On a Tuesday night in July Kyndal Downum and her daughter Hannah Garner are heading towards Carolina Beach for a celebratory meal. They’ve chosen a restaurant that overlooks the canal. Tonight they will sit outside, even though the temperature is up and the sun is still a few hours away from going down. The heat, the humidity- none of that matters! Not tonight! For Hannah, the free meal and her time with mom are capping off a very good day. The type of day Hannah will remember the rest of her life.
“I will just say this much; there were a few adult beverages flowing that night,” Hannah remembers the evening through some chuckles. “It was a good time. We even Face-Timed my sister in California and had a virtual toast with her.”
For Kendal the evening is all about parental pride. She has watched, she has worried, she has done her best to provide wisdom during stressful times.
To understand the importance of this night for mom you almost need to have an adult child, to be familiar with the struggle of being more an advisor than a parent. You need to know the helpless feeling of standing a half step back, rooting your daughter on, and yet knowing that you are powerless to control the outcome- powerless to protect her. Because even when they get older, if your child’s heart breaks, your heart still breaks, too.
For Hannah, the perspective tonight is from a different angle, perhaps one that is a little more complicated. Tonight is about victory and accomplishment. Earlier in the day she spent an hour signing and initialing a bunch of legal documents that formally made her- for the first time- a homeowner. But boy, did it take a long time to get here!
You see, tonight’s celebration is really about endurance, that ability that some people have deep inside that won’t allow them to give in or give up.
“I got pre-approved in April- not this past April, I am talking about April 2021,” Hannah tells us over the phone. “I thought for sure I’d be under contract by the summer, and then summer came and went… then the fall and winter. It took 15 months!”
First Time Buyers Crunch
Hannah’s story has been played out all over America. She got into the housing market at perhaps the most competitive time. Historically low interest rates prompted a number of people to purchase investment real estate properties. These were not the traditional flippers. They weren’t people looking for fixer uppers that they could quickly renovate, at low cost, and then sell for a profit. Instead they wanted homes that were move in ready that could quickly be converted into rentals. Which is to say they were targeting the same homes that typically would have gone to first time buyers- eating up the inventory
And then something else started to happen. This part remains a bit of a mystery, but the facts are undeniable. All of sudden real estate agents all over the country started to notice an influx in cash buyers. These were people who didn’t need low interest rates. They weren’t going to take 30 years to pay off a mortgage. They were willing to write big checks today, often times getting homes under contract, sight unseen, within the first few hours of them hitting the market. According to the national real estate research website Redfin, more than 30% of all homes sold in 2021 were purchased by cash buyers.
The mystery is where did they come from?
The internet is filled with theories. Some speculate that the buyers were just individuals willing to take large chunks of money out of their retirement funds. Others hold on to more sinister notions. They believe that large corporations, or perhaps even foreign governments, were behind the influx.
Whatever the answer to the riddle, the results for people like Hannah were the same. As inventory was gobbled up, housing prices started to increase, and every part of the nation started to see more and more homes going for above the listed price. Redfin estimates that, depending on where you live, housing prices from 2020 to today have risen anywhere from 14% to 45%. Meaning not only were first time buyers competing with folks with much deeper pockets. They were also, very quickly, being priced out of the market.
Hannah’s Search
Long before Hannah reached out to Just For Buyers Realty, she started the process in the way our agents recommend to all their clients. She first sat down with a mortgage broker to figure out if she qualified, and what she could afford.
The numbers all looked good on paper. At the time there were plenty of homes in the market in her price range. All she had to do was find one she liked and put in an offer. She teamed up with JFB agent Jennifer Reinholt.
“We started to look around. Jennifer would send me emails with homes that just came on the market that same morning,” said Hannah. “We made appointments, went to see the homes but right off the bat, I knew how challenging this would be.”
From the very beginning every home Hannah looked at was receiving multiple offers. Not only was she up against cash buyers, she was also competing with folks who were willing to offer large amounts of due diligence and go way above the asking price. Neither were options for someone who was trying to maintain a budget
“It was frustrating for her, but it was also frustrating for me, too” said agent Jennifer Reinholt. “You know, you go into this business hoping that you are going to be able to really help people, especially first time home buyers. They may not be your biggest deals, but you love working with them because you get to share these special, life changing moments. It’s the best part of your job when you get to hand over keys to someone’s first house. But in the last year or so, those happy moments were few and far between. Suddenly the job became being the bearer of bad news. Every time I had to call up Hannah and tell her that our offer wasn’t accepted, it was horrible!”
In all Hannah and Jennifer estimate that they looked at anywhere from 20 to 30 homes and put in at least a dozen to 15 offers.
As the rejection started to pile up, Hannah started to change her list of wants and needs. Originally, she wanted a single family home with three bedrooms and two baths. When those where snagged away from her, she converted into the notion of townhomes. What she was unwilling to budge on was generic area. Hannah has lived in Wilmington since 2009. She knows the city, and has figured out what part of of town she wanted to be in. For Hannah the Middle Sound Loop area was very appealing. She did not want to compromise on location.
There was something else she held firm on. As a dog lover, Hannah knew she needed a fenced back yard. If she didn’t get some of the others things on her wish list, that would be okay as long as she found something that checked these two boxes.
And then suddenly she found it- the perfect home, right where she wanted, at a price in her range, move-in ready, with a fenced backyard. An offer was quickly submitted and Hannah and Jennifer nervously sat back and waited for the news. But just like the previous times, they lost out. This time to a cash buyer willing to pay $30,000 over asking.
“That was the absolute low point for me,” remembers Hannah. “I just didn’t belong at the same table with someone who could offer that much. I just decided that maybe it wasn’t in the cards for me. Maybe I was just supposed to be a renter.”
That’s when Jennifer told Hannah to take a break. In a move not taught in real estate classes, the agent advised her client to stop looking, to stop going on websites. Jennifer even stopped sending regular emails with new listings. She didn’t want to upset her client any further. Instead she promised to watch the market for her, letting Hannah know when something was worth seeing.
That’s also when the two started talking about serendipity- the notion that things will work out exactly how they are supposed to. Jennifer started to preach that somewhere out there is the exact home Hannah is supposed to be in, and when it comes on the market, when the timing is right, she is going to get it. It sounds kind of hokey, but when nothing else is going your way sometimes all it takes is a little faith to get you through.
And then it happened.
On the first day of June a townhome, that really looks and feels like a single family unit, came on the market in the Sandybrook neighborhood located right off Middle Sound Loop. Hannah and Jennifer moved very quickly. After scheduling an appointment to see the property Jennifer started working on the paperwork to submit an offer. At this point her client had only seen a few pictures. If Hannah liked what she saw in person, all Jennifer had to do was click a few buttons on her phone and an offer would be submitted before they ever got back in her car.
“There was something magical about that day,” remembers Jennifer. “It didn’t seem like work at all. There was no pressure, no worries. It just felt like I was spending an afternoon hanging out with a friend. We had spent so much time together over all those months, that the professional relationship lost out to the friendship.”
Hannah agrees. “I couldn’t imagine having survived this with anyone else. She knew when to encourage and counsel. Jennifer is a great agent, but she is a better friend.”
Even with serendipity and faith on their side, things still moved slowly that day. Hannah loved the home in person. It just seemed right to her, the perfect fit. Jennifer quickly submitted the prewritten offer, but there was another one that had come in a few moments earlier. For several hours everyone waited.
The news – the very good news- finally came in after 10pm, that awkward hour when it’s probably too late to call a client even if they’ve morphed into a friend. Instead Jennifer sent a text telling Hannah her offer had been accepted; “OMG!!! Seriously?!? I’m freaking out.”
BACK TO THE CELEBRATION
Which brings us back to the night in Carolina Beach, back to the night when a proud mother wants to celebrate a huge moment with her daughter.
As the food comes and the drinks flow, mom and daughter discuss things like unpacking and decorating. But even when there are no words, the table is still filled with laughter and smiles and relief- lots of relief. It took a long time for a young woman to get to here. She may have had the help of a caring agent and a loving parent, but in the end this is Hannah’s success.
“Patience pays off,” Hannah told us. “The right house was out there, it just took some time to find it… but now it’s all mine!”