The last thing I had to do before getting my keys was conduct the final walkthrough. It's generally a formality. The idea is to check and make sure that the property is still in the same condition as when you agreed to buy it: you can check and make sure that the owner didn't tear out the stove, or knock a hole in the closet, or whatever.
In my case, because the loan was funding on the 9th, I had to do the walkthrough before then, even though the tenant wouldn't be moved out yet. This isn't ideal, but is better than the alternative of finding out too late about something bad which had happened. We eventually scheduled it for the Tuesday after Labor Day.
I showed up at 9AM to find Matt in an animated conversation with the tenant. Apparently, the listing agent or someone had failed to notify her about the walkthrough, and she was kind of freaking out. She didn't want to let us in, because she was in the middle of moving, and had so many boxes out that you couldn't even walk around.
Matt and I huddled; he said he'd contact Regina, who would get in touch with the listing agent and work it out. We were running short on time, and while the walkthrough shouldn't be a big deal, I still wanted to check on the property.
Before heading in to work, I swung by Provident's Millbrae branch. It's tiny, but pleasant. The teller gave me another wire form, which I filled out with Kathy's instructions. Her information didn't completely line up with all of the boxes on the form, so I filled it out the best I could, repeating some information in multiple places. I felt just a little nervous - after all, I was moving a LOT of money, and hated the idea of it disappearing into someone else's bank account by mistake.
Later in the day, I got an email from Kathy, who said that the sellers had indicated while signing that they would be doing a 1031 tax exchange. I was already very familiar with this - several properties I'd been interested in earlier on had been 1031-ing properties, so I had already done all my research on what that meant - but it was still amusing and pretty unsurprising that they hadn't mentioned it before now. I signed the form, sent it back, and asked Kathy if she could check on my fund deposit. She confirmed that the monies (I love that word!) had arrived safe and sound, and I breathed a deep sigh of relief.
The walkthrough got squared away, and we rescheduled for the next day at 11:30AM. The tenant was present, and this time was all smiles and friendly. The condo was almost exactly the same as before, just very obviously in the middle of moving; I did see some scratched paint in the bathroom, but it didn't seem worth making a fuss over. The tenant talked a bit about how nice the unit was, how she wanted me to like it, and asked if I wouldn't mind holding on to a package that she would be receiving in a few weeks.
We walked out, I signed the walkthrough form, and Matt and I shook hands. He mentioned that it hadn't taken too long for me to find what I wanted. I agreed, and pointed out that Redfin really shines in that regard - their awesome website had done a lot to help me narrow down what I was interested in, and combined with my own side research (walking tours of neighborhoods, demographic research, etc.), I had an excellent idea of what I wanted before I even started touring. All in all, a pleasant experience, bumps in the road notwithstanding.
Showing posts with label touring. Show all posts
Showing posts with label touring. Show all posts
Friday, December 17, 2010
Friday, October 29, 2010
Wind Up
Back to the home-hunting story:
I let a month go by after the Mateo Avenue condo hit the MLS, and finally put in an official request to tour. Once again Matt took care of me; we had gotten to know each other pretty well by this point, to the degree that we started to reminisce about the first property I'd seen way back in the previous year.
Before the tour, I'd spent some time walking around the neighborhood at different times of the day and different days of the week. I was happy with what I had seen - it isn't as fancy as the streets west of Magnolia, but the area was kept up well, there was a good amount of activity on the streets, and overall I got a good vibe off of it. I wandered farther afield, across the tracks, then back again and around the other streets. My favorite aspect was still the access - it's a good walk to the train station, and even shorter to Safeway, Trader Joe's, and the excellent public library - but I dug the spot itself as well.
We learned that a tenant occupied the unit, and waited while she got the kids and headed out, then moved inside. Yup... definitely a tenant and not the owner. Even though the tour had been scheduled for a few days, the place was pretty messy, with half-eaten pizza (at nine in the morning?) and croissant all over the kitchen. Still, by this point I'd gotten pretty good at zeroing in on the important stuff and ignoring the rest. I'd learned to pay good attention to Matt, too, and picked up on some of his observations as well.
Overall, it was nice - not a dream unit, perhaps, but one that definitely fit everything I'd been looking for, and a lot of stuff that I'd been hoping for. It had two bedrooms, which is almost impossible at my budget in Millbrae. It also had two baths - not very useful to me, but the second would be handy if I ever got a roommate or long-term guests. The kitchen was good - it didn't have a spectacular gas oven like the newer condos I'd seen, but it had plenty of cupboards and counter space, which had been fairly recently renovated. It had a nice big balcony - the view is of the back of a big-box store, which isn't great, but on the plus side there's a lot of privacy (no windows facing me), a lot of sky (no other buildings nearby), and if you look up a bit, nice partial views of the Millbrae hills and San Francisco Airport.
I spent more time this go-around than I had on my open house, and Matt and I chatted a bit. We agreed that the unit was overpriced, but otherwise fine - considering that it was 30 years old, it was in quite good shape.
I kept on pondering everything, and eventually decided to go for it. I'd put in a fair offer for what I thought it was worth, and see what happened. At worst, the sellers would just say "no," and at least I'd know to give up on it. If that happened, I was ready to restart my home search or just resign myself to renting for another five years - like I said in a previous post, I'd taken a full inventory of the Millbrae condo market, and seen that there just isn't much out there.
Once again, I submitted the offer wizard on the website. This time Regina got the ticket. As a side note, the wizard is still a bit mysterious to me. From my early reading on the Redfin web site, I had been under the impression that when you start an offer, you can choose which agent will represent you. That never happened with me, though. I'm guessing that if you had someone who you really wanted to use in particular, you could enter that in the notes field and get them. I now think that by default they just hand out the requests to whoever is available.
Regina was also good - as with Sean, she contacted the listing agent to find out the seller's situation and figure out what the timeline would be like. She also sent me a list of comparable properties along with her analysis of the price. She had a higher price in mind than I did, and with some good reason - her comps included recent condo sales near 280, which I had discounted because of how far away they are, but since most people buy into Millbrae for the school district, it seemed valid to include them. I pointed out another sale that she hadn't included - one which was quite a bit bigger, but sold for noticeably less, and was closer to this property than the other comps. She agreed that that was a good comp. I re-ran my numbers taking all the data into account, and settled on a fair price that was about 7% under the seller's listing price.
There were a couple of odd things about this transaction. One early issue was the disclosures; on previous offers, I had received disclosures early on and been encouraged to review them prior to making an offer. This time around, Regina urged me to put together the offer prior to receiving the disclosures. Again, that seemed strange - if there was anything in there that was a turn-off, then I'd be wasting everyone's time by making an offer; and, from the seller's perspective, it seems like they'd want me to know everything I could up front. If I make an offer for $X, based on all the disclosures, and they accept, then I can't come back later and ask them to take off $Y due to issues that they had disclosed. On the other hand, if I make an offer for $X without any disclosures, then even after they accept, I can ask them to take off $Y to deal with things that they already knew about; this makes it harder for the seller to compare offers, since different buyers will grade issues differently, and they run the risk of accepting an offer that the buyer will end up backing out of altogether later on.
In any case, I did end up getting the disclosures just prior to when we were going to put in the offer, so I did get a chance to read them. This should have been a good clue of how the process would continue. Everyone on the selling side was somewhat removed from the transaction - the listing agent was a part-timer who was helpful but not always quickly responsive; the sellers didn't live in the property; and so on. I think that if they had been a bit more organized, I could have gotten the disclosures sooner and moved forward more quickly.
In any case, the disclosures were fine, far less scary than the Palm one. Bay Area disclosures are fairly long, with a good amount of boilerplate, but still well worth reading. The seller fills out a long list of questions, mainly yes/no with space for explaining negative answers. It covers things like structural defects, neighborhood nuisances, odors, and so on. I learned the details about some recent renovations, which was helpful. The disclosures also include observations from the listing agent as part of their walk-through. In my case, there weren't any bombshells here, just a few fairly minor things that we had noticed during my tour - a missing lock on the balcony door, for example. Nothing seemed like it would seriously ding my offer price, so I gave a thumbs-up, submitted the offer, then crossed my fingers and waited.
I let a month go by after the Mateo Avenue condo hit the MLS, and finally put in an official request to tour. Once again Matt took care of me; we had gotten to know each other pretty well by this point, to the degree that we started to reminisce about the first property I'd seen way back in the previous year.
Before the tour, I'd spent some time walking around the neighborhood at different times of the day and different days of the week. I was happy with what I had seen - it isn't as fancy as the streets west of Magnolia, but the area was kept up well, there was a good amount of activity on the streets, and overall I got a good vibe off of it. I wandered farther afield, across the tracks, then back again and around the other streets. My favorite aspect was still the access - it's a good walk to the train station, and even shorter to Safeway, Trader Joe's, and the excellent public library - but I dug the spot itself as well.
We learned that a tenant occupied the unit, and waited while she got the kids and headed out, then moved inside. Yup... definitely a tenant and not the owner. Even though the tour had been scheduled for a few days, the place was pretty messy, with half-eaten pizza (at nine in the morning?) and croissant all over the kitchen. Still, by this point I'd gotten pretty good at zeroing in on the important stuff and ignoring the rest. I'd learned to pay good attention to Matt, too, and picked up on some of his observations as well.
Overall, it was nice - not a dream unit, perhaps, but one that definitely fit everything I'd been looking for, and a lot of stuff that I'd been hoping for. It had two bedrooms, which is almost impossible at my budget in Millbrae. It also had two baths - not very useful to me, but the second would be handy if I ever got a roommate or long-term guests. The kitchen was good - it didn't have a spectacular gas oven like the newer condos I'd seen, but it had plenty of cupboards and counter space, which had been fairly recently renovated. It had a nice big balcony - the view is of the back of a big-box store, which isn't great, but on the plus side there's a lot of privacy (no windows facing me), a lot of sky (no other buildings nearby), and if you look up a bit, nice partial views of the Millbrae hills and San Francisco Airport.
I spent more time this go-around than I had on my open house, and Matt and I chatted a bit. We agreed that the unit was overpriced, but otherwise fine - considering that it was 30 years old, it was in quite good shape.
I kept on pondering everything, and eventually decided to go for it. I'd put in a fair offer for what I thought it was worth, and see what happened. At worst, the sellers would just say "no," and at least I'd know to give up on it. If that happened, I was ready to restart my home search or just resign myself to renting for another five years - like I said in a previous post, I'd taken a full inventory of the Millbrae condo market, and seen that there just isn't much out there.
Once again, I submitted the offer wizard on the website. This time Regina got the ticket. As a side note, the wizard is still a bit mysterious to me. From my early reading on the Redfin web site, I had been under the impression that when you start an offer, you can choose which agent will represent you. That never happened with me, though. I'm guessing that if you had someone who you really wanted to use in particular, you could enter that in the notes field and get them. I now think that by default they just hand out the requests to whoever is available.
Regina was also good - as with Sean, she contacted the listing agent to find out the seller's situation and figure out what the timeline would be like. She also sent me a list of comparable properties along with her analysis of the price. She had a higher price in mind than I did, and with some good reason - her comps included recent condo sales near 280, which I had discounted because of how far away they are, but since most people buy into Millbrae for the school district, it seemed valid to include them. I pointed out another sale that she hadn't included - one which was quite a bit bigger, but sold for noticeably less, and was closer to this property than the other comps. She agreed that that was a good comp. I re-ran my numbers taking all the data into account, and settled on a fair price that was about 7% under the seller's listing price.
There were a couple of odd things about this transaction. One early issue was the disclosures; on previous offers, I had received disclosures early on and been encouraged to review them prior to making an offer. This time around, Regina urged me to put together the offer prior to receiving the disclosures. Again, that seemed strange - if there was anything in there that was a turn-off, then I'd be wasting everyone's time by making an offer; and, from the seller's perspective, it seems like they'd want me to know everything I could up front. If I make an offer for $X, based on all the disclosures, and they accept, then I can't come back later and ask them to take off $Y due to issues that they had disclosed. On the other hand, if I make an offer for $X without any disclosures, then even after they accept, I can ask them to take off $Y to deal with things that they already knew about; this makes it harder for the seller to compare offers, since different buyers will grade issues differently, and they run the risk of accepting an offer that the buyer will end up backing out of altogether later on.
In any case, I did end up getting the disclosures just prior to when we were going to put in the offer, so I did get a chance to read them. This should have been a good clue of how the process would continue. Everyone on the selling side was somewhat removed from the transaction - the listing agent was a part-timer who was helpful but not always quickly responsive; the sellers didn't live in the property; and so on. I think that if they had been a bit more organized, I could have gotten the disclosures sooner and moved forward more quickly.
In any case, the disclosures were fine, far less scary than the Palm one. Bay Area disclosures are fairly long, with a good amount of boilerplate, but still well worth reading. The seller fills out a long list of questions, mainly yes/no with space for explaining negative answers. It covers things like structural defects, neighborhood nuisances, odors, and so on. I learned the details about some recent renovations, which was helpful. The disclosures also include observations from the listing agent as part of their walk-through. In my case, there weren't any bombshells here, just a few fairly minor things that we had noticed during my tour - a missing lock on the balcony door, for example. Nothing seemed like it would seriously ding my offer price, so I gave a thumbs-up, submitted the offer, then crossed my fingers and waited.
Friday, October 15, 2010
Searching through the Rough
Around this time, I started to have a crisis of faith. By this point I'd been closely following the Millbrae-area market for about half a year; the more I learned, the more I liked the area, but also the more I realized what a difficult thing I was looking for. There just are not that many condo developments in the area. As a matter of fact, I had a complete list of every one in the whole city.
Burlingame had just a handful of options:
I decided to take a little break - after all, the commute wasn't killing me, and perhaps the situation would change. Along the way, I kept monitoring an interesting property. In addition to my Redfin emails, I also had subscribed to Craigslist RSS feeds that reported on condos advertised in Millbrae and Burlingame. Most of these duplicated information in the MLS, but some were FSBOs, and one in particular caught my eye: a FSBO condo on Mateo Avenue. It seemed overpriced, but otherwise matched what I was looking for. I decided to wait and see what would happen.
The property didn't seem to be advertised too heavily; after that first Craigslist post, nothing else came up, and I never saw it on any of the major FSBO web sites. About a month later, it popped up again, this time with agent representation but without being listed on the MLS. I decided to keep my distance - it still bore the same high price, and without the MLS connection I wouldn't be able to use Redfin. It also had mysteriously lost about 90 square feet between the time it was a FSBO and when an agent took it.
About a month after that, it finally hit the MLS. Still at the same price. I decided to wait for now - I didn't want to play my hand by seeming too eager, and by now I knew the market well enough to feel pretty sure that it wouldn't get snatched up at the current price. I knew from advice and observation that well-priced homes were selling quickly while overpriced homes languished for a month or more, so I figured that waiting for a while would give the seller time to adjust to more realistic expectations.
After a couple of weeks, the seller hosted an open house. I still wasn't ready to officially tour, but decided to drop by. It's kind of funny that I didn't do my first open house until towards the end of my search; I'd been scared off by warnings early on about attending open houses without representation. Listing agents can use them to scout for new clients, and if you aren't already represented by an agent and decide to make an offer after attending an open house, the listing agent becomes your agent, which leads to a conflict of interest. By now, though, I was happily represented by Redfin, and didn't think I'd have a problem.
As it turns out, I needn't have worried. I attended two open houses, and both were very pleasantly low-key, with no pressure to sign a register or do other stuff I was worried about. First I attended a house-house open house: an interesting, very old small house on Magnolia Avenue that had dropped by hundreds of thousands of dollars from its initial listing, and, if it dropped another two hundred thousand, would finally hit my range. It was nothing spectacular, but still intriguing: nice large lot, cute small house, a bathroom that had probably been renovated in the 1940's, an old-fashioned detached garage, very little set-back from the sidewalk. I thanked the agent and moved on to Mateo.
Once again, I had timed my visit to coincide with the arrival of Caltrain. The open house was on a Sunday, so I had a narrower window. The building is on the east side of El Camino Real, about a block from the tracks, but set much farther back than the California Avenue building had been. The agent greeted me when I arrived, then took a call while I wandered around. The train came by while I stood near an open window. It was audible, but infinitely better than the California Avenue one, and without any vibration. With time, I was confident that it would just become background noise, like a passing car; similarly, my current apartment is near a light rail line, and after the first few weeks I no longer noticed the sound.
The unit itself seemed crowded, but mainly because of all the furniture. It was occupied by tenants, and while it had been cleaned up, it didn't show as well as the other condos I'd seen. Still, nothing seemed wrong with it, and it was in better shape than the Palm Avenue unit that I had started making an offer on. I wandered around, checked for mold, looked under the sinks, played with the doors and light switches. Everything seemed in good order.
Still, the fact remained that it was overpriced. This wasn't just a subjective feeling, and wasn't taken from the popular online home estimation tools like Zillow and CyberHomes. I kept crunching possible values based on different methodologies, and kept coming up with a pretty consistent price range that was quite a bit less than the asking price. At the simplest end, I took the price per square foot for similarly sized and aged units in Millbrae/Burlingame that had recently sold, and adjusted it for this unit's size. I also took the most recent sales prices in the complex (which required going back to 2004-2005, during the boom but before the peak of the bubble), and tracked where those prices would go assuming that they followed the same overall price changes of Millbrae as a whole. Doing this quantitative work helped me gain a lot of confidence, and made me more secure in deciding to wait until I could get a better price.
- Park Broadway - Nice, but expensive, and too far away from the station and downtown for me.
- 88 South Broadway - Insanely expensive.
- Belamor - Too expensive, uncertainty around construction status.
- Palm Avenue - Perfect location and nice size, but worrying HOA situation.
- 15 Magnolia - Only 10 units, never available.
- 75 Magnolia - Only 4 units, never available.
- Mateo Avenue - Only 10 units, more on this later.
- 1396 El Camino Real - Too far away from the station and downtown, practically in San Bruno.
- Windwater Mills - On a busy street near the high school, plus some worrying online reports.
Burlingame had just a handful of options:
- California Avenue - Great units, but pricey and too close to the tracks.
- Ogden - In retrospect, I wish I had pursued the one-bedroom from here at the end of last year, but I had been too focused on Belamor. Nothing else entered the market during the spring or summer of my search.
I decided to take a little break - after all, the commute wasn't killing me, and perhaps the situation would change. Along the way, I kept monitoring an interesting property. In addition to my Redfin emails, I also had subscribed to Craigslist RSS feeds that reported on condos advertised in Millbrae and Burlingame. Most of these duplicated information in the MLS, but some were FSBOs, and one in particular caught my eye: a FSBO condo on Mateo Avenue. It seemed overpriced, but otherwise matched what I was looking for. I decided to wait and see what would happen.
The property didn't seem to be advertised too heavily; after that first Craigslist post, nothing else came up, and I never saw it on any of the major FSBO web sites. About a month later, it popped up again, this time with agent representation but without being listed on the MLS. I decided to keep my distance - it still bore the same high price, and without the MLS connection I wouldn't be able to use Redfin. It also had mysteriously lost about 90 square feet between the time it was a FSBO and when an agent took it.
About a month after that, it finally hit the MLS. Still at the same price. I decided to wait for now - I didn't want to play my hand by seeming too eager, and by now I knew the market well enough to feel pretty sure that it wouldn't get snatched up at the current price. I knew from advice and observation that well-priced homes were selling quickly while overpriced homes languished for a month or more, so I figured that waiting for a while would give the seller time to adjust to more realistic expectations.
After a couple of weeks, the seller hosted an open house. I still wasn't ready to officially tour, but decided to drop by. It's kind of funny that I didn't do my first open house until towards the end of my search; I'd been scared off by warnings early on about attending open houses without representation. Listing agents can use them to scout for new clients, and if you aren't already represented by an agent and decide to make an offer after attending an open house, the listing agent becomes your agent, which leads to a conflict of interest. By now, though, I was happily represented by Redfin, and didn't think I'd have a problem.
As it turns out, I needn't have worried. I attended two open houses, and both were very pleasantly low-key, with no pressure to sign a register or do other stuff I was worried about. First I attended a house-house open house: an interesting, very old small house on Magnolia Avenue that had dropped by hundreds of thousands of dollars from its initial listing, and, if it dropped another two hundred thousand, would finally hit my range. It was nothing spectacular, but still intriguing: nice large lot, cute small house, a bathroom that had probably been renovated in the 1940's, an old-fashioned detached garage, very little set-back from the sidewalk. I thanked the agent and moved on to Mateo.
Once again, I had timed my visit to coincide with the arrival of Caltrain. The open house was on a Sunday, so I had a narrower window. The building is on the east side of El Camino Real, about a block from the tracks, but set much farther back than the California Avenue building had been. The agent greeted me when I arrived, then took a call while I wandered around. The train came by while I stood near an open window. It was audible, but infinitely better than the California Avenue one, and without any vibration. With time, I was confident that it would just become background noise, like a passing car; similarly, my current apartment is near a light rail line, and after the first few weeks I no longer noticed the sound.
The unit itself seemed crowded, but mainly because of all the furniture. It was occupied by tenants, and while it had been cleaned up, it didn't show as well as the other condos I'd seen. Still, nothing seemed wrong with it, and it was in better shape than the Palm Avenue unit that I had started making an offer on. I wandered around, checked for mold, looked under the sinks, played with the doors and light switches. Everything seemed in good order.
Still, the fact remained that it was overpriced. This wasn't just a subjective feeling, and wasn't taken from the popular online home estimation tools like Zillow and CyberHomes. I kept crunching possible values based on different methodologies, and kept coming up with a pretty consistent price range that was quite a bit less than the asking price. At the simplest end, I took the price per square foot for similarly sized and aged units in Millbrae/Burlingame that had recently sold, and adjusted it for this unit's size. I also took the most recent sales prices in the complex (which required going back to 2004-2005, during the boom but before the peak of the bubble), and tracked where those prices would go assuming that they followed the same overall price changes of Millbrae as a whole. Doing this quantitative work helped me gain a lot of confidence, and made me more secure in deciding to wait until I could get a better price.
Friday, October 8, 2010
Too Slow, Too Loud
By now I was fully plugged in to the Redfin alert system. Every morning I would receive an email providing an update on the condo market in Millbrae and Burlingame: what properties had hit the market, which had dropped their prices, which had sold and at what price. This was incredibly useful, as it let me get a feel for the overall trends in the market, even beyond the (very) narrow area I was focusing on.
On a Tuesday morning, I saw a fascinating property hit the list: a small 1-bedroom condo at 88 South Broadway. I've been aware of this development for years, but hadn't thought that it had any 1-bedrooms. It was on the smallish size, but extremely well priced. A little too well priced. The only way I could imagine explaining the low price was if it was on the first floor facing directly onto El Camino Real. Still, I was sufficiently intrigued to request a tour.
I put in the tour request on that Tuesday. I got in touch with Matt, but we weren't able to schedule a showing before Saturday. When I showed up on Saturday, I found that it was more or less mobbed, with perhaps five or six parties squeezed into this small one-bedroom space, walking around and chatting. Matt was juggling me and another client. I really liked what I saw. The building is almost brand-new, having finished in 2007, and while this unit is less luxurious than most, it was still in great shape and had a really nice-looking kitchen.
So, why the low price? It was on the ground floor, but was at the back of the complex, facing onto South Broadway. Privacy was slightly limited, since a walkway came right outside the window. Matt had also learned from the listing agent that there were some complications with the unit - it was technically a "caretaker's unit," and theoretically intended for occupation by the property manager. Still, in practice, it could be freely bought and sold; the only restriction was that, if you rented it, you couldn't charge more than a certain amount for rent... I think that the limit was something like $1200 a month, pretty reasonable. So that helped explain the low price, but still, the restrictions didn't bother me, and this seemed like a once-in-a-lifetime chance to get into the development.
I'd toured the property Saturday. I started the offer wizard on Saturday night. Redfin agents have the weekends off, which I do not begrudge them, so I didn't hear from Sean until mid-Monday. He got in touch with the listing agent. On Tuesday, I learned that they had already accepted an offer and the property was no longer available. The next day, I saw it pop up as "Pending" in my email inbox.
That was probably the low point of my relationship with Redfin, although I don't know that it's necessarily their fault. For this very well-priced property with a lot of interest, getting in a few days earlier would have given me a shot at buying the property. Now, I don't know what price it ended up selling for, and it's totally possible that a bidding war would have pushed it beyond what I would be willing to pay for a small one-bedroom. Also, I don't know that a traditional agent would have been able to get me in to see it earlier, or been able to communicate my interest any more quickly to the sellers. Still, this was a case where Redfin's model seemed to suffer a little.
A little while later I toured a townhouse that was on the Burlingame side. This was the first townhouse I'd seen, and I have to admit to liking it. It had an integrated two-car garage, three stories, plenty of space, a balcony... lots of the stuff that I associate with traditional residential houses, but still at a (relatively) affordable price and in a great area.
The catch? As I had instantly noted on Google Maps, it was next to the train tracks. I went ahead and toured it since I wasn't sure if this particular unit was next to the tracks or farther back in the complex. Nope - it was front and center. I toured it in the morning during commuting hours, and paid attention as two Caltrains rumbled by. Nope... not happening. Even with the windows closed, it was quite loud, and while the floor didn't exactly shake, you could still feel the movement. I gave a sigh, and let that one go.
On a Tuesday morning, I saw a fascinating property hit the list: a small 1-bedroom condo at 88 South Broadway. I've been aware of this development for years, but hadn't thought that it had any 1-bedrooms. It was on the smallish size, but extremely well priced. A little too well priced. The only way I could imagine explaining the low price was if it was on the first floor facing directly onto El Camino Real. Still, I was sufficiently intrigued to request a tour.
I put in the tour request on that Tuesday. I got in touch with Matt, but we weren't able to schedule a showing before Saturday. When I showed up on Saturday, I found that it was more or less mobbed, with perhaps five or six parties squeezed into this small one-bedroom space, walking around and chatting. Matt was juggling me and another client. I really liked what I saw. The building is almost brand-new, having finished in 2007, and while this unit is less luxurious than most, it was still in great shape and had a really nice-looking kitchen.
So, why the low price? It was on the ground floor, but was at the back of the complex, facing onto South Broadway. Privacy was slightly limited, since a walkway came right outside the window. Matt had also learned from the listing agent that there were some complications with the unit - it was technically a "caretaker's unit," and theoretically intended for occupation by the property manager. Still, in practice, it could be freely bought and sold; the only restriction was that, if you rented it, you couldn't charge more than a certain amount for rent... I think that the limit was something like $1200 a month, pretty reasonable. So that helped explain the low price, but still, the restrictions didn't bother me, and this seemed like a once-in-a-lifetime chance to get into the development.
I'd toured the property Saturday. I started the offer wizard on Saturday night. Redfin agents have the weekends off, which I do not begrudge them, so I didn't hear from Sean until mid-Monday. He got in touch with the listing agent. On Tuesday, I learned that they had already accepted an offer and the property was no longer available. The next day, I saw it pop up as "Pending" in my email inbox.
That was probably the low point of my relationship with Redfin, although I don't know that it's necessarily their fault. For this very well-priced property with a lot of interest, getting in a few days earlier would have given me a shot at buying the property. Now, I don't know what price it ended up selling for, and it's totally possible that a bidding war would have pushed it beyond what I would be willing to pay for a small one-bedroom. Also, I don't know that a traditional agent would have been able to get me in to see it earlier, or been able to communicate my interest any more quickly to the sellers. Still, this was a case where Redfin's model seemed to suffer a little.
A little while later I toured a townhouse that was on the Burlingame side. This was the first townhouse I'd seen, and I have to admit to liking it. It had an integrated two-car garage, three stories, plenty of space, a balcony... lots of the stuff that I associate with traditional residential houses, but still at a (relatively) affordable price and in a great area.
The catch? As I had instantly noted on Google Maps, it was next to the train tracks. I went ahead and toured it since I wasn't sure if this particular unit was next to the tracks or farther back in the complex. Nope - it was front and center. I toured it in the morning during commuting hours, and paid attention as two Caltrains rumbled by. Nope... not happening. Even with the windows closed, it was quite loud, and while the floor didn't exactly shake, you could still feel the movement. I gave a sigh, and let that one go.
Friday, May 14, 2010
New Condo Tours
So, exactly what have I been up to since my last post back in December? That is, almost six months ago?
Waiting and seeing, mostly. I'd become increasingly interested in Millbrae as my target area, but had also come to realize that there just weren't a lot of options out there in my price range. There are very few older condos in Millbrae, and the newer ones are darn expensive. Since I wasn't in a big rush to move, I decided to wait until the Millbrae Paradise units came on to the market; if they were reasonably priced, as seemed likely, then I would proceed. I was worried that, if I picked something else in the meantime, I'd feel like a dud when Millbrae Paradise came online if it turned out to be a better deal.
So, for the most part, I've been monitoring Redfin and Craigslist - or, rather, reacting to the subscriptions that I have set up on those sites for notices of new listings - but hadn't been actively touring anything. Finally, Millbrae Paradise started touring, so I got back in touch with Redfin and set up a tour; along the way, I also decided to visit Park Broadway, which had always been a marginal choice for me but seemed like a good basis for comparison since it's the newest nearby construction.
I first discovered that, thanks to the vagaries of Redfin's territory division, the area I was interested in (southern Millbrae and northern Burlingame) was divided between two totally different offices. Burlingame is covered by the Peninsula team ("Redwood City to San Mateo", though they do handle points north and south as well), while Millbrae is covered by the San Francisco/Marin team. I didn't just have a new field agent, but a whole new office as well. I just sort of shrugged it off and went with it, though. I was happy to see that, even though it had been more than four months since my last Redfin tour, they still had all my approval stuff on file and I didn't need to give them anything more to keep going.
Millbrae Paradise isn't listed on the MLS, so I submitted a tour request for a Park Broadway loft that was listed, and in the tour notes also requested a tour of Millbrae Paradise. I indicated my flexibility for tour times. This was towards the end of April, so I was kind of pushing to do it soon; in the best case, I figured, I'd check out Millbrae Paradise, it would be totally awesome and affordable, and I could quickly get in an offer and do a double-dip on the federal and state tax credits as a first-time homebuyer of a new construction condo.
First up was Park Broadway. It ended up being much nicer than I had thought. They've dropped the prices of these 1-bedroom loft units substantially, most recently another $50k. I had never bothered to visit because I was weirded out by the fact that they directly face onto El Camino Real at street level. I was pleasantly surprised to note that, at least in the model unit, the noise was practically unnoticeable, and with the demo window treatments, you got a lot of light without feeling like you were sitting next to a highway. It helps that these units are set a bit below street level, behind a railing that separates them from the street and public sidewalk. Plus, they're just huge; even though they are only one bedroom, they are extremely spacious. Despite my reservations, I found myself actually considering grabbing one; it fit within my price range, looked great, and was freaking huge. Ultimately, though, I decided that the siting was just a non-starter for me. If I'm going to pay Bay Area prices for real estate, I want to be able to enjoy Bay Area weather, and it was depressing to think that I'd need to always keep the windows shut and stay indoors when I was home.
Next up came Millbrae Paradise. I'd patiently been waiting a long time for them to finish, and was glad to finally get inside, but they clearly have a lot more left to go; even though the model units are ready, there's a lot of construction happening throughout. After a little initial confusion over exactly where the sales center is (a sign points into an adjacent parking lot, while the actual trailer is farther up the street), I met the very pleasant sales associates. I was turned off by how unforthcoming they were about the prices on the units; apparently this is fairly typical for new construction, but still, I would have really appreciated a straight answer regarding how much something costs. I eventually figured out that even their cheapest 1-bedroom unit (a smallish condo on the second floor) would be going for a cool $100k more than my maximum budget. Yikes! I felt glum - I'd staked too much on a couple of words on their website, which boasted about "Affordable Elegance"; I guess we have different definitions of "affordable." As long as I was finally there, though, I went ahead and did the tour.
The models do look really nice. They are just a little slap-dash - I thought that their cabinets were extremely modern, but it turns out that the contractors just had forgotten to attach the knobs. On the whole, I could really see myself living there, which just made me more bummed that they were outside my range. Even though the rational part of my mind realizes that the quality of finishes and appliances are the least important aspects of a home, far behind the importance of location and solid construction, there's still an undeniable visceral reaction that I experience when I walk into a place that just feels really nice and high-quality.
We finished the tour, went back to the sales trailer, I sat down, we chatted just a little longer, I asked about a particular unit, they again wouldn't tell me the price, but said that they could speak with the manager. I said "No, thanks," and left.
All in all, a bit of a bummer. I spent the next day moping around; I hadn't realized until then just how thoroughly I had convinced myself that I would end up living there.. Still, what was done was done. I decided to make a clean break, put Millbrae Paradise (which, inexplicably, has now changed its name back to Belamor again) out of my mind, and decided where to go from there.
Waiting and seeing, mostly. I'd become increasingly interested in Millbrae as my target area, but had also come to realize that there just weren't a lot of options out there in my price range. There are very few older condos in Millbrae, and the newer ones are darn expensive. Since I wasn't in a big rush to move, I decided to wait until the Millbrae Paradise units came on to the market; if they were reasonably priced, as seemed likely, then I would proceed. I was worried that, if I picked something else in the meantime, I'd feel like a dud when Millbrae Paradise came online if it turned out to be a better deal.
So, for the most part, I've been monitoring Redfin and Craigslist - or, rather, reacting to the subscriptions that I have set up on those sites for notices of new listings - but hadn't been actively touring anything. Finally, Millbrae Paradise started touring, so I got back in touch with Redfin and set up a tour; along the way, I also decided to visit Park Broadway, which had always been a marginal choice for me but seemed like a good basis for comparison since it's the newest nearby construction.
I first discovered that, thanks to the vagaries of Redfin's territory division, the area I was interested in (southern Millbrae and northern Burlingame) was divided between two totally different offices. Burlingame is covered by the Peninsula team ("Redwood City to San Mateo", though they do handle points north and south as well), while Millbrae is covered by the San Francisco/Marin team. I didn't just have a new field agent, but a whole new office as well. I just sort of shrugged it off and went with it, though. I was happy to see that, even though it had been more than four months since my last Redfin tour, they still had all my approval stuff on file and I didn't need to give them anything more to keep going.
Millbrae Paradise isn't listed on the MLS, so I submitted a tour request for a Park Broadway loft that was listed, and in the tour notes also requested a tour of Millbrae Paradise. I indicated my flexibility for tour times. This was towards the end of April, so I was kind of pushing to do it soon; in the best case, I figured, I'd check out Millbrae Paradise, it would be totally awesome and affordable, and I could quickly get in an offer and do a double-dip on the federal and state tax credits as a first-time homebuyer of a new construction condo.
First up was Park Broadway. It ended up being much nicer than I had thought. They've dropped the prices of these 1-bedroom loft units substantially, most recently another $50k. I had never bothered to visit because I was weirded out by the fact that they directly face onto El Camino Real at street level. I was pleasantly surprised to note that, at least in the model unit, the noise was practically unnoticeable, and with the demo window treatments, you got a lot of light without feeling like you were sitting next to a highway. It helps that these units are set a bit below street level, behind a railing that separates them from the street and public sidewalk. Plus, they're just huge; even though they are only one bedroom, they are extremely spacious. Despite my reservations, I found myself actually considering grabbing one; it fit within my price range, looked great, and was freaking huge. Ultimately, though, I decided that the siting was just a non-starter for me. If I'm going to pay Bay Area prices for real estate, I want to be able to enjoy Bay Area weather, and it was depressing to think that I'd need to always keep the windows shut and stay indoors when I was home.
Next up came Millbrae Paradise. I'd patiently been waiting a long time for them to finish, and was glad to finally get inside, but they clearly have a lot more left to go; even though the model units are ready, there's a lot of construction happening throughout. After a little initial confusion over exactly where the sales center is (a sign points into an adjacent parking lot, while the actual trailer is farther up the street), I met the very pleasant sales associates. I was turned off by how unforthcoming they were about the prices on the units; apparently this is fairly typical for new construction, but still, I would have really appreciated a straight answer regarding how much something costs. I eventually figured out that even their cheapest 1-bedroom unit (a smallish condo on the second floor) would be going for a cool $100k more than my maximum budget. Yikes! I felt glum - I'd staked too much on a couple of words on their website, which boasted about "Affordable Elegance"; I guess we have different definitions of "affordable." As long as I was finally there, though, I went ahead and did the tour.
The models do look really nice. They are just a little slap-dash - I thought that their cabinets were extremely modern, but it turns out that the contractors just had forgotten to attach the knobs. On the whole, I could really see myself living there, which just made me more bummed that they were outside my range. Even though the rational part of my mind realizes that the quality of finishes and appliances are the least important aspects of a home, far behind the importance of location and solid construction, there's still an undeniable visceral reaction that I experience when I walk into a place that just feels really nice and high-quality.
We finished the tour, went back to the sales trailer, I sat down, we chatted just a little longer, I asked about a particular unit, they again wouldn't tell me the price, but said that they could speak with the manager. I said "No, thanks," and left.
All in all, a bit of a bummer. I spent the next day moping around; I hadn't realized until then just how thoroughly I had convinced myself that I would end up living there.. Still, what was done was done. I decided to make a clean break, put Millbrae Paradise (which, inexplicably, has now changed its name back to Belamor again) out of my mind, and decided where to go from there.
Saturday, December 26, 2009
A Brief Tour with Redfin
I went out on a brief date with Redfin a few weeks ago. It turned out pretty well. I've been using their site for a while to scope out neighborhoods, look up recent sales and comparables, and generally geek out on real estate data. After attending their seminar in Palo Alto this fall, I decided to give them a try as a straight-up realtor.
The process is very simple. When you find a property that you're interested in on their web site, you click a button to request a tour. They have some ground rules, most importantly that they do not deal with short sales. Short sales are listed on Redfin, but you'll need to work with another agent or on your own if you want to pursue them. And, since Redfin focuses on MLS properties, you can't directly request a tour of FSBOs or most new construction. (However, as long as such places offer a commission or referral fee, you can still call Redfin directly to set up a tour.) This goes into what is essentially a shopping cart. You can continue browsing and add other properties to your tour list, then "check out". At checkout, you can request preferred time periods (like "Saturday afternoon" or "Monday morning") and add extra comments.
They tell you that someone will contact you within 4 hours to set up your tour; or, if it's late enough in the day, by noon on the following day. In my case, I got a call a bit before noon; the person apologized and said that their computer system was down so they couldn't schedule, but they would get in contact with me by the end of the day. And they did... I got a call from the field agent to set it up.
I'm probably kind of unusual, even among Redfin users, in that I have settled on an extremely narrow idea of what I want. I'm guessing that the majority of buyers will take advantage of the full 5 properties that they allow you to tour in a single day. For me, though, there was just one property that had recently come onto the market that I thought I might buy, so I just signed up for that one, despite several opportunities to add more.
The actual touring process works differently with Redfin. For liability reasons, the agents don't drive you around, so the two of you will drive separately to the places you're interested in. (During the seminar, the presenter got several questions/requests about this, and eventually did allow that, if you had been out with one of their agents several times and demonstrated that you are not a serial killer, an individual agent might decide to ride with you.) You'll show up, the agent lets you in, you can take your time checking things out, and the agent helps point things out for you.
My tour went really smoothly. Since I just had the one place I wanted to visit, I took Caltrain up and then walked over. There was a light drizzle that day, but it was still a pleasant walk. I like to approach a building this way, and spend some time before or after on the street, getting a feel for the neighborhood, noise level, etc.
I'd arrived at the building about 10 minutes early, so I kept on walking for a while, then circled back. The agent had arrived about 5 minutes before our scheduled start; we shook hands, introduced ourselves, he used advanced lockpicking skills to obtain the key from the lockbox, and then we headed in.
The unit itself was really nice. I'm not totally sold on it - there are no dealbreakers there, but enough weird things that I don't feel compelled to jump on it, especially at the price it is currently listed at - but I could certainly see myself living there. There's lots of light in the unit, the rooms have been recently updated to look quite pleasant, and of course I love the location.
I chatted a bit with the agent while walking around, some shop talk about the market as a whole, and some specific things about this particular unit. There were a couple of things that slightly irritated me - it bugs me when someone reads facts off the MLS sheet, and he did say "Now is a great time to buy," - but he was a really pleasant guy, helpful and not at all pushy, so I was really happy with how that experience went.
After I'd spent some time inside, we toured the common areas, which were very small in this particular complex, then he gave a very brief spiel about the Redfin process, and we parted ways.
Afterwards, I got a nice follow-up email from the field agent who answered a question that I'd forgotten I'd asked (whether the heat was electric or gas) and told me to contact him if I had any other questions.
I've been very happy with the experience. It definitely fits my personality and the way I've been approaching the process, where Redfin is available as a resource instead of driving the situation. That said, they have pleasant, friendly people, which cuts against the stereotype of Redfin as an impersonal organization. I'll almost certainly use them again in the future.
The process is very simple. When you find a property that you're interested in on their web site, you click a button to request a tour. They have some ground rules, most importantly that they do not deal with short sales. Short sales are listed on Redfin, but you'll need to work with another agent or on your own if you want to pursue them. And, since Redfin focuses on MLS properties, you can't directly request a tour of FSBOs or most new construction. (However, as long as such places offer a commission or referral fee, you can still call Redfin directly to set up a tour.) This goes into what is essentially a shopping cart. You can continue browsing and add other properties to your tour list, then "check out". At checkout, you can request preferred time periods (like "Saturday afternoon" or "Monday morning") and add extra comments.
They tell you that someone will contact you within 4 hours to set up your tour; or, if it's late enough in the day, by noon on the following day. In my case, I got a call a bit before noon; the person apologized and said that their computer system was down so they couldn't schedule, but they would get in contact with me by the end of the day. And they did... I got a call from the field agent to set it up.
I'm probably kind of unusual, even among Redfin users, in that I have settled on an extremely narrow idea of what I want. I'm guessing that the majority of buyers will take advantage of the full 5 properties that they allow you to tour in a single day. For me, though, there was just one property that had recently come onto the market that I thought I might buy, so I just signed up for that one, despite several opportunities to add more.
The actual touring process works differently with Redfin. For liability reasons, the agents don't drive you around, so the two of you will drive separately to the places you're interested in. (During the seminar, the presenter got several questions/requests about this, and eventually did allow that, if you had been out with one of their agents several times and demonstrated that you are not a serial killer, an individual agent might decide to ride with you.) You'll show up, the agent lets you in, you can take your time checking things out, and the agent helps point things out for you.
My tour went really smoothly. Since I just had the one place I wanted to visit, I took Caltrain up and then walked over. There was a light drizzle that day, but it was still a pleasant walk. I like to approach a building this way, and spend some time before or after on the street, getting a feel for the neighborhood, noise level, etc.
I'd arrived at the building about 10 minutes early, so I kept on walking for a while, then circled back. The agent had arrived about 5 minutes before our scheduled start; we shook hands, introduced ourselves, he used advanced lockpicking skills to obtain the key from the lockbox, and then we headed in.
The unit itself was really nice. I'm not totally sold on it - there are no dealbreakers there, but enough weird things that I don't feel compelled to jump on it, especially at the price it is currently listed at - but I could certainly see myself living there. There's lots of light in the unit, the rooms have been recently updated to look quite pleasant, and of course I love the location.
I chatted a bit with the agent while walking around, some shop talk about the market as a whole, and some specific things about this particular unit. There were a couple of things that slightly irritated me - it bugs me when someone reads facts off the MLS sheet, and he did say "Now is a great time to buy," - but he was a really pleasant guy, helpful and not at all pushy, so I was really happy with how that experience went.
After I'd spent some time inside, we toured the common areas, which were very small in this particular complex, then he gave a very brief spiel about the Redfin process, and we parted ways.
Afterwards, I got a nice follow-up email from the field agent who answered a question that I'd forgotten I'd asked (whether the heat was electric or gas) and told me to contact him if I had any other questions.
I've been very happy with the experience. It definitely fits my personality and the way I've been approaching the process, where Redfin is available as a resource instead of driving the situation. That said, they have pleasant, friendly people, which cuts against the stereotype of Redfin as an impersonal organization. I'll almost certainly use them again in the future.
Saturday, November 14, 2009
Kicking the Tires
Sorry for the delay between posts - things have been quiet, but they are moving forward.
I've been collecting real estate agent recommendations for a while. Early in November I interviewed one particular agent and we started looking at homes. The process has been extremely fun, extremely interesting, and extremely frustrating, all mixed together.
First of all, the agent: one of the things I liked was that he was a first-hand recommendation, from someone who had recently bought a home through him. Most of my other names were from people who knew agents, or who had friends who had used agents. Second, the agent is really friendly, with a great personality. We met in his office and chatted a bit - what I was looking for, my timeline, my finances, but also talking about mutual friends, music, and so on. So that was nice... I'm mainly looking for an agent, not for a friend, but if you're going to spend a lot of time with someone it really helps to get along with them.
My time frame is still extremely fluid; under my original plan, I still have about 4-5 months left to go, and I would be totally fine with extending that further. Really, I'm talking with agents now because of my original schedule more than any specific burning desires; mainly, I want to be set up so that if something great comes along, I can jump right on top of it, and not need to waste time lining up an agent first.
So, when I had first reached out to the agent, my message (email, yay!) was along the lines of, "I'm looking for buying X in Y area. This might be really premature, but I'm looking for a buyer's agent, and am wondering if you'd be interested in representing me." He enthusiastically responded, and we set up a time to meet.
He managed to surprise me in our very first meeting by showing me an available property that I hadn't been aware of. I've been running RSS feeds on Craigslist and Zillow for many months now in my target area, and had managed to convince myself that I was seeing everything that was for sale - not much, especially in my price range. But the very first property he pulled off was something that looked like a perfect location, and while it was above my limit, at least the far-left digit in the price was correct. He had also prepared about a dozen other properties from a wide range of geography, price, age and style. I read through them all, and later told him that the first was the only one I was really interested in, but that I'd like to look at a few others if he had time, just so I could get a feel for what was available in the area. I think I've mentioned before that I haven't been doing open houses, so I really don't have a whole lot of experience when it comes to looking at properties.
The very first place we visited was the one I was interested in. It was cool, and also depressing. As I was walking around outside, I realized that the street it was on was quite a bit busier than I had expected. It's a few blocks away from El Camino Real, and when looking at it on Google Maps I had thought, "Oh, all the through-traffic will be on El Camino, so this should be quieter." That wasn't the case, though... I'm not totally sure why it's as busy as it is, but a nearby grocery store may have something to do with it, and some people may just be trying to avoid El Camino. The unit was on the first floor (although the first floor is above the garage, so it's raised a little) and faces the street, which is a shame - I don't think I'd be able to enjoy sitting out on the porch with a book. On the inside, it was a better, though still a mixed story. The agent did a great job at describing what I was seeing and pointing things out - a wet bar, electric burners (boo!), real hardwood floors, badly hung window, cracked molding, un-level floor. Honestly, it was a bit overwhelming, though pretty enjoyable. As people who know me can attest, I take a while to process new information, so a lot of time was spent just absorbing my surroundings.
From there we went and visited the other three places I had selected. One was a HUGE three-bedroom condo that was built in the 60's. It had things that I've never seen before, like an electric range that slides out of the wall, and four-pronged electrical sockets. We saw a great but expensive condo in Burlingame. And then we looked at a new condo development in South San Francisco, which was quite interesting. All along I've been saying that I don't care about luxury amenities, that all I want is location and value, but I have to admit that I responded strongly to the all-new construction there. (It wasn't crazy or anything, but did have really pretty wood, nice big windows, marble countertops, and so on.) After the new condo, we stopped at one more place that the agent thought I should see, a nice, older, good-sized condo on a quieter residential street.
After the tour, I could definitely appreciate the benefits of working with an agent. Other than the new construction, at each place he could use his Supra lockbox thing and let us in with the key. It's extremely convenient to have that kind of access, to not need to worry about scheduling around an open house or dealing with other people who are there. And, again, I might not have found out about that first property if it wasn't for him.
At the same time, though, I am now realizing what all the books say: "YOU are in charge of your home search." Which makes sense; I'm the one who's spending the money, and I'm the one who knows what I want and what I don't want. I really liked the agent, but I needed to remind myself not to get frustrated when he encouraged me to look at places that I wasn't interested in, or when he checked to see whether I could go above my maximum price. He's doing his job, which is to find me a place and make sure the transaction goes through. I need to focus on my job, which is finding the place that I want at a great price.
So, we'll see where we go from here. Weirdly enough for this late in the game, I'm actually starting to look at Redfin - at a minimum, their web site has gotten crazy good and vaulted above Zillow as my go-to spot (though there is still an annoying registration process - thank you, BugMeNot!). I realized after the fact that Redfin listed the property that I had missed from Craigslist and Zillow - since they're plugged into MLS, they have access to the same data that "real" agents do. And, given that I've spent close to a year tracking prices and thinking through what I want, I have an increasingly loud and cocky voice in my head saying, "You should just go for it! You know what you want, you have the Internet, you have all the time in the world... do it on your own!" I do like the self-driven aspect of Redfin, which aligns nicely with how I approach everything else in my life.
Anyways, that's where things are for now. As always, moving forward, but very slowly. Huzzah!
I've been collecting real estate agent recommendations for a while. Early in November I interviewed one particular agent and we started looking at homes. The process has been extremely fun, extremely interesting, and extremely frustrating, all mixed together.
First of all, the agent: one of the things I liked was that he was a first-hand recommendation, from someone who had recently bought a home through him. Most of my other names were from people who knew agents, or who had friends who had used agents. Second, the agent is really friendly, with a great personality. We met in his office and chatted a bit - what I was looking for, my timeline, my finances, but also talking about mutual friends, music, and so on. So that was nice... I'm mainly looking for an agent, not for a friend, but if you're going to spend a lot of time with someone it really helps to get along with them.
My time frame is still extremely fluid; under my original plan, I still have about 4-5 months left to go, and I would be totally fine with extending that further. Really, I'm talking with agents now because of my original schedule more than any specific burning desires; mainly, I want to be set up so that if something great comes along, I can jump right on top of it, and not need to waste time lining up an agent first.
So, when I had first reached out to the agent, my message (email, yay!) was along the lines of, "I'm looking for buying X in Y area. This might be really premature, but I'm looking for a buyer's agent, and am wondering if you'd be interested in representing me." He enthusiastically responded, and we set up a time to meet.
He managed to surprise me in our very first meeting by showing me an available property that I hadn't been aware of. I've been running RSS feeds on Craigslist and Zillow for many months now in my target area, and had managed to convince myself that I was seeing everything that was for sale - not much, especially in my price range. But the very first property he pulled off was something that looked like a perfect location, and while it was above my limit, at least the far-left digit in the price was correct. He had also prepared about a dozen other properties from a wide range of geography, price, age and style. I read through them all, and later told him that the first was the only one I was really interested in, but that I'd like to look at a few others if he had time, just so I could get a feel for what was available in the area. I think I've mentioned before that I haven't been doing open houses, so I really don't have a whole lot of experience when it comes to looking at properties.
The very first place we visited was the one I was interested in. It was cool, and also depressing. As I was walking around outside, I realized that the street it was on was quite a bit busier than I had expected. It's a few blocks away from El Camino Real, and when looking at it on Google Maps I had thought, "Oh, all the through-traffic will be on El Camino, so this should be quieter." That wasn't the case, though... I'm not totally sure why it's as busy as it is, but a nearby grocery store may have something to do with it, and some people may just be trying to avoid El Camino. The unit was on the first floor (although the first floor is above the garage, so it's raised a little) and faces the street, which is a shame - I don't think I'd be able to enjoy sitting out on the porch with a book. On the inside, it was a better, though still a mixed story. The agent did a great job at describing what I was seeing and pointing things out - a wet bar, electric burners (boo!), real hardwood floors, badly hung window, cracked molding, un-level floor. Honestly, it was a bit overwhelming, though pretty enjoyable. As people who know me can attest, I take a while to process new information, so a lot of time was spent just absorbing my surroundings.
From there we went and visited the other three places I had selected. One was a HUGE three-bedroom condo that was built in the 60's. It had things that I've never seen before, like an electric range that slides out of the wall, and four-pronged electrical sockets. We saw a great but expensive condo in Burlingame. And then we looked at a new condo development in South San Francisco, which was quite interesting. All along I've been saying that I don't care about luxury amenities, that all I want is location and value, but I have to admit that I responded strongly to the all-new construction there. (It wasn't crazy or anything, but did have really pretty wood, nice big windows, marble countertops, and so on.) After the new condo, we stopped at one more place that the agent thought I should see, a nice, older, good-sized condo on a quieter residential street.
After the tour, I could definitely appreciate the benefits of working with an agent. Other than the new construction, at each place he could use his Supra lockbox thing and let us in with the key. It's extremely convenient to have that kind of access, to not need to worry about scheduling around an open house or dealing with other people who are there. And, again, I might not have found out about that first property if it wasn't for him.
At the same time, though, I am now realizing what all the books say: "YOU are in charge of your home search." Which makes sense; I'm the one who's spending the money, and I'm the one who knows what I want and what I don't want. I really liked the agent, but I needed to remind myself not to get frustrated when he encouraged me to look at places that I wasn't interested in, or when he checked to see whether I could go above my maximum price. He's doing his job, which is to find me a place and make sure the transaction goes through. I need to focus on my job, which is finding the place that I want at a great price.
So, we'll see where we go from here. Weirdly enough for this late in the game, I'm actually starting to look at Redfin - at a minimum, their web site has gotten crazy good and vaulted above Zillow as my go-to spot (though there is still an annoying registration process - thank you, BugMeNot!). I realized after the fact that Redfin listed the property that I had missed from Craigslist and Zillow - since they're plugged into MLS, they have access to the same data that "real" agents do. And, given that I've spent close to a year tracking prices and thinking through what I want, I have an increasingly loud and cocky voice in my head saying, "You should just go for it! You know what you want, you have the Internet, you have all the time in the world... do it on your own!" I do like the self-driven aspect of Redfin, which aligns nicely with how I approach everything else in my life.
Anyways, that's where things are for now. As always, moving forward, but very slowly. Huzzah!
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