Sequim Real Estate eBook author Chuck Marunde is pleased to announce the publication of Buying and Selling Real Estate in the Rain Shadow of Sequim in an eBook format for the iPad and other eBook readers using the ePub format.  The book looks beautiful on an iPad.  The fonts can be changed on an iPad (and other eBook readers), and the size of the fonts can be increased to make reading easy for those of us who wear glasses.  This eBook version includes color photos that the original hard copy did not.

Sequim Real Estate eBook for iPad

This eBook is under 300 pages, but includes relevant links to hundreds of articles, videos, and audios, as well as tools to learn all about Sequim, Washington real estate. This is a treasure trove for buyers who want to avoid traps for the unwary and who want to find the ideal home, negotiate the best possible price, and do it in an efficient way using technology and the Internet. While this eBook is written with Sequim, Washington in mind, buyers all over the U.S. will find the practical tips and insider secrets that 30 year veteran real estate attorney and real estate broker Chuck Marunde shares.

Sequim Real Estate eBook for eBook Readers

The purpose of this Sequim real estate eBook is to provide buyers with the local real estate knowledge to make wise decisions searching for their Sequim home and to be better equipped to negotiate effectively to get the best possible price and terms.

I openly share what you might think of as “insider secrets,” because I want my buyers to have the advantage.  You can download this Sequim real estate eBook right now.

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This is a buyer’s market, but that doesn’t mean sellers are always going to cooperate.  More often than not in this market sellers are not wanting to cooperate.  It may be a buyer’s market, but some sellers are fighting that reality and behaving as though it is a seller’s market.  You would think all sellers would realize what a buyer’s market means, but I can tell you that some sellers are behaving as though buyers are a dime a dozen and that they can demand a higher than FMV price or any terms they want, even if it is unreasonable in this real estate market.  This article is the fourth in a series entitled Buyer Tips in a Buyer’s Market.

Buyer’s Market Reality

Buyer’s Market Not Seller’s Market

I sat with clients today talking about the value of their home and what they might be able to net if they sold it.  We looked at comparables that have sold, and we looked at active listings that are comparable.  We discussed how many days these homes have been on the market (DOM), first for the ones that have sold and then for the active listings still on the market. For the homes that sold I brought out the data sheets showing what the original listing prices were and what the final selling prices were.  All of this information is invaluable in understanding this buyer’s market, and it is important in determining a reasonable listing price in the very beginning.

Buyer’s Market – Pricing

We discussed a home just coming on the market that is comparable and the listing price.  It is listed at what I believe is several hundred thousand above fair market value (FMV).  This is a disastrous seller mistake, and it is a disastrous listing agent’s mistake.  Here’s why.

A home that is grossly overpriced when it first comes on the market will lose some buyers right in the beginning for all the months it is overpriced.  Those buyers search the MLS online based on their maximum price.  A home that is priced substantially over FMV will never capture the eyes of qualified buyers who would look at it if it were priced at or closer to FMV.  Since buyers are few and far between, loosing a single buyer could mean not selling the house for a year or longer in the higher price ranges.  Those buyers will buy other homes, so they are lost to an overpriced seller forever.

There’s another disastrous result in a buyer’s market for a home that is substantially overpriced.  It disappears from the radar for other real estate agents.  Agents who walk through a home that is clearly overpriced will mentally remove that home from their radar entirely.  They know their buyers will not pay that ridiculous price, and so they won’t waste their client’s time or their time.  If agents show an overpriced home, it is to persuade their buyer to buy the other home they are about to view with a substantially lower price.  The longer a home is on the market at a grossly overpriced home in this buyer’s market, the more stale it will be.  Like stale bread, no one wants it anymore, and no one even wants to look at it.

Here are two bits of trivia for you.  Many sellers who are getting advice from agents who overprice their listings do not understand any of these issues and have no idea that their home will suffer these disastrous consequences and grow stale on the market.  This comes from 37 years in the business and talking to hundreds of sellers over the years.  The other fascinating aspect of an overpriced listing is that the listing agent never gets paid.  Isn’t that interesting!  He or she wastes time (maybe several years) and money listing and advertising a property without ever selling it and earning a commission.  That’s just plain crazy.

My buyer tip in this buyer’s market is don’t waste your time looking at homes that are way over priced.  The sellers are not in touch with reality, and they rarely are willing to negotiate reasonably with a buyer who is in touch with reality.  This is a buyer’s market–not a seller’s market.

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This is the third in a series of Buyer Tips in a Buyer’s Market.  Sellers are making some big mistakes in this market, and a buyer who is fully informed and knows how to intelligently negotiate will have a huge advantage in this market.  In part 2 of this series of Buyer Tips, I wrote, “Some listing agents are making huge mistakes in negotiating the price and terms for their selling clients, and sometimes these mistakes rise to the level of sabotaging their own clients’ transactions.”  If you’re going to negotiate the best possible price and terms on the purchase of your retirement home in Sequim or Port Angeles, it will be tremendously helpful if you know what sellers and their agents are doing and not doing in the negotiating process.  As they say, knowledge is power.  The purpose of this series on Buyer Tips is to give you power when you are negotiating.

Buyer Tips from Seller Mistakes

True story.  Clients hire a buyer’s agent and make an offer on a manufactured home on a couple of acres.  The listing price is a little high, probably $35,000 above fair market value in this market, and that’s being generous to the seller.  The house was listed at a price just south of $300,000 and the buyers offer was very reasonable.  The earnest money check was written for $1,500.  There were several standard addendums, including a home inspection addendum, a well and septic inspections, and a financing addendum.

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Home buyers beware!  There are many traps for the unwary buyer, and even if you have bought and sold a dozen homes, each state and county has its own unique real estate issues.  But there are many other traps that catch good intelligent buyers.  Here’s a true story of buyers who did not get what they thought they were buying.

Home Buyers Beware of Traps

A nice couple purchased a home through their own buyer’s agent which was listed with another real estate company.  The property consisted of two lots with the home on one lot and a large garage on the other lot.  Unfortunately, this nice couple did not buy the house and the garage as they thought. The first lot had been foreclosed on by the first mortgage.  There was a second mortgage, too.  The second mortgage holder recorded a deed of trust securing the promissory note on both lots.  When the first foreclosed on lot 1, it wiped out the second mortgage on lot 1, but there was no foreclosure action on lot 2 by the first.  That means the second mortgage holder still has a recorded security instrument, the deed of trust, on lot 2.  But they did not  know that.  And the buyers didn’t know that when they closed on their purchase.

This is a mess for the new owners who thought they bought both lots.  The prior owner who was foreclosed on still is the vested owner of lot 2.  The buyer’s agent and the listing agent, who are both from different brokerages that are both well known, clearly screwed up.  They advertised and sold the property as two lots.

What will happen?  It’s a mess.  The couple will have to hire an attorney to sue both real estate brokerages (and the individual agents) and their insurance companies.  The insurance companies (errors and omissions liability insurance companies) will bring in the prior owner who was foreclosed as a third-party defendant and who is still on the title of lot 2.  He will have to hire an attorney.

This is a case where everyone loses except the attorneys.  The moral of the story is this:  home buyers beware.

How can you beware?  Hire a buyer’s agent who really is competent, educated, experienced, and trustworthy, who knows the Sequim market.  Protect yourself that way, and ask a lot of questions of your agent.  Don’t let your agent brush you off and tell you what you are asking is not important.  (That happens all the time.) Get your questions answered satisfactorily, and if that agent can’t answer your questions, find one who can.  And lastly, your buyer’s agent should not just wait for you to ask all the questions.  He or she should raise questions that are important to you even if you haven’t thought of them, and then he or she should give you good answers.

Maybe you can tell that I love being a buyer’s agent, and I love helping clients and prospective clients make wise decisions they will not regret.  Having been a lawyer for 20 years and now a full time buyer’s agent, I can say with passion, “Home Buyers Beware.”

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Buyer Tips in a Buyer’s Market.  This is the first in a series of articles that will give buyers insight into the mind of a seller and their agent.  After hundreds of transactions as a buyer’s agent, I’ve recognized some common patterns, and I’ve decided to share these patterns with my readers who are primarily buyers.  The purpose of this first article is to make you as a buyer aware of the importance of what I will share about sellers and their agents and how you can benefit, sometimes by $10,000 to $70,000.  But the benefits to you are far more than just money, although that would be reason enough to know these things in a buyer’s market.

It is a Buyer’s Market

A significant number of sellers and their agents are repeatedly making the same mistakes, and if you are aware of these mistakes in this buyer’s market, you can take advantage of them.  Sellers are experiencing a lot of pain right now.  Many are having to sell their homes at losses or for so much less than they had hoped.  And many more sellers are frustrated that their homes have been listed for sale for one or two or three years and still have not sold.  This is a critical time for sellers.  They are under great financial stress, and many absolutely must get their homes sold.

Clearly, sellers must have listing agents who are extremely good at three things in a buyer’s market:  marketing the listed home for sale (using the right technology, advertising, photos, and videos), persuasive sales (written and verbal), and negotiating the price and terms.  It is a sad fact in reality that many sellers do not have agents who are extremely good in all of these areas.  It is especially unfortunate, because the sellers are the ones who lose out.  I can almost guarantee that these sellers don’t even know why their homes haven’t sold or why that last offer blew up and the buyers walked away.  Some think they know, but they don’t.  After 30 years of getting inside buyer’s and seller’s heads, I have a pretty good idea of how the conversations go between sellers and their listing agents.

Buyer’s Market and Sellers

By the way, you might wonder why I don’t share these things with sellers if I can help them.  The answer is I primarily represent buyers, but in addition to that sellers are not asking me.  I find it fascinating that buyers are using the Internet extensively but sellers are not.  Buyers are doing their due diligence in their research for their next home and who they hire as their buyer’s agent, but sellers are not doing research on their listing agents or how their homes should be marketed or the huge negotiating mistakes that are being made.  If I am correct about this, and I am, it becomes even more incumbent upon sellers to carefully choose a listing agent who is knowledgeable, competent, experienced, professional, and trustworthy.  But I can say with some confidence that the vast majority of sellers simply don’t know how to select an agent.  They just assume the agent they call has all these qualities.

Buyer’s Market and Agency

I represent a select number of selling clients, but even then I never act as a dual agent for a buyer and seller.  Read more about why I only represent one client at a time and how buyers get the short end of the bargain in Dual Agency.  Not everything I share about how sellers and their agents think will help you negotiate a better price in a buyer’s market, but if you as a buyer have a better understanding of what is going on with sellers and their agents, you will be far more likely to get the better end of the negotiations.  I want you to win your negotiation on both price and terms and end up in a far superior position against a seller.

Does this make sense?  This is foundational thinking for the true stories I will share in this series.  The next article will drill down on the important subject of negotiating mistakes and tips for buyers in a buyer’s market.

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Why would a buyer want a Buyer’s Agent? You probably know about the danger of dual agency and how your agent can actually end up negotiating against you in favor of his listing client.  Read my earlier article about The Danger of Dual Agency.  BUT did you know that agents can collect a tremendous amount of personal and financial information about you without your permission?  It’s true.  There are several services online that can be used to collect your personal data, data most people think is absolutely confidential.  These services are available to Realtors who pay a small subscription fee.  Realtors, including dual agents, will then have access to valuable information they can use to negotiate against you!  The data on you is extensive, and one service advertises that agents will get over 200 pieces of data on you.

Buyer’s Agent – Why Hire One?

Buyer’s Agent – Due Diligence

My argument, and this is totally in your best interest (even if you never ever hire me as your Buyer’s Agent), is that you should do your due diligence, and you should select your real estate agent (your Buyer’s Agent).  Do not wait for some aggressive agent to mine your personal data and contact you or talk you into a relationship (at an open house or a cold call) that may actually be contrary to your best interests.

Buyer’s Agent – No Conflict

Find a Buyer’s Agent who will represent you without any conflict of interest, and who does NOT mine your personal data.  While many in the real estate industry would vociferously disagree with me, I believe the agent you hire should be a Buyer’s Agent you find on the Internet and who you know already because you’ve read all about him or her.  Be proactive, not reactive.  This goes against the grain, too, but avoid agents who aggressively try to collect your name, your address, your phone number, and your email so they can pursue you relentlessly until you give in and hire them.  Don’t do that.  Do your own research, interview a Buyer’s Agent of your choice, and make your own proactive decision.

Does your Buyer’s Agent offer you hundreds of local and personally written articles, personal videos, and numerous online MLS and search tools – all absolutely free and without any obligation to register or reveal personal information.  I am the only Buyer’s Agent that I know of who has this philosophy and and these free tools for buyers.

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