Multiple Offers in Boise's Real Estate Market?

I hear it often in today's Boise real estate market, when working with buyers, that since it is a buyer's market they can offer less than asking and take their time in placing an offer. In many segments of Boise, Meridian, Eagle and Kuna that is certainly the situation.

But inventory levels in the affordable homes (under $120,000) have restricted to a level that would equate to a seller's market under normal economic times. And while we still have a high amount of dis-stressed properties coming on the market and putting downward pressure on values, those properly priced homes can pull multiple offers in the first day if not within hours of listing. And it is not unusual, today, for homes to sell at or above asking price. That goes against the grain for most of us as buyers, particularly when we recognize the depressed* state of housing values.  That is why it is important not to get caught up in listed prices, I provide my buyers a complete analysis of the value of a prospective home independent of asking price.

One must pay closer attention to what the value is and not what the asking price may be. The question as a buyer needs to be not how much I have been able to negotiate the price down from asking but how good of a value I actually got.

For example, if you have 2 identical houses in similar locations, with the first house being listed at $120,000, the 2nd asking $95,000.  Would you rather pay $2500 over asking on house number 2, or $15,000 below asking on house number 1? Of course you would want to pay $97,500 instead of $105,000 for the same house.

If you are looking to buy a house call me, I will help you negotiate a true value, not just an illusion!

*In using the phrase depressed state of housing values, I think a more accurate representation of the values is reset rather than depressed. We are not in a temporary depression that we are going to pop out of quickly. But rather our values have been reset, and from this point we will begin the steady appreciation of values that have identified the housing sector for decades.