"When I look back now, I'm surprised our REALTOR® didn't fire us!" Shannon reminisced with a laugh. "We dragged our feet for way longer than we should have until it finally clicked what we had to do if we really wanted to buy our dream home."
Shannon and her husband Kamal were first time buyers looking to get out of the rental market and settle down in a place of their own where they could raise their young children. They contacted The Kesh Group to help them on their house hunt and soon realized that they had a thing or two to learn about what it takes to be a buyer in today's market.
"When we first met with our REALTOR®, Natalie, she gave us this handy little to do list. It had things like fill out a wants and needs worksheet and get pre-approved. We thought it was great, but if I'm honest, after the meeting we put the package in a drawer and forgot about it."
The couple was eager to start looking for their first home and jumped right into showings.
"I feel so bad now because Natalie kept asking us if we'd done the to-do list items, and we kept saying that we would, but we just didn't prioritize it, because we thought the most important thing was to go and see the houses. At the time we didn't understand how important the prep work is."
It wasn't until Shannon and Kamal fell in love with their first house and went to submit their offer that they realized why their agent had been encouraging them to take proactive steps.
"The market is so competitive these days, and we realized that's why Natalie had been stressing the importance of being prepared. We didn't really know what we could spend, so we played it safe with our first offer. When that house ended up with multiple offers, we lost out. It was because of this that we realized we needed to step up if we were going to compete."
That night the couple dug out the info package and completed the pre-buying worksheets.
"When we found another house we loved, we felt so much more prepared to make an offer. We went in strong, knowing what we could comfortably afford after having been pre-approved, and at Natalie's suggestion we even wrote a letter to the seller explaining why the house would mean so much to us. And we won! We definitely learned that in a competitive market it's worth it to be prepared and trust your REALTOR®."