🏡 7 Game-Changing Solutions for Coeur d’Alene Homebuyers | The FOMO is Real, Waiting is a Mistake
😬 Are you a Coeur d’Alene homebuyer sitting on the fence, wondering if now is the right time to buy? ⏳ The truth is—you might be closer than you think. In this video, I’m sharing 7 powerful solutions to help you stop waiting and finally make your move in today’s real estate market.
✅ Discover real strategies to buy even with higher interest rates
✅ Learn how to take advantage of current opportunities
✅ Avoid costly mistakes by staying stuck in indecision ✅ Understand why waiting could actually cost you more 💸
📍 This is tailored specifically for homebuyers in the Coeur d’Alene, Idaho area—whether you’re a first-time buyer, relocating, or just tired of renting. The FOMO is real, but these 7 tips can help you buy with confidence.
📲 Ready to take the next step?
Contact Michelle René to schedule a showing or discuss your homeownership goals!
🔗 [email protected]
📧 https://destinationliving.co/
[Michelle Rene]
Hey there, it’s Michelle Renee, Windermere Coeur d’Alene Realty and DestinationLiving.co and I wanted to do a training basically on for Coeur d’Alene homebuyers, that’s the market that I’m in. I sell real estate here in Kootenai County and specifically in Coeur d’Alene and the surrounding area. So I know it’s a challenge right now for a lot of homebuyers.
The interest rates haven’t gone down like people had hoped. I mean, I feel like they’ve gone down a little bit from, you know, maybe the height within the last year or so, but it’s still higher than a lot of people want, plus home prices are not coming down either, right? So we have this, you know, people talk about FOMO, the fear of missing out, and the FOMO is real for buyers.
It’s, there is a fear of missing out and I feel like I wanted to address some of the, maybe, you know, just different ways to look at, okay, how can, if you’re in a good situation as a buyer and there’s just some things holding you back, you might have some assumptions that are not accurate or maybe, you know, it’s not as bad as you think. One of the things, you know, to get off the fence and to actually pull the trigger and to get in a home, if, let’s say the interest rates do go down quite a bit, right? It’s possible, I guess, you know, with all the craziness in the world going on right now, who knows what’s going to happen.
But if it goes down quite a lot, then now there’s a flood back into the market and, you know, we’re in a strange situation where the prices have stayed stable and in our local area, you know, have had some like single digit increases in price. But if you have a whole bunch of people entering the market, again, now you have all this competition. So the benefit you have right now as a home buyer, if you’re a solid buyer and you have, you know, solid debt to income or maybe it’s just that you don’t have the down payment, or maybe the DTI is a little too high and you need to address some things.
And so you’re working on that, whatever the case is. There’s incentive for the sellers to give credits to, and so I’m going to go through seven things, seven ways, seven tips, just ideas that you might be able to utilize, even if you could do one of them. And it made the difference of whether you could get into the home or not.
I mean, that’s a win. And some of these you could do multiples. So let’s start.
So the first one, I would say, you know, the top of mind, if you’re going to talk to a lender, one of the things you could do is buy down your rate. So if that’s the issue for you and the payment’s too high, obviously I am not a lender, okay? I have a lot of lender friends.
I’m not going to speak about your rates or the loan or different programs that you can jump into because every situation is different. But I am going to be talking to lenders on Zoom calls and getting some tips and, you know, directly from people who do know what their programs are and the guidelines and when you might qualify for this, or based on your situation, you know, where something else might work out better. But I will just say it is a thing, right?
So if you can buy down your rate, that might make the difference of whether you can jump into a loan and buy the house or not. Now, second to that is maybe you don’t have the funds to buy down the rate, but you can ask the seller to buy down the rate, right? Or give you a credit and then you use that credit for whatever, maybe you’re using it for the closing costs themselves, maybe you’re using it to buy down the rate.
My understanding, again, not a lender, check with your people, I can give you recommendations if you need, but my understanding is the seller, the limit on what they can contribute to buying down the rate is higher than the limit you as the borrower can put toward buying down that rate. So there’s a little tip for you. I actually didn’t know that until just recently.
One of my lender friends told me that. Okay, another option, it’s kind of obvious, but maybe it’s not to everybody, is you can offer up on a home that you’re happy about purchasing, but just offer less, offer maybe significantly less. That’s not going to work with all sellers, but I will tell you, there’s some sellers, especially if it’s been on for a while, or they just have a life circumstance where they really need to sell and they’re not interested in squeezing every last dollar out.
They just need the house to sell so that they can move on to the next chapter in their lives. So the motivation, and this is in any market, the motivation of the seller changes depending on their situation. But that’s part of this one, number three, is offer significantly less.
And maybe you try that a few times or a handful of times, however many times until you can find one that will be willing to let the house go for maybe even less than the market value. And so that’s part of it. But the other thing is maybe you readjust a little bit, maybe you don’t.
The average home price here for a single family home in the Coeur d’Alene area is a mid 500. So I want to say it’s like 556 or somewhere in that range. Maybe you don’t need a $500,000 home.
Maybe you start out with something that’s 400,000 in the low 400s. And if that’s the difference of whether you can get into the house or not, it might be smart to maybe settle for a little bit for right now. And then in a couple of years, you move up into the bigger home that you’re super happy to live in.
So that’s a thought. That’s a thought. Another thought along those same lines is what if you could find duplexes are not all that common, but what if you could find a multifamily property, small multifamily, so like four units or less, live in the one unit, rent out the others.
So now you have income. And even in a lot of the homes here in the Coeur d’Alene area, there’s ADUs and that’s allowed. So you could have the main house and the ADU in the back and supplement some of the cost for that purchase.
So talk to your lender about if they can use the income from, let’s say it’s a fourplex, they usually can use the income from those. But again, please discuss that directly with your lender. Another one, so I have this at number four, is to consider new construction.
New construction is really interesting because again, maybe you don’t get the big giant house and you get into something smaller, but one, you have a new house, super nice to not have to worry about the furnace going out or some other big expense. But also the builders, again, in this market climate, in these circumstances where it’s more of a buyer’s market, they are offering incentives. Now this changes depending on the builder that you’re working with and even maybe the community.
So you might have one builder in multiple communities, but you can look in the area that you’re searching in and see what that builder is offering for those homes. And sometimes they’re not going to tell you what they’re willing to do. You might just have to ask for it in your offer.
So you’re going to ask for, I’ve heard of up to 20,000 plus in credits. Now that’s for a more expensive home, right? Not a $400,000 one, but the motivation is there for them to offer these credits.
Now, back to the scenario where if you have an interest rate reduction, that’s quite large or significant and more people are jumping into the pool of getting back into buying, then those builder credits probably aren’t going to last all that long. They might pull the rug out from you on that. So that’s just something to think about.
But yeah, between the, it’s just like a seller, I guess it doesn’t matter whether it’s the builder or if it’s a resale home, an individual seller offering to help you. Again, you could use it toward closing costs. You could use it toward buying down the rate and whatnot, but the new construction properties tend to, it’s more probable that you’ll get those seller credits from them than a resale.
So, okay. Explore low down or no down programs. So first-time home buyer, that’s one thing, right?
And by the way, I’m not sure if you’re aware, but if you, maybe you’ve owned property in the past several years ago, I want to say it’s three years. If you have not owned a home for three years or more, they put you in that pool where you’re considered a first-time home buyer. So you can utilize those programs.
FHA has good rates. USDA is another thing to look at. What else?
Oh, VA, of course, that’s like the best one. So if you’re a veteran or you have access to get a veteran’s loan, that’s ideal. You have no down payment requirement.
You have no loan limit amount. So there’s a lot of pluses with those VA loans, but anyway, there’s, depending on where you’re buying and what you qualify for, what your circumstances, but talk to your lender, see what the options are there for you as far as the low down or no down. And I want to say FHA, I believe it’s three and a half percent.
I might be wrong, but that’s a big difference. If you you had to come up with 20% down and that’s what’s holding you back. And now, you know, you can get in for 3% ish or 5%, I think might be conventional.
That’s a huge difference, right? Like that’s a huge difference. And maybe you get that seller to pitch in towards some of these costs.
Now, all of a sudden you’re able to do it. So that’s where you go. Okay.
Number six is get a gift from a family member. In talking to my lender friends, this is becoming more and more common. And it’s something that, you know, again, if it makes the difference between you being able to do it or not, it’s an option if you have a family member that’s willing to do that.
All right. And then lastly, this is also maybe not super common, but becoming maybe a little more common is to add somebody to the loan. So maybe it’s just you buying.
And so you’re going to add, you know, mom or dad onto the loan. Maybe it’s you and your spouse and you do the same or a sister, somebody else, you know, that you know, like and trust and that you all are willing to do this transaction together. It’s an option.
And now all of a sudden you have more buying power because maybe you have three people in the mix, as long as obviously, you know, all the other things are still going to apply where you have to have a good debt to income ratio and they’re going to probably average out, you know, anyway, you get the point. More income is better as long as the credit and other things are in the positive. So, OK, that’s what I wanted to share.
I hope maybe that sparked some ideas. If you’ve been really wanting to buy and you just don’t know how it’s even possible, maybe it is more possible than you think. I would love to help you if you’re in the Coeur d’Alene area and you are looking to purchase something.
I would love to be your agent and I work, you know, at Emily. She helps me as well. So I think it would be amazing if you reached out to me.
You can go to DestinationLiving.co and all my information is there. You just click and you can either email me, call me, text me, whatever. I would love to help.
[Michelle Rene]
And obviously, I do have a lot of lender friends. They’re very good at what they do. Wait until you hear some of these conversations.
They’re amazing. And so I can certainly refer some people to you if you don’t already have a lender. All right.
I hope that was helpful. Thanks. Take care.
