I just had it happen again today with another real estate offer. Property has been on the market for 75 days. I checked with the listing agent last night, no offers. We wrote up an offer and I sent it in around noon today. He writes me back at 2pm and says he now has 2 more offers. What!?!#@%? This has happened to my customers more times than I can count.
Many of them think that there is some sort of conspiracy going on. Maybe the listing agent calls all his customers/friends and tells them about our offer. Maybe there are a bunch of lurkers out there that find out there is an offer coming in and pounce on it. Kinda like waiting till the last-minute on an eBay auction to put in your bid. While it may be easier to use these conspiracy theories as an excuse/reason that we are now in multiple offers, I doubt that this the case.
I have seen this happen with dozens of different listing agents on dozens of different houses at all price points. I can’t believe that all of them are calling their friends when they receive our offer. Frankly, many REO agents are so busy you never even hear from them, just their assistants.
Here is my alternative theory: I suspect that we are not alone in our search and that the same event (price change, new property on market, new month, solar flares, eclipse, etc) that triggered us to look at and then write an offer on a property happened to others. Think about it. The above property had been on the market 75 days.
Why didn’t we look at it and make an offer at 50 days? Reason: It was too high-priced.
Why not at 60 days? Reason: there were other/better deals out there.
While this will sound a little coarse, I think you could look at it like the home buyer (whether investors or owner occupants) travel much like pack animals. A heard of zebras all walk in the same direction to the watering hole that is 10 miles away, not really knowing who is leading or which exact direction to walk, but they get there at the same time. Well, this is just my $0.02. You can take it or leave it.
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