This is a new feature on the Edmonton real estate blog called Real Stories. With our clients’ help and permission we are posting some of their true real estate experiences here on the blog. This first installment is about a couple who relocated to Edmonton. Enjoy!
Ian and Nicole were relocating from Hamilton, Ontario to Edmonton in 2006 and were referred to us by a Realtor in Hamilton. As most people know the real estate market in Edmonton in 2006 was crazy – stories of homes being sold in minutes, with multiple offers, for thousands over list – with prices increasing 50% by the end of the year. This was a difficult market for anyone to buy a home, especially someone relocating.
As with all our clients, we don’t only search the MLS when looking for potential homes, we search FSBO (for sale by owner) web sites such as Comfree and Welist as well. As it turns out there was a home marketed on Comfree that met Ian and Nicole’s needs.
When we arrived at the home, there were numerous buyers interested in the property; some were even sitting out front of the home scrambling to write offers. We showed the home, wrote an offer, presented it, and had it accepted before the other buyers even completed writing their offers. When we left the home one couple threw their paperwork on the ground and drove off in disgust – perhaps they should have had an agent working for them!
In the end, the seller agreed to pay our fee, Ian and Nicole purchased a home in one of the toughest markets for buyers, and they purchased it well under market value. The sellers realized the opportunity they missed by negotiating their biggest asset on their own and tried to pull out of the deal on a few occasions. Since we used the purchase contract put out by the Alberta Real Estate Association – a fair and neutral contract – as opposed to the contracts provided by Comfree which favour the seller, we were able to make sure the deal closed. Ian and Nicole had made money on their new home before they even took possession.
Ian sent the following recommendations based on his experiences:
- Have the house inspected – it absolutely pays to have your eyes opened about the house you spent 10 minutes looking at before putting that huge offer down. Having to replace windows, furnaces or walls due to mold can change your outlook on your dream home.
- Hire a good lawyer – the difference between a good real estate lawyer and a bad one is probably $200, this is NOT where you want to save money. Weeks of stress and potential litigation could have been avoided in our purchase had both sides hired good, real estate lawyers (hint: our lawyer was great).
- Have a good real estate agent represent you – For buyers, it’s a free service and it allows you to tap into a great knowledge base. For sellers, know that you can get caught with your pants down on the biggest sale of your life. If you end up selling your house for $40K below list, was it really worth it to save $12K on commission fees? I can’t count how many properties we looked at that were pending, then available, then pending, etc because people were writing and accepting bad offers that were falling through, costing everyone time, stress and money. It’s best to have someone skilled and knowledgeable represent you and protect your interests.
