If you’re a homebuyer in the Orange County area, I’m sure at some point you’ve felt what’s known as “buyer fatigue.”
In a nutshell, buyer fatigue happens when buyers try so hard to buy a home, but for some reason they continuously miss out on opportunities. Over time, these buyers can get stressed out and question whether they should even be looking for a home.
If you’re currently suffering from buyer fatigue, I have some advice that will help you get through it. There is so much opportunity in our current marketplace. Both homes prices and interest rates are expected to continue to rise for the next 12 to 18 months, if not longer, so the sooner you buy a property, the better the deal you’ll likely get—especially if you’re buying a home to actually live in it.
In the Irvine area, there are 345 active listings. You might think that’s a lot of properties for sale, but if you consider how large of an area Irvine is, all the different types of properties available here, the unique characteristics of those properties, the different price ranges involved, and each buyer’s specific tastes, you find that buyers themselves only have three to five realistic buying options.
If you’ve been watching the news, reading the newspaper, or browsing social media lately and you’ve heard about low inventory, that’s what they’re really talking about. We’re finding that every one of our buyers is lucky to find three to five homes available in their price range that fit their needs.
If you consider that the average price point in the Irvine area is roughly $700,000 and above, many buyers we work with want to see more than just three to five homes. Unfortunately, though, there’s just not a lot out there. We have had clients find a home they love, submit an offer for it, and win that home, but that’s not very common. Most other buyers are waiting patiently and eagerly for new inventory to come on the market. As we know, once new inventory comes on the market, everybody gets excited about it.
To put things into perspective, there are more buyers out looking for homes than there are homes available. If a property comes on the market and it’s priced right and shows well, it will likely attract multiple offers. We even listed a property recently that got 24 offers.
“You might not get the first property you submit an offer for in our market.”
So picture this: If there are, for example, 10 offers on a property, that means nine buyers are going to miss out on it. Some may be missing out for the first time; some may be missing out for the fourth, fifth, or sixth time. Those buyers have to then wait for another property. If they don’t get the next one, they have to wait again. And again. And again.
A lot of these buyers aren’t seeing the light at the end of the tunnel. They’ve done everything they need to do, but they’re still not getting the properties they want.
The best advice I can give you as a homebuyer is to focus on why you want to buy a certain home. There are a couple other things you need to understand going into the home buying process. First, you will be paying a premium for any property because inventory is so low. Second, you might not get the first property you submit an offer for—it might have to be the fourth, fifth, or sixth.
Every time I’ve worked with a client who previously missed out on three or four homes and then finally got an offer accepted, they tell me they’re glad those three or four other homes didn’t work out because they finally found the home they love.
If you or anyone you know is looking for a home in our market or you have any other questions or real estate needs, don’t hesitate to reach out to me. I’d love to speak with you.
