I say that, for some people it might sound counterintuitive, but but hear me out on this. So the the reality is if you have a home inspector come in, spend 500 bucks, again, we're talking about hundreds of thousands of dollars in real estate. 500 bucks is nothing, it's not even A peanut.

SPEAKER_01 22:00

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 22:01

So spend the 500 bucks. The home inspector is going to tell you what's going on with the home. You're going to be aware so that that way, one, when you get an inspection from a buyer, when you are under contract, you don't feel like they're calling your baby ugly. You're already made aware of it, right? You already know what's going on. And also, two, if you're a smart seller, what you'll do is you go, hey, a lot of these are handyman items for, I don't know, maybe a couple grand. I can get all of this, all these repairs done and fixed. And that does a couple of things. One, it gives you as a seller peace of mind, but it also gives your buyer a peace of mind as well. Because now when they have their inspector come in, they're going to say, hey, given the age, this house is in really good shape. Like they really, they, they, they, you can tell they they loved it, they cared for it, they took care of it. Um, it's going to create buyer confidence and much more uh likely to end up in a consummated transaction.

SPEAKER_01 22:48

I love that idea. I love the idea of making an offer on a home and seeing that the seller was proactive about some of the repairs that would have been called out. I think that would give me a lot more comfort in moving forward with that seller because they care.

SPEAKER_00 23:00

Yeah. No, absolutely. Yeah. It it it I think it just does wonders for both sides. Yeah. Right. So, and so what about number three?

SPEAKER_01 23:07

Number three, I would say, is uh you hear this all the time from agents and uh with with being in lending, um, obviously I'm on the other side of it, but typically the first offer you get is the strongest offer. I'm not talking about investor offers that are, you know, the 50%. Yeah, I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about the first legitimate buyer purchase offer that you receive. Um, a lot of people, especially if they get it in the first, you know, week or two weeks of the home being listed, they're like, oh, no, no, no, let's wait for more offers. Um, it's actually a well-known concept that the first offer you receive on your house is the best offer you're gonna get. So, you know, people not wanting to work with that offer or negotiate, you know, could be damaging to the ability to sell the home.

SPEAKER_00 23:52

Yeah, I what I see a lot of times is um, you know, when it's listed, you get an offer, let's say, and it would be rare in this market to get this, but you get an offer in the first week or two, right? That you're listed. Um, and maybe the buyer that's that's offering, typically in that situation, they're gonna offer you what you're asking, at least price-wise. But they may ask you for some assistance from uh a closing cost perspective for their mortgage, their loan if they're getting it. And I see a lot of sellers go, well, I don't want to give them anything. They should have saved the money themselves. I'm not doing that. Uh and what ends up happening is you don't give it to them. The buyer needed it to make the transaction work. They move on, they go find another property, they find another seller that's willing to do that, and your home stays listed. And now what happens is another couple more weeks go by. And now not only are you you having this home sit longer, it's kind of getting a little bit of a stigma. But the buyer's agent and the buyers are thinking, hey, this has been listed for 30 days, see if I can get them to come off that price a little bit. Yeah, absolutely. So now they're gonna get you to come off the price a little bit if you move forward with it. And those buyers, guess what? And all likelihood, they're also gonna ask for for closing costs. So, you know, why why mess around with it? I I would say if you get, especially in this market, if you get an offer within the first couple of weeks or even really the first month that you're listed, um, you know, you can maybe negotiate a couple of little things, but by and large, that's gonna be as good as it's gonna get. Typically, yes. Yes. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 25:24

And the next one um is really what I hear you complaining about a lot is, you know, when a home is listed and they have a one-hour window one day a week to see the house, the seller's not making their home available for buyers to see.

SPEAKER_00 25:38

Yeah, the seller's not serious in that situation. Like, let's just talk to the chase. You're BSing that you want to sell your house. Um, you need to, now granted, I you don't, you know, someone wants to see it at two in the morning. Again, they're not gonna ask for that. I get it. I understand, right? You're not making it available. But you know, if someone wants to go see it at noon on a Thursday, you're at work. Yeah, right, you should make it available. And I know I've got pets. All right, well, we need to plan accordingly and know in advance that people are gonna ask to see your home. They're not gonna ask only the times that are just the most convenient for you. Um, so have a plan in place for if that were to happen. Maybe talk to your neighbor, right? Or uh the little old lady that lives down the street. That, hey, can you come grab uh Fido? Why does it have to be a little elate? It could be because they would be home. They wouldn't be at work. You take Fido, can you take Fido for a walk at 11 a.m.? Because I've got buyers coming to look at the house and just make sure he's out of the house. Um, there are things, there are ways to work around uh that type of stuff. And in this market, you need to make your home as available as you possibly can to as many buyers as you possibly can.

SPEAKER_01 26:44

Absolutely. Unless your home is really super unique and you have, you know, lines of people wanting to see it and they will wait to see your home. We've had many buyers that loved a home that we could not get them into and they're like, that's all right, we'll just move on to the next. Yeah. And, you know, they didn't go back and see it and they didn't go back to buy it. That's very common, especially if your home is just in a track neighborhood and there's 20 other homes around it for sale. You know, buyers have options right now.

SPEAKER_00 27:12

They do. They have choices.

SPEAKER_01 27:13

Definitely, yeah, definitely make your home accessible. And the last mistake we see sellers making.

SPEAKER_00 27:19

It's weird, as if the buyers and the sellers are simultaneously making the same mistakes.

SPEAKER_01 27:25

Not hiring a real estate agent.

SPEAKER_00 27:27

Yes. Yeah. So um I I've handled transactions for a couple, they call them FISBOs, right? For sale by owner. Uh-huh. I've handled a couple of those where I'm representing the buyer and the seller's like, hey, you guys, you're way overpaid. You don't, we there's no reason to hire you. It's very simple and easy to do. Yeah. Um, you know, and and so I I have had some transactions where uh, you know, I deal fairly with both parties, right? So I deal fairly with my client, um, and then I deal fairly with the the for sale by owner, the individual selling the home as well. Um but at the end of the day, you don't know what you don't know. And you can leave money on the table because you don't know what you don't know.

SPEAKER_01 28:12

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 28:13

Uh Amy alluded to it earlier about how you're not gonna do surgery on yourself. You're not gonna represent yourself in court. You're not-I mean, there's a myriad of things. If you're not a mechanic, guess what? You're not gonna work on your vehicle. Correct. There's a myriad of stuff you're not gonna do. Yeah. I I just it baffles me how people will say, yeah, it's super simple, it's super easy, it's just a couple I's to be dotted, a couple T's to be crossed, not a big deal. Um, again, we talk about it with buyers all the time. This is a major transaction. The same can be said for the seller. You're you're looking to cash out and potentially put hundreds of thousands of dollars in your pocket to be able to move on to whatever it is you have planned beyond. Uh, why would you want to give up 10 grand or 20 grand or 30 grand that you could have otherwise saved if you'd it hired an agent? Now, granted, you should interview uh always interview.

SPEAKER_01 29:04

And and check references and check history and make sure they're an active agent and that they they know your neighborhood and and the product that they're selling. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 29:13

But what you don't want to do, and I see sellers do this all the time, and it absolutely drives me nuts. I want to go with whoever's gonna charge me the least.

SPEAKER_01 29:22

Or whoever says they're gonna list my house for the most.

SPEAKER_00 29:25

Yeah. So so there are there are agents out there that will tell you, hey, I'll get you X amount of dollars, right, for your home. Yeah. Knowing full well they can't get X amount of dollars, but you'll you'll pick them because that you like that. It's a higher price, right?

SPEAKER_01 29:36

But sorry, your point was more important. Uh why do you want to go with the agent that's going to be the lowest bidder? So it means they're not going to negotiate.

SPEAKER_00 29:46

Well, that's the thing, is yeah, so great point. Yeah. So you're hiring someone to negotiate a major financial transaction on your behalf. And if that person that you're looking to hire can allow you to negotiate them out of their own income, is that really somebody you want to hire? I I don't think so.

SPEAKER_01 30:07

Absolutely great point. I mean, everybody, everybody has to make a living. Okay. So that's besides the point. But I'm gonna go with someone who's successful at what they do, and their negotiating skills are on point because that's exactly what they're doing. It's not just about the purchase price that they're negotiating, it's about the repairs. It's about different details, different items that you know the buyer may want that left in the house, the uh post-possession. Like there are just so many details that you negotiate throughout the transaction.

SPEAKER_00 30:38

Yeah. Um There can be a lot of rabbit holes.

SPEAKER_01 30:41

You need someone who knows how to negotiate.

SPEAKER_00 30:42

Yeah, there can be a lot of rabbit holes, a lot of potholes, a lot of just dangerous things, exposure that you can open yourself up to unnecessarily in a transaction that you can avoid, again, if you hire the right agent to help you out with it.

SPEAKER_01 30:57

Absolutely. And you should interview, interview, interview. I totally believe in that. I even tell people, you know, interview people other than us. You know, we want to make sure that you feel we're a good fit for you, that we're not telling you we're a good fit for you. Um, you know, there's just there's lots of options out there, and we appreciate all of our clients that give us the opportunity to help them change their lives because I do believe that's what we do. I love it. Yep.

SPEAKER_00 31:19

So I so I in closing will say hopefully we shed a light on a couple of things that we see routinely, mistakes being made on both sides for by buyers and by sellers. And we hope that you guys found this uh informative, educational, uh, and hopefully you learned a thing or two.

SPEAKER_01 31:34

Yes, absolutely. Again, you can find us online anytime at keeping at real estate with amb.com. You can tune in to our show on uh 92.3 FM K T A R News every Saturday at 5 p.m. Um and uh you know just please reach out if there's anything that we can do for you. Thank you so much for joining us and happy happy St.

SPEAKER_00 31:54

Patrick's Day.