Unrealistic Buyers Make a Comeback

I teach a real estate training class on Wednesdays… and I prefer not to call it a class, maybe more of an opportunity to knock “the new” off of unseasoned agents. The topic yesterday was supposed to be about presenting offers to your sellers while treating the buyer’s agent with respect. The meeting was quickly taken over with gripes from the room full of agents about how they have qualified buyers who have to buy, but are super unrealistic about what they can afford or even what exists in the marketplace.

Years ago during the last crazy real estate boom buyers would grab anything they could without a second thought, then years later buyers scooped up underpriced homes without a care… but now we are back to a “may the best home win” market. While inventory could still be considered low in most of the Inland Empire the choice of homes on the market is still better than it was 14 months ago.

What I am hearing over and over again from other agents in the market place is that their buyers (regardless of price range) are micro-targeting neighborhoods and requiring features that simply may not exist in that tract (such as dual master bedrooms, single story homes and other floor plans that simply were not built).

To make matters worse these buyers are setting their target purchase prices well below what homes in that neighborhood are selling for… add this to only wanting to look at homes with features that do not exist and you end up with a prequalified buyer who is getting frustrated that they can’t make a purchase and a seller who's home isn’t selling quickly enough.

Is there really a solution? I am surprised that even with sites like Trulia and Zillow that put home listings in the buyer’s hands that we still have such a large segment of the market that seems to be so under-informed at the home prices in their target neighborhood. You’d think that after a few weeks of searching that these buyers would understand that they need to change their expectations but the trend seems to be that these buyers are waiting… with interest rates as low as they are now (and most of the industry believing that they will go up in the near future) I wonder if these folks are making a wise decision.