The Incline Village real estate market continues to be a hotbed of activity with demand continuing to outstrip supply. What this means for buyers in 2022 is that they will need to act quickly when a property they like is listed on the Incline Village MLS. This does not mean that you have to panic or make a rushed decision. It simply implies that buyers will need to write strong offers and then perform the necessary due diligence prior to removing all contingencies.
The way that Nevada real estate contracts are constructed puts the buyer in control once an offer is accepted. Buyers have a lot of contingencies and can bail out of the deal for many legitimate reasons while getting a full refund of their earnest money deposit. While it’s important to write a strong offer you never want to waive those contingencies that afford you the greatest protection.
In a highly competitive real estate market like the one we have at Lake Tahoe, unscrupulous agents will sometimes try to coerce buyers into waiving the inspection reports contingency. This is one of the most dangerous things a buyer can possibly do. Performing thorough inspections of the property is absolutely essential to make sure you are not buying a white elephant.
We always recommend that buyers have a physical inspection and a pest inspection performed. In addition, inspections of the roof, heating and plumbing systems, radon levels, and sometimes even structural inspections are necessary. We generally like to get the physical, pest and radon inspections performed immediately. If any of these inspections turn up additional areas of concern then it is prudent to have specialized experts take a closer look.
With so many absentee owners at Lake Tahoe, a significant number of properties suffer from deferred maintenance. Quite often the seller is not even aware of problems that are not obvious to the naked eye because they use the property infrequently. And you cannot rely on the seller’s disclosure statement to reveal all of the defects that a particular property may have.
There is no reason to rush through the due diligence process. But you also don’t want to have ridiculously long contingency removal time frames as that can scare a seller away. It’s a balance between writing a strong offer that will pique the interest of the seller while still giving yourself enough time to review and analyze the inspection reports, title report, insurance costs, TRPA coverage allowances, etc.
In this competitive market cash is king. Buyers who are seeking a loan will sometimes have difficulty competing against all-cash offers. There is nothing wrong with getting a loan to finance the purchase of a property. But anyone seeking financing should make sure that all of the other terms in the contract are very strong and won’t need to be addressed in a counter offer from the seller. And you might have to offer a higher price than competing cash offers if you want to be successful
We have written and negotiated hundreds of offers during our Incline Village real estate careers. Working diligently to understand the motives of the seller and the needs of the buyer is what sets us apart from other brokers and agents. The offers we structure are carefully thought out to protect our buyers while simultaneously encouraging acceptance from the sellers.
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