This house hunt in this part of the States is insane. We barely even become interested in a house, and it's snatched up by someone already. Lots of sellers list a deadline of 2 or 3 days after it's gone to market because they know they'll get a lucrative offer.
And after weeks of frustration where we express interest in a house only to be told that it's now under contract or has a deadline in a few hours (which wouldn't even give us the opportunity to "sleep on it"), we finally see a house we like enough to bid on. We go ahead and bid $50k over asking price, though we felt that the sellers underlisted it by $30k, so in our mind, we bid $20k over what the asking price should've been.
And we still didn't get it. I've heard that some buyers are even waiving inspection, and who can blame a seller for choosing that option. Guaranteed sale with no chance to back out? Sold!
Fortunately, we're still comfortable in our current home. It was a bit crazy during the pandemic because our place isn't fit to have two home offices. Now that I'm going into the office physically, my wife has more sanity working at home, so at least we have that going for us.
But yeah, definitely not a great time to go looking for a house unless you have really deep pockets. Or are willing to living far away from the urban core, which is admittedly a self-inflicted problem.
