A Cartus employee shares her experience of selling and buying a home during the pandemic and how the process has changed to a mostly virtual experience. Read on for the good and the bad—and helpful tips—in this “new normal” of real estate transactions.
Colleen Smith and her husband decided that it was a good time to upgrade from their townhome to a larger, single-family home. Great idea, except… it was during a global pandemic! We wanted to hear the details of her experience firsthand, and she was gracious enough to share them in this interview.
“All in all, things worked out well for us, and we found our ’forever home‘—but it was definitely a rollercoaster! I hope our experiences will help future buyers find their perfect homes.”
To set the stage, both properties were located in Fairfield County, Connecticut. The biggest surprise to Colleen and her husband was discovering just how many people were relocating from New York to Connecticut at that time. “It’s a sellers’ market,” she said, “and this was evident on both the buying and selling sides. It was great when we were selling our townhome, but not so much when we were competing with so many others to find a new home. Many New Yorkers were bidding on properties sight unseen and they came with cash offers higher than asking. We lost out on several properties for this reason.”
What went well in the process?
“We got an offer on our Townhome for full asking price five days after listing in September! Unfortunately, that sale fell through due to financing issues. We listed again the day before Thanksgiving and had three more showings on Thanksgiving Day, which resulted in another offer.
We really didn’t repair much prior to listing, either. We thoroughly cleaned and did minor paint touch-ups—but no major work—and we still got offers. We do wonder if we had made more repairs, would we have gotten more—or higher—offers?
The final closing itself ultimately went very smoothly with no hitch. Everything was done online. Super easy.”
What didn’t go so well?
“The appraisals were tough because the appraisers were so busy trying to keep up with a rapidly changing market. Home values were increasing daily, so the appraisal would change from month to month. From our first offer in September to our second one in November, the appraisal increased by $10,000 in a 2-month period. We sold for less than we would have liked, simply because the appraisal was still slightly behind actual home values and our buyer needed financing. If we’d had a cash buyer, we likely could have sold for a higher price.
I still wish we had done a preemptive ‘Make Me Move’ or ‘coming soon to market’ option, where buyers would have been alerted prior to the home actually being listed. Sellers that did this seemed to have buyers waiting in the wings when they finally listed.”
What went well?
“Everything seemed to move quickly. We searched for homes on Zillow, saw the ones we could in person, and made offers. The virtual process seemed to speed everything up, including the mortgage and closing. We never even met with the sellers at closing—everything was done virtually or through our attorney and agent. The home appraised exactly at our offer price. We also felt perfectly safe and secure uploading our information remotely for the mortgage.”
What were the challenges?
“Too much competition! I would find a house we liked and have a showing scheduled the same day, but the very next day it would have multiple offers. Many times we couldn’t even get in to see the homes in person. Since we needed a mortgage to purchase, we felt we were at a disadvantage competing with all-cash, out-of-state buyers. Luckily, we did not need to make our offer contingent upon selling our townhome, so that helped. We did lose out on three homes we really wanted to out-of-state buyers, but ended up in a beautiful home in the end. We had put an initial offer on this home for $5,000 more than asking price. Then, we saw a car with New York license plates drive up for a showing and panicked! So we increased our offer another $4,000—and included a very personalized letter to the seller. Ultimately, our offer ended up being accepted, but it was nerve-wracking!”
Key learnings and tips?
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