Buying a Used Home? It's Not About Price. It's About The Cost.

Written by Posted On Thursday, 08 November 2018 13:53

If you are thinking of buying a resale home, be prepared to spend a lot of time shopping resales that need renovation and/or heavy on deferred maintenance.

Orlando Realtor Kathy Llamas showed resales to a couple for almost two months and was about to lose them to a 'we decided to wait' excuse. They kept seeing homes they liked, but could not afford after remodeling or renovation estimates were proposed.

For example, if they looked at home for $300,000 and the renovation estimate came in at $60,000, the $360,000 price was too high either in fact based on a mortgage approval or their budget.

Kath's prospects did not want a new home, but Kathy suggested they look at one with a base sales price of $300,000 just to see and understand what the buyers could get for their money. for a home ready to move in with no other work needed.

They looked at two new homes, bought one in two days, and closed in 30 days. It happens. 

What also happens is resale buyers after actually seeing, touching and feeling what they can get for the actual money they want to spend, will make more informed and therefore more confident offers on the resales they see. 

So, my advice: Tell your Realtor that while you are interested in shopping resales, you would like to see at least one new home in the price range of the resales you will be shopping. Regardless of the decision you then make you will know more about 'why'because thanks to the fixed base price of the new home you toured, you have a much better idea of the value of the resales you see. 

 

 

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David Fletcher, NHCB

David Fletcher, a retired Realtor, spent his entire 25-year career recruiting, training, and supervising Realtors to serve as full-time onsite agents for more than 50 communities listed by Fletcher to sell and market the builder/developers communities. His teams sold more than $3 billion in new homes and condominium inventory, mostly on the west coast of Florida. More than 6,000 Realtors have taken the course he wrote to show them how he did it. His real estate career began in St. Petersburg, FL, when the developer-client of his public relations firm purchased his company and named him Vice President of the American Housing and Development Corporation building Bay Island, the waterfront community in South Pasadena, FL, where he served for three years before opening his real estate brokerage specialing in new construction. Along the way, Fletcher wrote Condominium Sales and Listings, 226 pgs, was a featured speaker at a National Association of Realtors convention, Chaired the Sale and Marketing Council for the Florida Home Builders Association, and was given a key to the city of St. Petersburg by its Mayor, for his work on the city's economic development council.

https://www.newhomecobroker.com

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