Today’s Tahoe Buyer

Boy, things have sure changed when it comes to buying and selling homes in Lake Tahoe. “Back in the day,” we wrote offers on 3 layers of carbon copies, stuck them in the mail, waited three days for the seller to receive them and wait 5 more days for them to be returned (mail was always slower coming back to Tahoe.) And, that was if no counter offer were involved. Otherwise, we would start the process again.

This weekend, while sitting an an Open House, a buyer (seen in attached photo taken with IPhone) we had been showing homes to, arrived and announced that he wanted to put in an offer on a home he had seen with Don earlier in the day. For a slight moment I faced the dilemma of whether to close down the advertised Open House (which was not fair to my seller) or ask the buyer to meet me later at the office where I had printers, etc. all ready to go.  Then I realized that this option would not work well either as I had an appointment with another buyer already scheduled.  The DUH factor can ride with me frequently these days but eventually the lightbulb does go off.  (Side note example – I was lost looking for a home last week and called a friend on my IPhone to see if he knew where the house was located.  His comment was that it was too bad I didn’t have an IPhone with the built in GPS.  Duh, I hung up and found the house.)  Okay – so back to the Open House story.  As I mentioned, the light bulb did go on.  DocuSign!

The client just so happened to have his Think Pad with him (but of course) and went to the car to retrieve it.  In the meanwhile, I went online to retrieve the new CAR contract via ZipForms and began to insert the basics.  When he returned, we entered into a discussion of what to offer.  ”Well, let’s take a look” he said and immediately began typing away, pulling up Zillow and Realtor.com, pulled up all recent sales within the particular neighborhood, narrowed the field down to similar size and age and came up with a range.  We discussed the pros and cons of the various comparable sales as well as the most recent market trends – also available online.  I was able to provide information regarding the recent sales that would not be available within data searches and within about ten minutes, he came up with his price and I finished the contract.  I then pulled up Docusign, browsed for the contract I had just drafted on Zipform, inserted the instructions as to where to initial and sign and sent the contract to the buyers’ email.  As we sat there side by side, he pulled up the contract on his computer, signed it and sent it right back to me.  Within a couple of minutes, I “had mail” in my computer and in turn, sent the offer to the listing agent.  No paper, clean transmission and within 24 hours, the offer was accepted.

The entire experience was a treat however, what I enjoyed most was having the buyer demonstrate how his thought process worked from the time he decided to invest in a Lake Tahoe home.  He demonstrated how he researched properties prior to coming to the lake and what online elements made a difference in his research.  ”To the point – user friendly” sites, mapping and good photographs were vital.  ”If a tree is covering the house, I think you are trying to hide something” he explained.  Next was the ability to look at recent sales, statistics and market trends.  Following this meeting, you can count on my taking an even closer look at our lake tahoe real estate website.  While we were already focusing on these points, consistent improvement will be underway.  I will also continue to listen more intently to the buyers.  ”The Old Grey Mare -She Ain’t What She Used to Be” and neither are today’s buyers.  We’re both more wise and thorough – let’s just say we’re EDUCATED!