Multiple Offers

A couple of days ago, I was putting in an offer for a buyer client on a new condo in Belltown and learned that the developer received another offer while we were in legal review of some of the purchase and sales agreement addendum.

So believe it or not, we were in a multiple offer situation and had to add an escalation clause to win the condo.  At the time, I was a bit incredulous since the last time I was in multiple offer situation was back in 2007 when the condo market was still doing well. 

In this case, I knew that the condo wouldn't stay long on the market. It was priced competitively; there is a limited selection of this particular type of condo; and it's priced under $400,000 (from what I've seen, the largest pool of buyers on the market is looking at this price range). What surprised me was that the condo had been on the market for more than 3 months with no offer and this competing offer only came in just around the same time as us.  Where was this competing buyer during the last 3 months?

Apparently I'm not the only one seeing this.  During the last 30 days, a few of my colleagues have also mentioned that they were in similar situations, either getting multiple offers for their listings or in a multiple offers situations when representing the buyers.  Are we seeing a glimpse of a buyer come back? Who knows?  It may not necessary mean that it will have a significant impact on prices right now but if this kind of thing continues and happens broadly, we know prices are more likely to stay stable for a while.

Back to 2007?  Hardly. But we may be starting to see some more balance of power between buyers and sellers, at least for the best units in the sub $400K range.

-Wendy, Seattle Condo Realtor