Expanding small house

You are by definition, looking for the proverbial lot/house that is sought by investors. And, by first time homebuyers. Also, by the time you come up the owner of that small house with big lot, price of anything, labor, materials, real estate, and property taxes are going to be high, thus my question if you can afford a home the size you want, or not.

We were looking for a home, and we looked and looked and looked! Finally, it came in our hands and it was the right number of rooms and proximity to my wife’s job. Had we found a small house to later add on anything, we would be broke.

Oh, these guys here, they would gladly overbid you on that lot/house of your dreams. :wink:

@buyinghouse,

People do find diamonds in the rough or good deals you know. Even in this age of near perfect information the early (and persistent) bird usually does get the worm. Look at me, I am mid-stream of doing an exchange where I found a seller who was willing to work with me as opposed to simply selling outright. Can. Be. Done. And @rinkas stated that he thinks he can get it at the current price. Let’s not be Debbie Downers and cheer him on. This is a real estate forum after all, no?

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@marcus335 is right about deferring work to bad economic cycles. I’ve deferred some work for later as I didn’t want to be gouged by the contractors. The only problem is that no one can predict these downturns.

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It will very difficult to find a lot with 700sf allowable for an addition. I suggest trying to find property that complies in the current market.

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You are correct, but I have a property which has spare lots. If I am reasonable lucky I will get it else back to market. :slight_smile:

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Got you. I am trying my best, I have set up a price for the same if I get it good if not back to the market.

Go for it and don’t look back.
Remember, many people hesitated to buy a home for x or y reasons, and, or, because they would have a big family in the future, but weren’t even engaged, etc.

Go for your dreams, not the dreams of others.

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well, I lost it in spite being the highest bidder. The LA claims my revised bid was late, not sure why, it’s pretty common to raise the bid and send it (especially when comms are completely clueless). My agent tried multiple times to reach him/messaged him. What a frustrating day with a disappointing end.
Any ways thanks to the group, I tried hard and your sugegstions counted.

Once seller signs a bid, and the buyer is informed (with seller’s signed copy), seller can not rollback. Any revised offer after that time, Listing agent never care.

How do you say “you are the highest bidder?”

As far as I know there was difference of couple of hours atleast.

If seller signs it and LA informs to buyer agent, even over phone, then it is done. Normally, when crazy competition is there, the buyer’s agent wait at Listing agent office until the outcome !

As soon as seller accepts and signs it, both agents share the good news. It is done at that time.

You are correct. But There was difference of 2-3 hours between events.

Did you have any contingency?

0 contigency, showed enough liquid assets.

I had a friend who bid a week or two ago, despite being the highest bidder he had inspection contingency (Because sellers did not provide an inspection report), and as a result, he lost.
Weird that anything has a buyer these days.

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Buyer can walk out with any contingency ! Seller’s are tense(normally) to finalize on a buyer who is firm (not walking out).

Don’t blame it on yourself. Nor on the seller’s decision.

There’s a saying in this industry “time is the essence”. By that, it’s pretty clear that RE agents thrive on the notion that “this is the best time to buy” because of many “excuses”. One is that the market can crash any minute, so they, sometimes, blow a big hole in the seller’s pockets by rushing to accept a very good offer thinking that there won’t be any better one coming in.

Lesson learned, don’t quit, there will be better opportunities, I promise you that.

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We got our current house by upping our bid(by an amount we thought was reasonable) when the seller’s agent called our agent to inform we were 2nd. I initially via my agent informed the seller’s agent that we will be submitting another offer & she agreed. I worked with my agent to submit a new offer within an hour. The seller’s agent then informed the top buyer’s agent to say the seller’s now have a higher offer and if they want to revise their offer. The earlier top offer party didn’t get back to the seller’s agent. The seller’s were 85 year old couple and they waited(for the other party) close to 12 at night before they signed the acceptance offer.

Point is your effort was in the right direction. Just that the sellers had probably ALREADY SIGNED the offer AND also the seller’s agent handled the sale process differently than what I had encountered.

Btw, we had offered to buy 4 houses, before we bought this house we’re currently in. In one of the houses, we lost the house although we were the highest bidder because we had one contingency. In all of the houses we bid on we were #1 or #2 in our offer.

Wish you all the best on house hunting!

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Do you know if the other offer has contingencies? It might be worth staying in touch with the listing agent just in case. Sometimes deals fail to close.

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If you’re wondering how you can maximize small spaces, you should know that are a few tips and tricks that work really well. You can use multifunctional pieces for your home, and since you have a small space, try to go for small and minimal furniture. Try to use every piece of space you can use, in the corners put a little coffee table, a lamp or even a plant. There are lots of things you can do to remodel your space, you just need to know how to do it.