We were supposed to go look at that single family home last night. But our realtor called to beg off because she had a migraine, so we’ll go look at it first thing tomorrow instead. We’re scheduled to look at houses with her between 9am and 2pm. I’m exhausted just thinking about it.

She emailed a lengthy packet of listings, most of which were in the neighborhoods that we ruled out in our drive about town the other day. We whittled it down to about 8 of her listings, plus 3 of our own findings. I found 3 new ones on Realtor.com this morning that hadn’t shown up before, too. Of the 14 total listings, only 2 are single family homes and they were listings I found online. She didn’t send a single SFH listing and I asked her about that in my email to her this morning. She also didn’t have any of the houses in our neighborhood in the mix and I asked about that as well. I can’t imagine why she wouldn’t have included them unless they all have contracts on them already, which I doubt.

Beau and I need to prioritize the listings so that we look at our top choices first. I’m positive we won’t be able to look at all 11-14 houses in that block of time.

Then the next question is whether or not to attempt church tomorrow night followed by dinner out with my parents for a small Mother’s Day observation (since we’re still trying to plan a big Mother’s Day thing with the three moms while we’re at Disney). The real question is will Jesse make it without a nap until after 2pm? How will we ensure he gets lunch while we’re out?

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1. Ah, real life strikes again. What will we do about Jesse’s nap. How will we feed him? I’ve been there as a realtor before. You just grin and bear it when a client brings along a child.

   As far as the realtor not sending you all the listings you found. There are a number of possible reasons. Are those listings at the lower end of your purchase range? Maybe they are listed in a different MLS system than the realtor belongs to. Maybe in her search she excluded some criteria that you included in yours. She should have a good answer why she didn’t pull those ones up. If you aren’t happy with the reason, you might want to switch realtors. You are not obliged to use her. Did you sign a buyer’s agreement?

   Let us know how it goes tomorrow. Is it wise to be buying something with the way the housing market is right now and Beau up in the air where he might find a job around the country? If you have to move in five months, I wouldn’t want to have just purchased a home. I suspect the market will be slumping for another 12 months, at least. Why not wait until he finds something more permanent and then look? I know the prices look good right now, but I suspect you’ll find equally good prices in 6-12 months, or even better ones. Just my advice. Plus you might have more of a downpayment saved up by then. I don’t see interest rates going up at all either. I’m just guessing at all this, but this is the way I would play it.

   Posted by  on  05/09/08  at  11:51 AM

2. Denis just asked the question I was interested in: why didn’t your realtor pull up listings that represent homes you want to see?  I hope she has a good reason, otherwise, it’s time to pass that 3% at closing onto another agent.  The first thing our agent did was ask us about SFH vs condo and what neighborhoods were OUT.

   The point about looking later is valid, but do you want to move at the end of your lease and then move again?  Or can you stay in the house you are in and go month-to-month?  Otherwise, you’re locked into looking again in 12 months if you don’t pull the trigger now.  We had the same dilemma.

   Good luck!

   Posted by caltechgirl  on  05/09/08  at  12:21 PM

3. All I’m gonna say is good luck and I hope you find something you love, cause house hunting is fun for the first couple hours and then deadly thereafter. :) (And hey, the fact that you’re even considering looking at 11-14 houses with a kiddo in tow in one day makes me want to give you a medal.)

   Posted by beth  on  05/09/08  at  12:32 PM

4. denis, we’ll see how tomorrow goes and then either sign an agreement or not with this particular realtor. At this point we haven’t signed anything.

   ctg, we did mention our interest in our current neighborhood and single family homes. The house we were supposed to see last night is a SFH.

   We had not talked to her about ruled out neighborhoods prior to getting the listings she sent, so I can’t fault her for that. But the other? Yeah. So I am getting a bit concerned that she may not be helpful. At which point, we contact our program rep to request a new realtor.

   beth, it’s very doubtful we’ll be able to actually look at 11-14 houses in one day with Jesse in tow. Without him? Sure. I’m thinking it’ll be a good day if we look at half of them tomorrow.

   Posted by  on  05/09/08  at  01:27 PM

5. Never sign a buyer’s agreement. I don’t know the particulars of real estate by you. I can only speak for NJ and NC/SC, but there are hundreds of hungry agents who will work with you without an agreement. Signing one doesn’t guarantee you any better service, only guarantees them a commission. If you do sign one make sure you don’t agree to pay a 3% fee to the buyer’s agent regardless of who finds the property. This way if you find a FSBO on your own you don’t wind up paying your agent 3% of the sale price just to buy it. And if you do sign an agreement, make it only be for a month tops.

   Hope it goes well today.

   Posted by  on  05/10/08  at  07:29 AM

6. denis, we’re not signing anything. She just gave it to us as part of the packet. And we have to stick with the realtor(s) the credit union finds as part of the program.

   She was good today - very helpful. I’ll post more tomorrow when I’m less tired.

   Posted by  on  05/10/08  at  09:12 PM

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