Is it though? I chatted with someone from Australia which has open bidding and you know what .. houses still went way over reserve. At the end of the day, if you have 20+ offers on a house, you're not getting that house without destroying your budget, no matter how you set up the bid system.
The common sense change I wanted to see implemented was to prevent the waiving of a home inspection as a condition of purchase.
I also want to see mandatory home inspection, seems common sense.
It's a very manipulated and manipulable metric.
It's not. The salient part is that the current market is crazy and there is a large number of bids on any given house.
>It's clear that in a lot of cases the list prices are intentionally below market to attract more bidders and produce the appearance of more competition at open houses and the like.
Yes, list prices are intentionally below market but you know what ... houses are going for crazy amounts because we are in some sort of a bubble. This isn't the fault of blind bidding, or unscrupulous realtors or greed property owners. There are systemic economic issues at play. In my area, for example, there are houses that doubled in value in under 24 months. When I bought my property 12 years ago, there was blind bidding, and bad realtors, but on any given property there were only 2-3 bids, so there was no issue.
Why? The last 40 years interest rates have continued to decline and inflationary pressures have hurt the value of every currency. What reason is there to believe this won't continue indefinitely (low interest + ~2% y/y inflation) and that the market is simply pricing things well?
Clearly all these homes are being bought so it would appear people have the money.
Yes ... Back in 2007, people bought homes as well - so everything was OK - rite?
By the way, people aren't paying cash for houses.
Homes are priced based on what people who want to live in a place are willing to pay per month. The interest rate, property tax rate, and home price determine that. As rates go down prices go up.
That was a response to your statement that 'people have the money'. The larger point is that just because people are buying houses doesn't mean that things are healthy, case in point: 2007/2008 housing crash, which was preceded by a housing bubble and led to a lot of misery.
Corporations and pensions might have the proper money
Just bring your inspector along to a showing or open house, etc. Owners won’t even be there.
What you're suggesting is called a "walk-and-talk" inspection, and is not going to find the high dollar problems a traditional inspection can find.
I have done all of those things on home viewings / open houses. I've opened septic risers, started generators, tripped breakers ...
Nervous smiles were the worst responses I've ever gotten.
You, and your sibling poster, are correct though: a real, comprehensive inspection is hours long and no amount of brashness is going to bridge that gap - but there is a LOT you can do with 30 minutes of knowledgeable poking and prying. You don't need an hour to see if the sills are rotting or if there are no foundation anchors ... or if all the floor joists are swiss-cheesed up by 40 years of ad-hoc electrical and plumbing runs ...
But yes, you can probably inspect the construction quality and foundation pretty easily, a visual inspection of the roof and siding, and if you care the quality and age of utility appliances. You can also pull the permits if you're really interested before placing a bid. You can probably scan for termite damage, etc.
A decent inspection is a 4 hour job or longer generally in my experience.