Quote:
Originally Posted by cmyden
Maybe it's a different definition of when the sale occurs? As far as I know, the date of the sale is when it 'firms up' (discussed earlier in this thread).
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It seems a sale goes from "Pending" to "Sold" on MLS/MLX when conditions are removed from a sale. In our case, it was when the second deposit was cashed as well.
I've been reading this thread with interest for a while, as I was a sideline real estate watcher until my wife and I finally bought this month. I'm still convinced we overpaid, but not based on the market. What we bought turned out far better than I had hoped, and the wife is happy, but for what we got compared to what I had hoped to pay, was crazy. That's the Calgary market these days.
We bought an inner-city house that was on the market for 100+ days; it was the second house we had put on offer on. The first was someone who was >$25k underwater on their LIST price, and wouldn't budge on price or closing date, after 120 DOM. The house we bought was fully paid off, so they were really willing to negotiate. We got it for 92% of list, which I thought I might be able to get down to 90, but my wife wanted to buy, so in the interest of "happy wife, happy life" we bought. I'm glad we helped skew the stats on DOM and list/sale ratio. I haven't talked to the sellers yet but I get the feeling we were the only offer they had seen in months.
The supply of the type of houses we wanted in the neighbourhoods we were looking at was not great. We were looking at particular area due to work, and we only had 4-5 properties, most of which were either massively overpriced, or in such terrible condition it wasn't worth even offering on. The sense I get is that potential sellers who don't NEED to sell (i.e. investment properties, retirees, etc) are just sitting on their hands, waiting for the storm to pass - prices are on their way down and so people are scared. When I first started monitoring our neighbourhood (2007-2008) the market was so flooded with properties (overpriced) that it seems odd that the supply dried up so much.
Just wanted to share my experience. We had an agent who came recommended to us by coworkers, and he was everything we could have asked for - plus I'm really cheap by nature and he not only enouraged me, he enthusiastically convinced me to pay less than what I considered my limit.