Hello to All Investing in Hamilton Real Estate!!
The mild weather and lack of snow in Hamilton has led to many things:
- Me re-thinking the purchase of expensive winter tires
- Saving a bundle in heating my vacant house under renovation
- Not having to shovel my driveway once all winter thus far (knock on wood)
- Vacancies filling up faster than expected; and…
- the Spring Market has come early, supply is tight, I’m up against multiple offers pretty much everytime.
Image credit: Amedeo de Palma
The one time we scored a property without multiple offers in 2012 (aside from the few private deals we’re doing) was because we bought the property within 24 hrs of it hitting the market, the listing agent told me more than once that she regretted selling it to us for the price we got 😀
Now lets break down how this deal went:
- Monday night, I see this new listing near a future Go Station with an in-law suite, these are great because we charge $100-150 per month in rent above market for these, and I immediately sent it to my REIN member client who was crystal clear with me he wanted more of these.
- We book an appointment to see the property Tuesday mid-day. My REIN member client is a field tech for an IT company so he’s out on the road often and makes himself available same day or next day at the latest.
- The property fit the system, so we decided write an offer and got it presented same day. REIN member goes home to celebrate with wife for taking action by writing another offer.
- Offer is countered a couple 1,000 below what we were willing to accept. BONUS! We gratiously accept.
- Listing agent Sharon tells me more than once she could have sold it for more if they had just waited 🙂
- Lesson: Buying property within 24hrs of a listing hitting the market will limit the chances of other buyers seeing and writing offers against us hence the reason we’re out there 2-4 times a week looking at property.
Investor tip 117: most new listings come out Monday-Wednesday so if you wait till the weekend, I’ll likely have scooped it up already :).
But what about investors who have busy lives and 9-5 desk jobs? Go see property at night? One big problem with seeing property at night is visibility is reduced, it’s harder to check out the neighbourhood, curb appeal and my biggest pet peeve is I can’t see the condition of the roof. So what to do? Take James’ advice.
James is a senior Hamilton investor, REIN member, RSIC member and already owns four investment properties. Here’s what James wrote to Ryan his good friend, a novice Hamilton investor, as he was getting frustrated because he’d lost out on so many good properties:
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“If Erwin sends you a property, and you like the looks of it from the listing, just tell him to put in an offer – sight unseen [Erwin here: unseen by the investor but seen by me, I’ll even call my clients while in the target property]. He’ll have a good idea of fair market value based on comparables. As long as you have conditions in the offer protecting you (ie. financing, home inspection) and that give you the ability to get out of the offer if something is a major issue (you’ll find out during home inspection), you’re ok. At least it will tie up the property for you and give you time to figure things out. As well, you will only be out of pocket whatever money you put out for the home inspection (ie. $400-500)
Erwin’s pretty picky about his choices, so you can be sure that it will be a good RTO candidate, and you can be pretty confident that you won’t have to back out on the offer [Amen!].
Maybe even get Erwin all the signed documents he needs upfront (ask him which ones) so that turnaround time on submitting the offer is a few hours instead of a day or so [Erwin: get pre-approved by your mortgage professional as well, we typically only have five-six business days to waive financing which is tight!! Get your ducks in order and write offers with confidence!! Your team will thank you]
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Ryan heeded James’ advice and now we’ve “tied up” a beautiful house near the Red Hill Valley Parkway, close to a future Go Station, Eastgate Mall, etc… and he’ll see it for the first time on Monday at the home inspection 🙂 But most importantly, no multiple offers 😀
For novices like Ryan, I’m sure it is harder to trust your Realtor to write an offer sight unseen but for my repeat buyers, they know team Mr. Hamilton has their best interests in mind (Right Evelyn?) and almost every offer I’ve written in 2012 has been sight unseen by the investor.
Hope that helps! Till next blog post – happy Hamilton investing everyone!!
Erwin |Â MrHamilton.ca
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PPS:Â If you want to work with Mr. Hamilton, he is only accepting the best investors who are ready to act today, if you’re it please email Maria and she’ll set it up: Maria (at) MrHamilton.ca
