The 'Buyer's Market': A Tale of Caution
One Family's Rough Road to the Right Place
Annys Shin and her 2-year-old daughter, Ida Steinberg, at their new house in Silver Spring.
(By Susan Biddle For The Washington Post)
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Saturday, September 12, 2009
Whenever I mention that I recently sold my house in the District and moved to the suburbs, I inevitably get The Question:
How was it?
As in, how was it selling your house during the worst recession in more than 20 years?
The Question should not have been about how hard it was to sell but about how difficult it would be to buy. It was a buyer's market, just not for us.
We jumped into the housing market about two years earlier than planned. We knew our Petworth rowhouse was a first-time buyer's house, and the $8,000 first-time buyer's tax credit was set to expire at the end of November. Interest rates were lower than when we bought five years ago, which, combined with a conservative estimate of our likely profit, would allow us to afford a house in close-in Silver Spring. If rates were to go up, we might not be able to afford to buy there, so we decided to go for it.
We de-cluttered. We painted. We made repairs. Our house hit the market around Memorial Day. Two weeks and two open houses later, we received two offers and started looking for a house.
We became fixated on buying in Rosemary Hills/Rock Creek Forest, a neighborhood of 1950s brick homes bordered by Grubb Road, 16th Street and East-West Highway, after seeing a property there in early June -- and being disappointed at the choices available elsewhere. The three-bedroom split level was a time capsule, with a bathroom decked out in gray boomerang-patterned Formica counters.
My husband called his mother (naturally) to tell her we had found "the one." While they talked, I went online to send her the link to the listing. I did a double-take when I saw the words "under contract." It was gone before we could even make an offer! We consoled ourselves with the knowledge that the neighborhood was filled with near-identical houses. From then on, we were on a mission to get one.
The sales history of the One That Got Away gave us some confidence. It was first listed in September 2008 for more than $500,000, and its price dropped once before being delisted in November. It was relisted in February at just under $500,000. And then it sat. In May, the price dropped to $464,000. It sold within 2 weeks.
We noticed a similar pattern throughout the neighborhood. Homes listed above $500,000 sat. Those listed under that amount sold quickly. The most we could afford to pay was $485,000, so, to allow for bargaining, our starting bid became $450,000.
Our first target was just a block from the One That Got Away. With an asking price of $525,000, it was mostly the same, but it had an addition and what looked to be an aging hot tub on the back deck. When I joked that we might use it, my husband declared loudly, "I'm not going to sit in that naked -- outside."
By that point, hot-tub house was closing in on its 365th day on the market. It was also on its third real estate agent. The seller's agent, who handled negotiations by e-mail, kindly told us our low-ball bid was not going to fly. The seller wouldn't go below $500,000. And she had the utmost confidence it would sell because, her agent explained, her tarot card reader told her it would.
