Don’t let those reality house hunting shows fool you. House hunting isn’t as simple as a broker showing you three houses, you choose your favorite, and BOOM, you’ve got a house.
Especially not in Seattle, where the housing market is a hot mess.
My husband and I should know, since we’ve been in the trenches for six months.
Six months of diligently searching house-for-sale sites. We found it’s necessary to search multiple sites, since no one site lists all the homes. We finally narrowed it to three favorites, Windermere, Redfin, and Zillow.
The problem is that by this time we’ve had six months of scanning beautiful houses pics, only to be disappointed with the in-person viewing.
Pictures might be worth a thousand words, but not all of those words are truthful.
Photoshop, you’ve got a lot of ‘splaining to do!
We don’t want to waste anyone’s time so we only put an offer in if it seems we can be competitive. Yet we’ve been outbid four times. Four times!
I’ve never seen that happen in those reality shows.
The last house we lost, just yesterday, was the worst.
The house went on the market late Tuesday night. I visited it Thursday morning, and liked it. My broker checked with the seller’s broker Thursday night and was told they would be reviewing offers on Sunday. We ordered an inspection for Friday morning. (Cost = $409)
I showed up in the middle of the inspection to find my broker upset. He had just gotten a call from the seller’s broker, telling him that the house was sold! His time was wasted, my time was wasted, and my husband and I are out $409. All because the sellers weren’t considerate enough to let us know they were going to change the game midfield.
Now our pocketbook is lighter.
But at least we have an inspection report for a house we’ll never set foot in again in our entire lives!
Update:
Now I am officially impressed. Our broker didn’t like the way things happened, so we’re getting our money back! He said it is the Windermere way.
Wow!