Hellobee Boards

late Feb.-Looked for houses
Mar-Put in an offer
Early April-Offer accepted
Late May- Moved in
I went with a trusted realtor friend and his referrals for loan officer and home inspector -that made everything go very well.

We’re buying in NJ. We put in offers on two houses in early April and got into bidding wars that we lost. We found a house we liked in mid April and our offer was accepted. We were supposed to close in late May but the sellers are still fixing some things and we don’t have a closing date yet.

@Littlebit7: I think we've talked before about how I just moved from Brooklyn and bought in NJ in a *very* seller's market area--I'll wall you with details but short story we got serious about looking around September and moved in May 1.

I don’t think our market is as hot as yours, but it does still move quickly for good houses that are priced right (in a neighboring town my friend was outbid on 3 or 4 homes before they got theirs).

We started looking and going to open houses in the spring, more to get an idea of what we really wanted, how much that was going to cost, and what towns we liked. It turned out that we preferred to move one town further out in order to get a house we loved, since the town we initially liked was so expensive. And it helped DH and I get in line with our priorities (space and yard for him, neighborhood for me).

We ended up taking a break early summer because of some job stuff, started seriously looking in July. We found our house at the end of July, offer accepted early August. The sellers had already moved out so we just had to wait for our mortgage to close. Moved mid September.

We had gotten preapproved for a mortgage before we started seriously looking. And we owned our condo but we’re planning to rent t out so had flexibility there. We did not have a buyers agent but I personally think that was a mistake. DH thought we could get the house cheaper since the sellers wouldn’t have to pay for the buyers agent but that wasn’t the case, so I think it would have been better to have our own. Not really a big deal either way for us though.

@littlebit7 as a realtor I strongly suggest going with one! In a hot market you need someone who knows what’s up and also what is coming on market so you can move quickly. And as a buyer you don’t pay their commission, the seller does, And if you don’t use one the seller’s agent gets both sides of the commission so you aren’t even making yourself look like a better deal.

Wall me if you want a referral for someone great, I work for one of the largest companies with offices all over the East Coast.

And to answer your original question:

Looking- about 1 month (but I’ve worked with people who find something in one day, and others who want to look for 6 months)

From offer to Pending- 2 weeks
A few days to nail down the offer terms, then a 10 day contingency period when you get all the inspections requested done.

Escrow-Closing 45-60 days
you could do it in as little as 30 if you’re getting a mortgage (cash could be 2 weeks) but at a busy time of year your mortgage company might need 60 days. Then you do a final walkthrough, and close!

Only thing I'd add is all of our homes (we've owned 3 different primary homes and also have 3 duplex/rentals) have in the contract a 48 hour prior to closing walk through. This allows us to validate anything in a request to remedy was actually completed (one time it wasn't and renegotiated to get $ at closing to get the repair done ourselves) and also make sure the move out process is well underway.

It can really vary a LOT. For us, we started actively looking, with a realtor, in February. We saw between five and eight houses every week. We made an offer that was accepted at the beginning of April. We closed on June 1, which was the maximum length closing, and we're now renting back to the sellers until the end of July, which is also the max allowed rent-back. A lot of this will depend on whether you're in a buyer or seller-friendly market. Our market is VERY competitive, and VERY good for sellers. So we made a lot of concessions to the sellers of our home, but it was worth it for us.

Also, we met with several realtors in person before deciding on one. I actually found her because someone recommended her on Nextdoor. And we LOVED her. She was a huge help, so I definitely recommend both getting a realtor and shopping around for one. Ask friends, ask local websites, look at reviews, etc. Your realtor can make a big difference!

Our housing market is really hot right now. If a house is priced right it's on the market for less than a day right now.

Our first house we bought, we looked at on a Saturday and put in an offer that day. They countered and we countered twice and they accepted a final offer on that monday. We did a 15 or 20 day closing because it was a cash offer.

When we sold that home 2 1/2 years later we listed it and sold it within 2 weeks (we had a 3 person bidding war). We had already put an offer in on the new house we were buying and it was accepted after countering their counter offer. We did a 45 day closing on it because we weren't sure how fast our house would sell and it was new construction and not quite done yet.

We are abnormal, but we were in a very hot market outside of Washington, DC with very specific criteria. We knew there were very few houses that met our criteria.

We emailed our Realtor on a Thursday . Looked through listings that week. Found one, visited on the next Thursday, put in an offer on Saturday morning, offer accepted Saturday night, closed 28 days later. It was super fast.

What made ours go so fast is that I didn't waste time looking at houses I wouldn't buy. If it didn't meet all of our criteria it was a no go. I checked out the neighborhood on google maps and vetoed a lot of houses because I didn't like the neighborhood or the commute didn't work. I also didn't bother with open houses, I liked to go by myself.

We had our real estate agent, title attorney, and mortgage broker all picked out before we started and were pre-approved. And a huge down payment saved. That saved a ton of time and made our offer competitive .

Hot sellers market here. We bought 4 years ago and my friends are buying now. Most houses sell within a couple days on the market, and have multiple offers. We had to be ready to see houses often and put down an offer the night we saw them. From offer to close, it is usually 4 weeks, but can be up to 6 weeks.

House #1: Started looking in May, made 10 offers on houses, under contract once - sellers backed out, defeated by cash offers 4 times for less money than we were offering. Ultimately signed our contract the first week in October, closed on our house the first week in November. (and got engaged the same day!!!!)

House #2: Started looking in December (sold our existing home in 12 hours on Jan 13th), made 3 offers on 3 diff houses before finding our house at the end of January, closed the end of February.

Both times - very hot sellers markets. Small niche location, specific requirements. The only reason we got our second house so fast was because it was a total fixer upper - literally.

@Littlebit7: exciting! I feel like I could write a book about buying in our area, and I've only done it once! But we've been kind of looking to buy again the past year (always looking, never finding haha), and I keep learning more quirks about our little town. But tell me more about what you are looking to buy--condo in an elevator building/parking? Condo in a smaller building/no parking? Rowhouse/brownstone?

Because of Hoboken's flood plains map (the FEMA map), there's a lot of particular information you want to brush up on if you are considering a rowhouse. There were some laws passed in 2017 that have really negatively affected people that are planning to buy and renovate a row house. Those same laws would affect condo buildings that have any ground floor level housing--like, livable space, not retail or parking.

When we bought 6 years ago, it was about the same as now in terms of a hot market. There were bidding wars on everything/anything priced well and in semi decent shape. We aggressively looked for 5-6 months, bid on probably 8 places that we lost in bidding wars. It becomes tempting after a point to go insane and do anything it takes to get the top bid, but my husband was really good at coaching me to keep our heads and keep the overall financial picture in the forefront. Things that are staged nicely go for way more than they are worth (from the buyer's perspective). So if it doesn't appraise, then the buyer has to come up with the cash to make up the difference, or they will back out after appraisal and everyone has to go back to the drawing board. That happened a few times in our house hunting process--we'd lose a bidding war and then be contacted 2 weeks later after it didn't appraise and the winners backed out. But once we knew it wasn't appraising, we didn't want it either. One of those places sold two years later for way less than the high bid in the bidding war we got caught up in. So then I was really glad we didn't get it. Check out the condo docs carefully and look for trends. Some HOA boards are spend-happy, and some are so stingy they don't keep up the maintenance of their buildings. And a surprising amount of buildings in town have litigation pending, which makes it really hard to secure a loan through any of the big institutions. A realtor will try to steer you into a "boutique mortgage company" and that almost always comes at higher rates. You can request all the condo docs during attorney review.

Also, negotiate a deal with any realtor you sign on with that if you find a "For sale by owner" who doesn't want to have any realtors involved, you are free to bid on that. Some buildings have a "for sale by owner" trend, and if you find the place yourself (say, through the FB mommies group, or by word of mouth), I don't think you should have to pay your realtor. In NJ, we have the attorney review period (most other states don't have this) and you have to pay your attorney anyway, so you do not need a realtor in a FSBO situation.

Also, our closing was fast--4 weeks. But the closing kind of depends on a few factors: How quickly the seller returns documents, how quickly the buyer returns documents, how quickly the attorneys complete documents, and how quickly the mortgage companies complete their end. I was hugely pregnant and my husband can be a little bit of a ball breaker, so he was calling all involved parties basically daily, and we got it closed in 4 weeks, just 3 days before I had our oldest DD. We were moved in and had the nursery set up by the time she came.

We saw a home go up in the neighborhood we wanted and found a realtor to show up that home even though we weren't ready to look yet. She showed us a few more as well. We ended up buying the first home we saw (I think our closing was 45 days?). At the sellers request, we rented it back to her for 2 months. So start to move in was 4ish months.

We bought in Westchester County, NY 6 years ago. The market usually picks up in March. We started looking in the winter, found our house in April, and were in contract by May. We originally were supposed to close by late July, but due to August vacations and trying to organize schedules of the lawyers, we closed the second week of Aug. I had 3 weeks to do some work (refinishing floors, painting, electrical updates, cleaning) and we moved in at the end of August.

If you have kids that are school age, you’ll want to be in contract by May (the latest) to ensure you are closed and moved in before school starts in Sept.

Good luck!