Real Estate Offers, What's taking so long?

Heather Peck
Real Estate Agent Profile

Buyers are frustrated, investors and first home buyers alike. They are making offers that take forever to get responded to, if they ever get a response. What's taking so long?

Here in Las Vegas, and probably other markets that are now deeply discounted after the housing bubble "POP!", we are experiencing a reversal of the market last year. Last year, you couldn't give a house away. Buyers had vanished into the wind like so many pieces of a dandelion.

This year, its a totally different story. Most properties are getting multiple offers, and when I say multiple I mean multiple. Just last week, a fellow agent was submitting an offer for an investor only to learn her buyer's offer was one of 80 offers yes, you read that right 80 OFFERS! And those offers are being received over a 3-5 day span of time.

Let's do a little math

One asset manager at the bank who is assigned 5 properties from each city, but has properties coming from 50 cities

That's 250 properties they have to respond to offers, order BPOs or appraisals, decide which offer to take, accept or counter (actually that should read just counter because they never just accept an offer they can't help themselves), wait until the escrow of title company sends them all the documents they need to review for each file, answer any questions or problems that come up with each property, sign the closing documents and maybe get them approved by a higher up, approve the HUD1 for each deal so it can fund, record and close.

Not to mention, reviewing each offer on a short sale that may or may not be good enough to start the process, especially if the file isn't complete missing financial documents from the seller to see if they even qualify to short sale their property.
Whew! I'm exhausted even thinking about it.

So agents are overwhelmed, banks are overwhelmed, title companies are overwhelmed, even the county assessor's office can't keep up with the owner changes, often showing the last owner weeks after the property became bank owned.

I know this is a rather frustrating time in real estate, but all I can say is hang in there, meditate, keep shopping because there are some amazing deals to be had. Don't give up, have patience.

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