One more question: with limited showing times and having to work should one jump on a viewing? Often times there is one time slot left in a day of the listing being active and the only available time is during working hours. I am motivated to purchase but it seems like the competition could potentially be wasting time when there are these hot listings.

If the market is hot, then you jump. Or you miss the opportunity. That's what defines motivation. Sounds like you aren't quite there yet.

I am quite motivated actually! Check the market every single day. I will however NOT put an offer on on a home that I have not been able to look at because time slots are FULL!

Sellers have a certain # of hours to review and respond to offers (I don't recall what it is but it's at least 24 hours) before the offers expire. What seller in his/her right mind would accept an offer the first day without being presented with ALL offers that came in that day. Point being -- even if the time slots are "full", a good agent can sometimes get accommodations made for situations like this, maybe getting another time slot added. If sellers are motivated, they will accommodate (within reason). Or in multiple offer situations it may go "highest and best" -- I've seen these most often with a few-day window to allow all interested buyers a chance to tour, I think it would be unusual for a 24-hour highest and best but I don't know.

I recommend the book: home buying for dummies.

Practice due diligence.

I am 100% ready to buy actually.... Financially and mentally, Thank you!

So, you're a first time home buyer in a HOT market (probably everywhere) in an entry level home price, which is probably even hotter than the general temperature of the entire market. Plus banks are practically giving away mortgages, so home prices are jumping. It's a tough place to be.

First, regarding your questions. You need to TALK to your realtor about your expectations. Realtors' jobs include nights and weekends, and while it's nice that you're being respectful of his time, it's his job and you're paying him, at least indirectly. You can't be lax or accommodating in a hot seller's market.

If he hasn't signed you up for a daily email, I'm not sure what kind of realtor you have. Most of them are set up these days to automatically send you houses that fit your requirements. If he hasn't asked what those are, maybe you need to ditch him (assuming you haven't signed anything yet). Honestly with everything available these days on the internet, actually expecting a realtor to find a house for you seems a bit old fashioned, but if it's something you want I'm sure he can provide. A realtor's value in finding a house for you is knowing the stuff that hasn't hit the market yet and telling you about THAT stuff so you can be first in line when it hits.

My advice is this.

Figure out WHERE you want to live. If you're looking everywhere in a 50 mile radius, it's going to be tough. Pick a couple neighborhoods and focus your search there.

Look at sold homes in the past 2 months in your price range in the location you want to live. That will give you a good idea of what sort of house you can afford.

Look at "coming soon" properties and make sure you book showings BEFORE the day they hit the market FOR the day they hit the market if it looks like a house you'd offer on. If there's only one showing time available, you're already late to the party.

And yes, you absolutely need to be willing to miss work and schedule showings whenever they are available if you are seriously "100% ready to buy." If a house in your price range (assuming entry market) doesn't have a lot of showings, that probably means it's overpriced. You're going to have to compete. Ask your realtor how many houses in your price range end up in bidding wars. You may want to look at houses that are 10% less than you can afford and offer up if it's something you really want.

Good luck. Buying a home in this market isn't for the faint of heart.

I’m not a realtor or anything, but we’ve sold and bought a few homes over the decades and are about to put our own house on the market probably at the end of this month if we can get our stuff together in time. (If not, then ASAP next month) But I’ve never seen a market like this right now! It’s a total sellers market everywhere I know about. My mother in law just sold her house... two days BEFORE it even went on the market. She got what she asked and sold as is. That was in Oregon. I’m in Indiana, and our realtor we are going to list with asked us 3-4 times “Do you have a place to go if whoever buys this house wants you out sooner than 30 days?” Our home is not at an entry level price or neighborhood, but he expects it to be sold within 2 weeks. In our area, entry level homes are being snatched up within an hour of being on the market right now.

To go with the above suggestion about knowing where you want to buy with a hot market you can not wait for your agent to tell you about a house. If you have not driven the areas that you think you want to live in I suggest you do that first. As you are driving if the area allows agent signs and you see one you would like to look at call your agent immediately. If you can not do that take a picture of the sign with the agent's information then notate on the picture information about the house including the address. You may find one by driving the area that the listing is not yet on the computer. As you can drive the areas several times until you find something you can live with. As a first time buyer do not think you are purchasing your forever home but focus on if the house will work for you with your current lifestyle.

In driving do it several times a day for a couple of weeks. That nice vacant street may suddenly become full of commuters.

Being first in line with an offer is nice but it is only an offer and the seller can pick any offer that they want.

1. What’s most important in this market is that the agent is able to jump fast on a property you are interested in and work fast when you pull the trigger. As a for instance, my wife and I just bought a house. The listing came up at 10am on a Friday. We called our agent and were in the house for a showing at 1:00pm. She had an offer typed up, which we sent over by 5pm, and the seller accepted it by 9 am the next morning. This is how fast things happen these days.

If you want to buy a house in this market, you need to know exactly what you want, and know what you’re looking at. Around here (I’m in CT), you have 30 to 60 minutes in the house to have a look at things and make a decision. It’s not like a normal market where you may go to 2 or 3 showings of the house before making an offer. Houses are going under contract in 2 to 3 days right now, often selling over asking price.

2. Rely on him to send you any houses that he gets leads on before they are listed. Outside of that, you will get up to date info by keeping the Realtor and Zillow apps on your phone and refreshing for new listings a few times a day at minimum.

3. Yes, he should be aware of what you want.

4. How large is the area you’re looking in? If you’re upfront about where you’re looking to buy and he’s fine with showings in that area, I wouldn’t worry about his drive. However, in this market I would lean towards only calling him for houses you are serious about. It’s not really a market to kick the tires on houses that aren’t perfect for you. Do a drive by of any house that you're considering before calling the agent. Get good at looking via google maps for the lay of the land. Some houses look perfect in the listing, until you see there's a highway in the back yard, or high voltage transmission lines. And it can be tough to get a feel for the neighborhood or the grading of the land online. Drive out there first, and immediately.

5. Only you can decide how much you’re comfortable spending. Not the bank. Not your agent. Just you. Approval amount has little bearing on what you’re able to spend. We were approved for nearly twice the amount we were comfortable spending. Bear in mind that mill rate and interest rate make a difference. With the low interest rates now, people can afford more house. When rates went down, we wound up buying a place that was $100K over our max when rates were in the 4s. And the taxes in some towns are considerably more than others. You have to look at the whole picture and decide what you’re comfortable with. Rates, taxes, and how needy a home is can swing affordability in HUGE amounts one way or another.

The realtor can also set you up for MLS alerts based on your search criteria (e.g. sq ft, city, #floors, etc). This is the way to go rather than relying on internet sites -- when a house hits the MLS you know about it and can jump on the horn with the realtor if you want to see it ASAP.

We bought a home years ago in a hot market, and it took some planning.

We typically met with the realtor about 8:00 in the morning to look at new listings, and then made a plan for which ones we could visit by about noon to 1:00 PM. We then paused for lunch and decided whether any were good enough to make an offer. We had the realtor deliver the offer by about 1:00-2:00 PM. Even with that schedule it was not unusual to be the 3rd or 4th offer in line on a good property at a fair price.

Bruce

You need to figure out what your local MLS site is as that is where listings will show up first. Realtor dot com often pulls from these sites, but it can be delayed so not good in a hot market.

As others have said the realtor should be able to setup an automated email based on certain criteria for you area. These are often sent out once a day if there are new listings. The thing is though once you see a listing you have to be ready to go and look at it when in a hot market. You can't wait. This can be hard when you work. Unfortunately there isn't much the realtor can do about that beyond making sure you're first in selecting a slot if they are using showing slots.

Realtors aren't going to be able to do much more than you about finding the properties that are on MLS. However I would ask your realtor what he can do for you in terms of networking and finding out about any properties before they hit MLS so that you can go and at least look at them early. The owners likely won't accept an offer without it hitting MLS if it is a hot market as they want to maximize their profits, but at least this could be a way to have a chance to view them. However for this to work you need to focus yourself in a certain area as it is too large to try to network over a large city for example.

Once you see a property you need to be able to make a strong offer so that likely means going over asking price, however other things such as waiving inspections that many sellers like too and a quick closings. Cash offers are also seen as positive as the closing can be quicker and no reasons for an offer to fall through. There are services that does this even for those that need a mortgage so you may want to look into that. Waiving an inspection doesn't mean you can't inspect the house it just that you won't have any recourse Iie you are bound by the contract) if the inspection turns up something that is expensive so be careful with that.

I think it is fine to look at the properties at the high end of your price range, because you never know what the other offers will look like, however in a hot market it may mean you have less chance of getting it, but nothing ventured nothing gained is one of my mottos.

I know in hot markets many buyers will write a letter too to try to sway the owners to pick their offers. Some owners such as older folks or those that have lived there a long time or a seller that is more sentimental are probably more likely to be swayed by that whereas others will not at all. Depends on their personality, but again if you don't try you'll never know.

Good Luck!

Most agents can set you up directly into the MLS search link - you can do your own searches as well as receive an email the instant a new property meeting your criteria is listed. This would be in addition to anything the agent digs up for you on his own.

Here’s what I’d do: find some kind of local groups in the neighborhood that you are looking to buy (listserv, NextDoor, facebook etc) and ask for realtor recommendations. You want someone who really knows the area, this would enable them to show you properties that haven’t come on the market yet via personal netwokring. In our area (NW DC) most good properties at a reasonable price point sell before actually getting listed on the MLS right now. If your market isn’t as hot you can rely on MLS alerts - we’d get instant emails plus our realtor would reach out if they saw a home that they really liked for us for some reason, sometimes it was something a smidge different than our initial filters.

Regarding preapproval, please be careful. We were preapproved for some obscene 7 figure amount, but our comfort level maxed out at $750K and we ended up buying our condo for a little over $600K. Factor in all monthly costs (taxes, HOA dues etc etc etc) and make sure it’s a comfortable amount even if one/both of you were to be out of work for several months. While I realize that earning potential tends to increase over the years (guessing you are young), being house poor is a pretty miserable life - you want to still be able to take all the fun vacations you can while you’re young. Also some people unexpectedly choose to stay home with children when those happen, meaning a loss of one income for a few years. We always buy homes that we could continue living in on one income if we had to.

To add to recordaras comment the etc. should include any furniture that a larger space would require or you would want along with the tools to maintain both inside and out. I have seen too many house poor people have serious financial problems including one divorce because they purchased everything they thought they needed on credit then found that after paying the bills second and third jobs were needed.

Very good advice and appreciated. Thank you all!

Debra, the first thing this weekend would be stopping by at all the open houses in and around the area you plan to eventually buy a home. This will give you a good idea on whats available at different price points. Also you get a good idea quickly on what suits your taste and need. Make a check list of the most important things you need in the home, Then look up houses that match your needs on your own and approach the realtor, that way its quicker than waiting for him to give you a time. Don’t be afraid to look at FSBO sites too.( for sale by owner). And when u see the home u like be ready to jump in super quick. Still don’t compromise on what is most essential for your needs, because it will grate at you every day you live there. Good luck finding your first home. 😀