patrick.net

I'm currently in contract to buy a home and live in Bay Area. I believe many people here have been searching and offering for over a year; unless you were to bid whatever the RE agent says (which is probably going to be high). Go out and look at properties and bid low to get some experience. You're probably going to need to switch agents because they do get frustrated after you lose bids several times because you did not bid what they wanted you to bid. This is of course assuming you are trying to buy in a hot area; which in the Bay Area, it probably will be.

If your low offer actually gets accepted, you can then decide to see if you want it. You can always back out. Keep your own records of what you offered and what it really sold for so you get your feel. I've always hated how it showed the price only after the transaction closed. And even then, the info stays exclusive to RE agents for quite some time before the public can see it.

another website is Trulia i sort of despise it but if you ask the same question there youll probably get some good answers mostly from realtors but they can definitely fill you in on the process.

Same with me, but looking around Grover Beach or Palmdale. This site has me scared away from buying even now, I think things are coming down, but I also pay $925 in rent and wouldn't mind that going to a house instead.

1. Never trust a word from the realtor. Two that I've talked to are constantly on the "I heard there's another offer, make your highest offer" or "The bank has a verbal with someone, but if you come in with a strong offer they might take it". They don't seem to understand that I want a deal, there's no reason to get in a bidding war over any particular property in this market, and if one owner isn't willing to consider a low big, there's a house right down the street for sale that you can offer on. As soon as I told one agent I didn't want to make an offer if there was a second bidder, that bidder mysteriously disappeared and I heard about how they mis-heard the information and there wasn't anyone else.

2. Everything I've read about short sales makes me write them off. Unless your realtor is really on top of them and has special contacts with the banks, I'm not willing to wait around 3-6 months to hear anything.

3. There's a lot of really rough foreclosures. I'm looking at a place that has been unlived in for 6 months now, huge yard completely overgrown, empty pool with some appliance tipped into it. I ought to have a little left over for rehab after 20% down so I'm interested in a cheap house that could use a little work, but realize there can be a huge gap between "Owner occupied move-in-ready" and "foreclosure" where the second had bad tenants and is empty for months.

4. I browse around Zillow and Trulia, both are pretty rough and often list different information. I'm finding that pulling a couple properties from there and showing them to a realtor and saying "I like this, find me something similar but better or cheaper" is really not working at all.

I was close to making a new post like this as I'm wringing my hands and stressing out over it. I live in Grover Beach, but houses here are completely crazy still. A realtor wanted to show me a 320K with foundation issues that had a 45K bid. 1950s tear-downs are 250K. Really considering buying a three-plex for 480K and just living in one unit, but that's still expensive and I'd have to borrow a ton of money. I'm also seriously considering moving to Palmdale where you can get a really nice house for 200K, but that's still way expensive for living with horrible weather. When I with a downpayment and decent salary am having so much trouble finding a decent house for a decent price, I have to think that prices have to fall more for the average salary with a family.

Half of me just wants to pack all my stuff in storage and spend a year traveling around, subletting someplace in a couple cities, and let all this sort out even more. I seriously hate life decisions that lead to wildly diverging life paths with no objective way to choose between them...

Everything Finnian said is spot-on, especially with realtors. Go into it assuming everything they tell you is a lie and you'll be ok. For me they're like leeches, I ask about a property that's a good deal and if it's already a pending sale, they continue to contact me to tell me about other houses that are overpriced. I only correspond through email now so at least they can't spam my phone.

I also agree you should have some extra money on hand when buying foreclosures for the inevitable repairs you'll be doing.

Arbitrarily desperate to buy = you're gonna get screwed.

Ugh, I'm in the same boat. South Bay Area (San Jose, Campbell, Mountain View, etc.). I've been looking for several months now. It's not going to be easy to find a place in my budget. You don't mention yours, but if it's like mine (less than $500,000) you may have to settle for a crappy school district.

The best school districts (in San Jose) are Cambrian & Evergreen. The way the school districts are divided make very little sense, so you will have to look up on each districts home page to see if the house is in the good school region.

Here are some links I use:
Sanata clara tax assessor. Good to lookup current owner address and deed type. The assessed value is interesting but doesn't match redfin very often.

http://eservices.sccgov.org/ari/home.do

Cambrian Page:
http://www.cambrian.k12.ca.us/District/Parents/Residence.html

Evergreen Page:
http://evergreen.ccsct.com/page.cfm?p=2455

How to look up API scores:
http://www.cde.ca.gov/re/sd/index.asp?stype=standard

You will find that houses in the Cambrian district will be $50K to $100K more than a neighbor on the same street that is not in the district. Also, district lines are divided on sides of the street. In other words check even/odd #'s not just street names.

I wish you luck, your gonna need it :(.

dup

Make sure you run your numbers too. I hear people on here talk about how a family making $80K can afford a $450K home and my number say otherwise.

Here is my spreadsheet (I've posted it several times in the past):
https://docs.google.com/previewtemplate?id=0AiAvJJV-QcyXdHU0NkVYTUR0bzV5eXdjYVlpX0tnWmc&mode=public

It's a work in progress so take ROI number with a grain of salt (everything else should be mostly accurate).