Can Oregon Seller’s Accept Multiple Offers?

Lately I have seen something you never seen before. That’s right a Seller who accepts not one not even two but several offers on the same piece of property. This just does not seem possible.

After all they only have one home to sell yet Seller’s are accepting offer after offer. Not only that but their Real Estate agents and Brokers in Portland Oregon are encouraging them to do so. How can this be? Someone is bound to be upset.

Yet the Buyer’s do not seem to mind. They go about there way sometimes spending money on several inspections with a hope that they will not have spent the money for naught.

What kind of State is Oregon you wonder? Why its the State of Short Sales of course. In Oregon the Seller is allowed with disclosure to accept multiple offers on the same piece of property. The two page short sale addendum which accompanies the offer sheet spells it all out for all parties.

Short sales as we all know comes about when there is not enough equity in the property for the Seller to pay off the lean against it. Hence he must sell it Short of the full amount owing. The acceptance of this offer by the Seller then must be sent to the Lender for their acceptance.

No seller likes to sell short and walk out of closing without some sort of profit nor do Lenders. For lenders they are often asked to take significant losses to accommodate the sale. Hence they are not always in that big of a hurry to do so. In fact in some cases if an offer is submitted to quickly the immediate thing that pops into both Seller and Lenders minds is ” I wonder if we could get more? “

In regards to Oregon Law and Short Sales the Seller is allowed to take as many offers on one piece of property as they can get. For Agents representing Seller’s of Short Sales it is our responsibility to treat all parties fairly and honestly and to notify all interested parties in the Short Sale it’s true status.

This means that if you get an offer or even if you get multiple offers, you are to update the status as offers accepted and submitted to the Lender. The Property is to remain as an Active Listingthroughout the process until the Lender or whomever is being asked to sale short be it First Second or even a Third lean or more has accepted the offer.

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Portland Market Report for March 2009

Market Action Report , Source : RMLS Oregon for Residential Listings

The Portland Metro market activity continues to grow in 2009 although it is still slightly behind 2008 levels for the same reporting period last year.

March 2009 closed sales grew by 382% pending sales were up 28.3% over February 2009.

Inventory levels also dropped to 12 months, it’s lowest since October 2008. Average and Median sales price however continued to drop by 11.8% and 14% respectively for the month of March as compared with February.

                                Current Month                        Year to Date

New Listings                141                                         477                   Area141 ( North Portland )

                                    355                                        1,064                 Area 142 ( Northeast Portland )

                                    423                                        1,376                 Area 143 ( Southeast Portland )

Pending Sales                82                                            193                 Area 141

   2009                         180                                            430                 Area 142

                                    230                                            573                 Area 143

Closed Sales                  68                                            132                 Area 141

                                    117                                            303                 Area 142

                                    169                                            423                 Area 143

Average Sales          $216,600                                   $232,000            Area 141

Price                        $290,000                                   $296,000            Area 142

                               $237,400                                    $239,000            Area 143

Median Sales                                                              $229,600            Area 141

    Price                                                                       $260,000            Area 142

                                                                                   $210,000            Area 143

Days on The                                                                    114                 Area 141

    Market                                                                         130                 Area 142

                                                                                        149                 Area 143

All information is deemed to be accurate but not guaranteed and is only a partial amount of information provided by RMLS. Use of this information is for entertainment only and should not be used as a basis for conducting real estate activity.

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Portland Oregon Buyer’s Market or Sellers Market

Last week during a showing a group of a charming Victorian home in Portland Oregon the Buyer asked me ” Do you think the Seller would be willing to take less?  ” Now I have answered this question thousands of times over the last 20+ years usually with a simple answer like” I don’t make decisions for the Seller’s, perhaps we should put it in writing and see what they have to say? ”.

However because of the tone in the Buyer’s voice, a tone that gave me the impression he thought that he deserved a reduction in price, I asked ” What causes you to ask that “? His straight up answer was “ Because it’s a Buyer’s Market Right? ”.

In Portland Oregon over the last year we have had a decrease in market prices and an increase in inventory. The only problem with his question was that this home had been on the market for less than 12 hours and it had real estate agents and thier Buyers crawling all over it. I recognized many of the agents and could see in their eyes the excitement. This truly was an amazing property and very very agressively priced.  A victorian such as this will get multiple offers.

The question asked earlier in the day by me Buyer started me to thinking about the differences in a Buyer’s Market and a Seller’s Market. I have touched on this subject once before on my Portland_Flips_Business_Blog  .

So what are the elements? Well certainly over the last several years as the market has continued to expand, one would have to conclude that was a Seller’s Market. Prices were constantly going up, speculation was often the name of the game and Seller’s were reaping relatively quick rewards for their properties.

So then to be a Buyer’s Market the opposite must be true? One of falling sales prices, rising inventories and strong competition to make your property the most attractive with little or no profits at all for the Seller’s perhaps even selling at a loss as it has been in many parts of the country for the last couple of years or so. 

In this type of market you would conclude that Buyer’s following sound business principles of Buy Low and Sell High would then be in a Feeding Frenzy. Especially in areas that have been notoriously expensive to purchase. While interest rates are relatively low and prices are down you would think that all of the people who had hoped to purchase and were unable to during the Seller’s Market would be all over this Buyer’s Market. The pent up demand for those who have wanted to buy and had been priced out certainly would propel the amount of sales in a Buyer’s Market well past any number done in a Seller’s Market.

That however is not the case. In fact it has not been the case at all in the last 20 years. I have watched as markets went through there normal cycles of highs and lows.The reality is that Buyer’s tend to make more purchase’s in a Seller’s Market often times competing for the same homes while driving up the prices even further.

So what about this Buyer’s Market then? Well if Buyer’s don’t or won’t take advantage of the conditions then by it’s own default there can be no Buyer’s Market.

Do you Agree or Disagree? For me I think there is no such thing as a Buyer’s Market or for that matter a Seller’s Market. There is Just a Real Estate Market.

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Working to Keep Your Seller Happy ?

Are you keeping your Seller Happy or do you keep your Seller Happy? Are you doing the things that today’s Seller’s have come to expect? Do you wimp out and provide services to Seller’s that you know do not produce results, yet you do them anyhow because your trapped by the old cliche ” You have to Keep Your Seller’s Happy ! ”

Keeping your Seller Happy is of course what we all want to do. Yet too often we substitute sound business practices with expensive activities that do not produce results under the guise that we are keeping our Seller’s Happy. With only so much money available to be spent especially in today’s market, working Smart is imperative.

There is only one activity that will keep any Seller happy and that is a Sale. Yet there is not a day that goes by that I don’t read or hear those awful words ” You have to keep your Seller Happy “. Mean while each and every year we spend untold hundreds if not thousands of dollars on seminars, books and the like, hoping to find new ways to advertise and promote our properties. Yet when push comes to shove many of us immediately cave in to the old mantra of Keeping Our Seller Happy.

The one thing that we are taught early on in our business as professional real estate sales people and Broker’s is to promote our selves as professionals. After all we do have a license by the State to conduct real estate activity. And don’t we all participate in continuing education as required by the Real Estate Agency in order to maintain that License. Yet we often allow ourselves to be manipulated by those who would employ us for our expertise and knowledge into working passive marketing techniques that we know will produce little or no results.

I ask you. How much respect would you have for your Doctor or your Attorney if they allowed you to dictate to them how they should conduct their business while representing you?

It is time for us all to stand up, create and execute a plan for marketing our homes with conviction. For we are the professionals and it is time we started acting like it!

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