All Forum Posts by: Gregory Tran

@Kimberly H. From the sounds of it, you're doing everything right.  I know others have mentioned price, but are you "best price best value" for the neighborhood?  Typically when that is the case, it doesn't take long.

 Wayne just condensed my entire post into two lines.  There is a lesson to be learned from that.

I understand what you're saying.

Is it different in other parts of the country?  To be honest, Austin is the only market I know really well.

If a listing agent has 5 offers on the table, and has told everyone to put in their best offer by Monday at 6pm, I feel like people should put in the max they want to pay.  And if the first time they don't and lose, surely the next time around they will.

I guess another option is to shop the offers, say, tell the bottom 4 that they're not the top, and if they want to win they should raise it.  Then after they raise, do you go tell whoever is on bottom now that they need to raise if they want to win?  When does it end?

To me, it's just how it is here.  It makes me hate being on the buyer side, and love being on the listing side :)

Is there anything worse than going 5% over and still losing when there are 12 offers? :o

Take all this w/ a grain of salt though.  Of course as an agent I have some kind of bias!

@Scott Pigman 

@Scott Pigman 

They do.

Highest and best means just that - put in the best offer you think you can make and that's that.  If your highest wasn't good enough, you wouldn't win anyways right?  And yes, that phrase is pretty common here in multiple offer situations.

Keep in mind that by asking the listing agent enough questions coupled with some experience in these situations, a buyer's agent can typically get a pretty good sense of where the offers will be.

Also, price isn't the only factor in offers.  You have to look at the entire contract as a whole.  

Take for example the following 2 offers:

$190k asking price

Offer 1:  $200k, 10% down, $100 option for 7 days, $2000 earnest

Offer 2:  $195k, 50% down, $500 option for 10 days, $4000 earnest

Offer 1 wins on price, but is it clearly the better offer?  

Welcome @David Alvarez 

Others will probably have better suggestions, but for someone you're age I'd assume you don't have much of a credit history, so you can work on building one.  People don't lend much money to people without credit - I remember the credit cards I got in college only had $400 limits to start.

@Raymond B. It works for me most of the time, but sometimes it doesn't work.  When I did the one @Account Closed earlier I kept trying and his name wouldn't pop up, so I gave up.

Just now I tried with your name a couple times and it wouldn't work, but then I tried again and it did.

Am I the only one this happens to?

My leases all say pest control is responsibility of tenant.  If there's something bad right when they move in I'll take care of it.  Otherwise it's their choice.

So yes @elliot your lease should say whose responsibility it is.

I guess if you're putting together a dream team, a tax planner/specialist who knows aa lot about the rental business would be nice.

@George Sutton I would deduct from their deposit and be done with it.

@Phil C. I feel like it's different in NY.  I lived in rentals in Manhattan for many years, and you can leave the walls full of anchor holes and tv mount holes and the such, and they never deducted from deposit.