In the Greater Boston market where inventory is often low, some good homes sell within a week! Some buyers have to make some quick decisions about whether they need to act aggressively about a dream home they just saw at an open house a day before the offer deadline. Sometimes you get less time to make a decision about a home than a car! But that’s the reality of a fast moving market.

Every decision has pros and cons. These are some examples:

Option 1: buy a less than perfect home now and save money, lock into the home appreciation instead of paying more later. Then use the equity from appreciation to buy the perfect home years later after saving up more. If an area appreciates 10% in the past year, that’s 60k roughly for a 600k home. We also tend to make more as we get older.

Option 2: wait for the perfect home later and take the risk of paying more, or losing a bidding war when the only home that fits our criteria finally comes on the market months later, meanwhile paying rent. 

Generally, among my family buyer clients, first-time buyers have more urgency to buy because they don’t own a home yet that still earn equity from appreciation as they shop for a second home, and they are losing money from rent every month and in danger of getting priced out. Upgrade buyers are usually older and can take more time to shop for the perfect single family home because they already earn equity from their first home so can just trade. 

One big problem is that because single family homes in good condition are so rare especially at certain locations and price points, when one comes on the market, it’s often either too big or too small, not exactly the right fit and many have other drawbacks as well.

When a rare kind of property is for sale, it sometimes gets bid up to above market value because buyers can’t wait for another 6 months for the same kind of property to come on the market again. I’ve had several buyers lose in this kind of bidding wars before and decided to buy a less competitive kind of property, such as a condo or less competitive area. 

I help my clients analyze the numbers in each situation and figure out their best strategies based on their financial situations. We look at past sales data to analyze how often a certain kind of home you like comes on the market. 

We all have a tendency to look at homes above our price point. It’s part of human nature as our desires can be endless. When I bought a 1.87 million home in Newton this year, I was also looking at homes in the 2 to 3 million range. I eventually made a decision that gave me the peace of mind. Many buyers come to be very happy with the home they buy while making a financially savvy decision.

For more home buying and investing tips, check out my website at taniawurealestate.com and my youtube channel “tania wu.” Also check out my 5-star reviews on realtor.com