Sold Profile 23088 Via Pimiento Mission Viejo
By Kurt Real Estate Nov 23, 2019
A few months back, I met a young newlywed couple at an open house for one of our listings in Mission Viejo. The listing was a 2 bedroom, 1 bathroom condominium priced at $349,000. We got to talking, and they told me they were looking to buy a starter home within the next six months, and were looking for professional representation to guide them through the homebuying process at first-time buyers. We quickly hit it off, seeing as I was a first-time home buyer myself just a few years back. After telling them a little bit about my own experience of buying a home and finding out more about what they were looking for, we agreed to meet a few weeks later and discuss a strategy for getting them into a home at the best possible price.
When we met, we talked about how competitive the market is for entry-level housing. Condominiums and townhomes are the most competitive homes to buy in Orange County, as they are the most affordable. We then reviewed their qualifications, as they had just been through the loan approval process. Because they had gone through live underwriting with their lender, we showed them how that was going to put them in the most competitive position and allow them to compete with cash buyers.
Over the next few weeks we saw a few homes in their price range; all condominiums. We also experienced just how competitive the market is right now for those types of homes. Within a day or two of new inventory hitting the market, most properties had multiple offers on them – some of them would go into escrow the same day We adjusted our strategy to be ready to write an offer on the spot if we came across a property they really liked.
One night, a new condominium unit in Mission Viejo came on the market. We had seen another one with the same floor plan in the same neighborhood just a few nights before, but this new one was $10,000 less than the one we saw and had more upgrades. I sent the listing over to my clients and told them it appeared to be a better buy. Within minutes of sending the text, I received a reply: “Put in the offer”. I asked them if they wanted to see it first, to which they replied “No”. Because they knew the neighborhood and the floor plan after seeing the other unit a few nights before, they felt comfortable putting in the offer to beat out any potential competition. We met later that night to write the offer, and we agreed I would put the offer in the following morning with the listing agent at the property.
The next day, we delivered the offer in person to the listing agent, who told us he had another over-ask offer coming in within the next few hours. If something fell through with that offer, we would be next in line to get the property. Long story short, I got a call the next day from the listing agent, and he told me that if my buyers were to match the price of the other offer, an additional $5k, then it would be theirs. After consulting with my buyers, they agreed to match the offer, and we were in escrow the next day.
The listing agent also told me that while we were second in line, if it weren’t for the strong offer we wrote, which we did after going through our system of strategies, we might not have gotten the property. Before any home buyer goes out to see homes, they should strategize their offer with their buyer’s agent using the different mechanisms within the purchase agreement. Had we not done that, we might still be looking for homes months later.
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