How to Buy a Home in Downtown Durango in this Sellers' market

Buying a home in downtown Durango has been a real challenge lately....but don't despair. If you stick with it and have a great Realtor, you will find your next home. No doubt, the Buyers' market we've had for the last few years is no more. It seemed a switch was flipped at the beginning of this year. The investors jumped in first and then the many people who had been parked on the fence finally jumped in as well. And why not....add historically low interest rates (even now we're half, yes half, of the historical average interest rate) to historic low pricing and you have the make of a great opportunity. As a national average, prices are still roughly 12-13% undervalued according to Keller Williams Realty International. 

Now, to specifically address how to get that downtown Durango home in this Sellers market:  first, make sure you have an agent that is working full time and preferably at one of the larger firms. Often, agents will announce to their co-agents that they have that elusive in-town listing coming and those in-house agents get a first crack at the listing. Also, be sure your [full-time] agent sets you up to automatically get new listings emailed directly to you. That way you can chase down your agent early and get in to see the listing immediately. A couple of hints: if the home is in the area you are dying to purchase, google the address and see if you can find photos, older virtual tours or any other info to get ahead of the curve on making a choice that this house is for you. Another idea.....ask your agent to draw up a contract and bring it to the showing....if its the right place and the price is reasonable....sign the offer at full price (or more) and put a quick deadline on accepting the offer. Your agent will almost always have an 'out' for you in the contract so if you have to submit the offer sight-unseen, you can probably negotiate first and see the home later - if its not what you want then respectfully back out of the contract and let someone else have at it. 

The key is to have an experienced agent that you can feel comfortable trusting in these sorts of 'urgency situations'. They should be able to help you feel good about the pricing so long as they are consistently looking at the in-town market (for instance, we here at Team OWNdurango.com pre-view and video all new in-town listings). And make sure your agent works full-time and as I said, preferably in one of the larger offices. Many clients want to sleep on a big choice like this but unfortunately the saying 'you snooze, you lose' is too often the case here. Again, you should have outs in the Contract if your agent is worth a salt. All you have to do is lose one house you are excited over to learn this lesson the hard way. Many agents don't want to push clients on this sort of approach but the truth is, if they don't push you may never get into that downtown home.

Need a full-time, experienced and award-winning agent....check us out at Team OWNdurango.com