Cliff Barron here, with my weekly update for Milton, Georgetown and Glen Williams for August 9-15th, 2020. The topic I'd like to talk about before I get to the stats this week is: multiple offers.  How does that work, from the buying point of view, and from the selling point of view?

I'll begin with the selling point of view first.  I've had people say, "How do I get multiple offers on my house?' Well, when you list your house, you have to list it reasonably.  If I come in and I say your house is worth $850k and you say, "Okay, we want $900k", and then you say, "and we want multiple offers" - you're not going to get that. You're going to list it at $900k, you're going to sit and then probably sell for eight-something, maybe $840k.  But if you want multiple offers and it's worth $850k, you have to list it at about $839k-ish - a little bit under what the market value is.  Then you hold off the offers to a certain offer date, and then wait for them to come in. In the old days, before DocuSign, (now it's all electronic), I remember having 14 or 15 offers of people waiting down the street in their cars, and I'd have to walk up to every car, talk to every agent and say, "Would you want to improve your offer?"  And back then you could read people too, you could read agents, when they'd come in and present their offer to me and my clients.  You could read the body language and everything, but that's all gone now, unfortunately. So if you want multiple offers, you have to price right - that's the main thing. You can't price high and expect multiple offers on top of that, because buyers, or buyer agents basically assume that you're going to list it at, say, $850k and sell it, if you're holding off offers, then it's worth about $900k, $870k, something like that. But it'll be over the asking price. So if you ask too much to start with, people aren't going to just go, "Oh, okay, I'll give you even more". That's just not going to work that way.

And then, from a buying point of view, it's tough, it's really tough when there are multiple offers because basically, you're putting in a blind offer with an educated guess. You kind of figure out through your agent what the property is worth - you come up with a number that you're comfortable with - you don't overextend yourself. Sometimes you have to remove conditions which is also very strenuous (it can be).  If it's a fairly new home, you can remove the inspection clause (possibly - can't say always, but possibly). And then financing clause, you have to be absolutely rock solid, know for sure that you're going to qualify. Just to let you know, a little pointer too, is if you, do go in firm and you end up getting the home, and it doesn't close for three months, you technically have between then and three months to get your financing - you don't have to get it immediately. You still have time, but it's nerve wracking. Also, too, from a buyer's point of view - when other offers come in, you have no idea what the other offer is.  As agents, we can't disclose anything about the other offers - the name of the people, the closing dates, the amount of money, nothing. So it's completely blind. And multiple offers now, with electronic signatures, you come in with your first best offer - because if you don't, and then you're thinking, "Oh I was going to go a little bit higher" - it's too late.  You can't just keep going after they've already announced the end of the offer date.

Hopefully that helps you out a little bit - and right now, with multiple offers everywhere, as a buyer, it's not easy, that's for sure. If you find something you like, you have to jump in there quick and you have to be on the ball.  Then you have to really figure out your price, be comfortable with it and then hope that it's enough. I've seen some properties sell ridiculously over the asking price, and I scratch my head sometimes and think, "Wow. Who knows -  hopefully they'll buy that home and stay there for 10 years to recoup that money that they put into it!"

So anyways, getting to the sales for the Milton and Georgetown for August 9-15th, 2020. It has actually been a busy week. We were busier in Milton this week than we were last week.  We did 46 deals, as opposed to 40 in 2019, and opposed to 45 last week, so it's gone up by a little bit. And something interesting in Milton too, for the first time in a long time, that I can see the average detached home sold for almost $1.1 million. It has been over a million before, but not this high. So, we had 28 sales of detached homes, 8 days on the market, on average and $1.091 was the average selling price - that's a lot of money. 10 out of the 17 sold, $752k on average, 7 days on the market. That's a lot too - that's higher - and 4 semis sold $750k on average, 5 days on the market. Then with condos, they dipped a little bit, 9 sales this week as opposed to this week, last year, we had 10 sales. The average, $519k and the average is 13 days on the market, so it slipped a little bit, but nothing to worry about. 

And then we move onto Georgetown and Glen Williams. Georgetown and Glen Williams have actually slowed somewhat, but it's because I think the number of sales has decreased a little bit, because the inventory has increased a bit, so that could be why. So let's see, in 2020, 15 sales in the past week, as opposed to 18 last week -so it has come down a little bit. 2019 we had 12 sales. We're still up over 2019, but that's good news. The average detached $921k - 11 of them were sold this week - 7 days on the market.  3 townhouses $651k, 4 days on the market. 1 semi at $604k and 5 days on the market. Interesting thing about that semi - it was built in the 60's - listed for $799k and sold for $604k - and it needed work, so when it comes to the cheaper stuff, anything below $700k is flying.   
Hopefully this information helps you and hopefully I cleared up any questions you had regarding multiple offers. And any questions, let me know, and I will be sure to help you out. Send me a PM, DM, email, or phone call, whatever works for you. Talk soon and take care.