Buying a home is a considerable investment. You have to be sharp and keen with regards to the details of the property you’re eyeing to purchase. If you’re not well-versed in buying a property, you can seek help from an expert. In this episode, David shares the story of how he helped a real first-time home buyer and spent three hours arguing with an agent and an older seller over a $300-door repair on a $502,000-house. David says this is a big lesson for anyone buying a home as this is not a typical purchase, and it gets sillier and sillier moving up to the day you get your keys. Just always remember to stay optimistic, play nice, and keep your eye on the end goal and the big prize. This episode is brought to you by #Ruckpack.
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Real Buyer Bonus Episode – A Real First Time Home Buyer Story
Learn How To Buy A House By Hearing A Real Story From A Real First Time Home Buyer
Have you ever wondered what it’s like to buy your first home? Let’s find out on the very first real buyer bonus episode. I’m a realtor with eXp Realty here in Southern California. This is the very first and the only blog out there telling you the truth. Letting you the first-time buyers know what’s going down. We did a whole lot of exposure in the first few episodes about why you need to get some information. I’m finding out more and more as I’m researching and hearing back from all of you out there that I need to make a whole bunch more blogs because nobody is telling you what’s going on. No one is helping you out because no one cares. You don’t bring in the big bucks so they don’t care about you. They hand you to the new agents and the rookie agents.
I’m finding out this is truer the more that I do this show. That’s because of you and your feedback as well as talking to other people out there. This is a real buyer bonus episode. This is a real story that happened to me because I am a real buyer agent. I work with buyers. I work with sellers. I work a lot with first-time buyers because they make me happy. I love being able to give people what they’re not getting. I also love being able to give this to you. Katrina from LA sent me an email. She had some questions for me and I answered her questions. I got her in touch with a lender as well as an awesome agent that I know that works up in LA. She’s on her way to buying her first house. Props to Jacqueline in Denver, the very first closed first-time buyer from my show. I cannot believe it. Something that’s cool is I’m finding out its not only first-time buyers, its first and second-time buyers.
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I got my gal, Gabby, who sent me an email. I sent it back. We haven’t had a chance to talk. She hasn’t bought a home in a long time. They went and talked to realtors. She felt like she didn’t trust them. They were concerned. She happened to come upon my show, heard me speaking the truth and trying to let you know what’s going on, help you, give you the advice and the professional expertise that you deserve. She wrote me an email. They bought a home a long time ago. She’s got to sell a home and moved to Tampa, but she has no clue how it’s going to work out. We’re here to help. We’re going to do a real buyer bonus episode. This is a real story that happened to me. I’m not going to change the names to protect the innocent, mostly because I read the blog. It’s going to embarrass them and that makes me happy. I’ve got a couple of first-time buyers, Matt and Brandy.
If I could, I would hire Brandy because she’s incredibly organized. As a matter of fact, I might hire her. She doesn’t know that yet. She’s probably finding out here on the show. She’s got maps. She’s got charts. She’s got lists. She’s got questions. If your agent is confused, befuddled and confounded by your questions, your agent doesn’t have the answers. It’s time for you to go back and read my blog on How To Interview Your Buyer’s Agent. It’s free. You can pick whoever you want. Would you like Lebron James or would you like the old guy at the YMCA? Anybody that you want, that’s your prerogative. For Matt and Brandy, this was a big day. That’s why I thought this would be a real good story for you. I’ve got tons of stories about their offer, multiple offer situation. We wrote the right offer. We did all the right things. That’s how we got the deal. Now we got into the final pieces. This is what the real buyer bonus episode is all about.
The one thing that you have to do is to remember to see the forest for the trees. I still don’t quite understand that saying, but it means you’ve got to see the big picture. What was going on is we were in a bidding war for this house. It was originally at $479,000. That’s a first-time buyer house in Southern California and it’s not just like that here. If you’re in some of those other high priced areas, if you’re in a big city, if you’re in New York or San Francisco, or some of the mid-level cities in the country, there are parts of Cleveland that are cheap and parts of downtown that are expensive. It’s the same thing with Austin, Texas. It has been booming. The nationwide average sales price is somewhere in $200,000 but there are places where first-time buyers are looking at $300,000 to $400,000 for a house. There are places where it’s more expensive than where we are here that’s why you need to read these fun stories.
We’re getting down to the nitty-gritty. We’re getting ready to remove contingencies. We’ll remove the conditions if you’re up in Canada. What you might find is that when you get to that point, you’re going to be arguing about hundreds of dollars when we were talking about tens of thousands of dollars. This is why I love Matt and Brandy. Number one, they had questions all the way along. As a matter of fact, at the very beginning of our relationship, they interviewed me which I highly recommend. They have no idea how much I respect them for that. They were even thinking about using one of those internet realtors instead of me. Thank goodness that they didn’t because there’s no way they ever would have gotten this house and that’s not me talking, that’s them. Also, because I like them and they deserve this house. It’s awesome for them. They weren’t even shopping. That’s the best part. We were starting to look and this house popped up. They were like, “I don’t know. We said that we’re going to take our time.”
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I could see them start to panic. Brandy was starting to sweat inside a little bit, but it ended up being the right house for them. Something that I want everyone to understand from this deal is we got to the point where the sellers were saying, “I don’t care what your inspector says. We had the city come out and check out our house. They said it was okay so there’s no way that the electricity isn’t correct.” That could be true. What should be happening there is they should realize we’re the buyers. We hired an inspector. The inspector said this isn’t working. We assume that the inspector is right, not you just telling us a story. Here’s the big lesson. There’s a term in business called the one-off. A lot of times they use that term when they’re talking about a single store, not a franchise. What’s interesting here is you’ve got one person selling one item and the entire deal is done. The business is closed. The door is shut. There’s no more transaction ever.
There’s no manager to complain to. You can’t write to corporate. You can’t tweet to corporate and hope to get a year’s supply of free tacos or something like that. There’s no one to talk to. If this one person decides to be a complete jackass during the deal, that’s what they did. That’s how it’s going to go down. The other thing about it is you’re also dealing with an agent. They have to get unethical. They do most of the time have a broker to report to unless they’re the broker themselves and you have to just sue them. You’re also dealing with the agent who can be a complete imbecile and screw up the whole deal. I cannot begin to tell you how many times in my career I have had to eat crow. Even though I’m talking to a complete imbecile, who is totally ruining and screwing up the deal, I have to say, “That’s great. That was a good point. That’s going to help our buyers and sellers see eye to eye here.” That’s what a good agent is going to do. No ego out the door because the bottom line is if the people want the house, that’s what you do.
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After bidding up and getting a bidding war where we were tens and thousands of dollars over the list price, over what they’re originally anticipating to pay, a $300 door stood between us and removing those contingencies or conditions and moving forward. That was it. Thank goodness that Matt and Brandy just said, “If these fastidious fuddy-duddy little old folks and their agent, who’s a buddy with them, and plays canasta with them.” I have no problem talking trash because I guarantee you she’s not going to read this blog or know what it is. If she does, I’ll tell her herself, “Heidi, you’re selling your friend’s house. You only sell about four or five homes a year, yet you say you’ve been in the business for a long time. You act like that means that you’re experienced. It’s not and you’re not doing your sellers any service. You’re lucky that my people were excited about this house and are going to put those things to pass.” In the future, there are going to be some deals that are not going to happen. If each agent isn’t explaining to the people that they’re representing what should and shouldn’t be happening, we’ll run into a problem.
Fortunately, Matt and Brandy were very willing to listen and understand as I talked to them. When we got to this point, they saw the big picture. The big lesson is to be ready to see the big picture because you’re going to have that first negotiation. Be all excited and the nickel and diming starts for the requests for repairs and the appraisal. For those of you who are some of my readers that I love and that are five to three years away. You’re all excited about this. You’re probably even more scared and more irritated about doing this than you were when you were reading the first time. Remember this, it’s going to be the first of the month. You’re going to have to write a big fat check. You’re going to get a big old nothing for it. Eventually, you’ll go through this heartache once. You’ll pull off the Band-Aid. You get the house. This could be a million times worse if you’re not working with an experienced agent. I am not saying there are not great agents out there. In some parts of the country, there are agents that do work with a lot of first-time buyers, who have a lot of experience and are very good.
If you’re in a high market area and you’ve got a bunch of those idiots who are full of themselves, narcissistic, Instagram wannabes. Realtors have Instagram. I’m not kidding. They make a ton of money. They’re all plastic. There are a lot of people out there that do a great job. There are a lot of people, especially in the higher priced areas. If you’re thinking you’re going to have to do a condo first than do a stepping stone, don’t hire your uncle, your friend, your cousin or the person you met at the open house because you just totally clicked. That person may not have done a lot of deals and it can cost you hundreds of thousands of dollars and potentially lose you your dream home. There’s a guy that I listened to all the time, who is a big entrepreneur named Gary Vee. He always says, “People say I say the same thing over and over again. It’s because I’m right.” I have a million other things I can tell you about buying a house. You notice I do say one thing over and over again. It sounds very narcissistic. I’m not saying it because I’m right. I’m saying it because I’ve learned this. I am so bummed that no one is telling you this.
It’s time that you heard it and you understood so be ready. Realize that a home is a one-off purchase. Realize that you’re dealing with a seller who is never going to have to deal with you again and doesn’t care. He doesn’t give a damn if you’re going to give him five stars on Yelp. They’re in it for them. A lot of times the other real estate agent might be too. Just know your tipping point. Go into it and say, “I’m going to bend to hear and be ready too.” You can’t go to the back and complain to the manager, get free tailoring on that dress because the sales lady was nasty. It doesn’t work like that. That’s my first ever real buyer bonus episode. That’s a real story that happened to me. That was my fun time at Starbucks. This episode is also brought to you by RuckPack.
I saw a RuckPack on Shark Tank. I bought some and that is why I’m so fired up. It’s an energy drink that was made by a dud who is a Marine. This is totally not a real sponsor at all. I had my first one and I’m fired up. This is a Marine. He invented an energy drink that doesn’t have any caffeine in it. It’s natural caffeine, which I don’t know what that means. The speed I’m talking right now could be something crazy. The idea was of RuckPack is the big backpack they carry on the back. It’s only essentials you can carry on there because you might be out for five or seven days. They had to find some nutritional supplement that they could take that would give them energy. They wouldn’t crash. If a sniper has got to sit there with his finger on the trigger, he can’t have the jitters or be crashing. That’s me. I listened to a lot of heavy-duty business stuff. Every once in a while, I like my business wrapped in a nice produced goofy plastic shell like Shark Tank. I found RuckPack so that was cool.
There’s another podcast I listened to who always says, “Squirrel.” He stole that from in my old office, we used to have a squirrel list. I used to tell my assistant squirrel and she would write stuff down. It wasn’t until she told me, “David, I have a squirrel list because you’re insane.” Thanks so much. If you got any value out of this, subscribe. You’ll find out right away. I am going to do these real buyer bonus episodes because they’re a lot of fun. Check me out on Instagram. I’ve seen some more people coming in and checking me out on Instagram. Thank you so much. The YouTube page is up and popping. Most importantly, if you want to know anything about buying your first home and you want to find out where all this stuff is, go to DavidSidoni.com.
This is me and this is my mission. I’m a little man trying to change the world. Hopefully, I will have changed the entire real estate industry. I’m not kidding. If you think this is a joke, just know I bought a 24 pack of this RuckPack stuff so I’m not stopping. Thanks so much. Go to DavidSidoni.com. If you’re a reader, tell all your friends about this. Tell your renters they don’t have to be renters. If anyone is thinking about buying a house anytime in the future, read the blog. I’ve got more tips coming. I am going to give you my list of real mistakes that buyers make. It’s not going to be fine and it’s not going to be cute because so far, my list is up to 46. I’ll give you all that stuff in future episodes. Thank you so much. As always, remember you can do this. See you next time.
Important Links:
- eXp Realty
- How To Interview Your Buyer’s Agent – Previous Episode
- RuckPack
- Instagram – David Sidoni
- YouTube – David Sidoni & Associates Real Estate
This podcast was started for YOU, to demystify things for first time home buyers, and help crush the confusion. After helping first timers for over 13 years, I knew there wasn’t t a lot of clear, tangible, useable information out there on the internet, so I started this podcast. Help me spread the word to other people just like you, dying for answers. Tell your friends, family, and perhaps that random neighbor you REALLY want to move out about How to Buy a Home! A really easy way is to hit the share button and text it to your friends. Go for it, help someone out. And if you’re not already a regular listener, subscribe and get constant updates on the market. If you are a regular and learned something, help me help others – give the show a quick review in Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts, or write a review on Spotify. Let’s change the way the real estate industry treats you first time buyers, one buyer at a time, starting with you – and make sure your favorite people don’t get screwed by going into this HUGE step blind and confused. Viva la Unicorn Revolution!
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