My first 60 days - buyer - Bay Area, CA

[Kyle N.]

Hello, I thought I'd share my feedback on my first 60 days as a buyer. I started my real estate journey about 4 months ago, reading books, listening to podcast, and multiple meetups. I've seen lots of progress 

Background

• Status: Renter
• Purchase Location: Bay area California
• Criteria: MFH,  Oakland, Richmond, El Cerrito, South San Francisco
• Goal: House hack

Wins

• Found a lender that has me fully underwritten pre-approval FHA near max and I can close on a property in 17 days.
• Met and made connections with contractors, lenders, flippers, agents.
• Part of an African American real estate investment group and have a small group of real estate friends

Challenges / Learnings 

• - I have no idea how the relationship between the Buyer and Agent is supposed to work. I'm basically a project manager by day and I don't expect everyone to work at the same speed as me. 
• - I'm visiting open houses and discussing homes before my agent can send them to me and I do not have access to MLS.
• - Agents work in specific cities and stick to those areas because of their relationships. Is this a limiting factor for me since the city location is not the biggest factor? My high-level criteria are if I can commute to the SF in a decent neighborhood near a grocery store then another tech worker is willing to do the same. I have other criteria but its all numbers bed/ba and income related.
• - I think the communication between buyer - agent - lender through email is bad when discussing multiple properties. There has to be an APP to handles this - (millennial thoughts haha)

My first offer

I found a SFH with ADU fully updated and permitted. Asking was $700k and I think they had 13 offers. I ran the numbers and the rents worked with me so I placed a bid around $770k conventional waived inspections with a 17 day close. I didn't win and the highest bid was ~$810k. *tear drop goes here*

My next steps

- Cry myself to sleep. Nope. I was out the next day at other open houses.
- stay hungry but patient

For you, is there anything else I should be doing? Am I missing anything?