"When you go to a bank and say, 'I'm listing a property for a [borrower in trouble], they basically say, 'Well, send us the offers - we can't say what we'll accept,'" said Keith L. Cross, a Century 21 Downtown agent who has represented people trying to sell and buy via short sale. "I've never experienced getting a counteroffer from a bank, either. They either say yes or no. If it's no, you have to play guesswork and figure out what they will take."
That's bad for sellers, even those who aren't having mortgage troubles. More homes on the market means more homeowners competing for buyers.
Christine McDonough and her husband, David, think they got a better deal on the four-bedroom Colonial in Baldwin they bought last month in the $400,000s than they would have two years ago - perhaps $30,000 to $50,000 better. Transplants from Florida, they rented for those two years in Baltimore to get to know the market.
But their hunt wasn't quite the buyer's dream they'd expected. They were outbid on three homes before finally signing a deal.
"We wanted ... an area where the school districts were good based on state ratings," said Christine McDonough. "We found there were too many other people waiting for the same thing."
Their agent, Dahlia Kaminsky Fisher, said several of her other clients have been outbid this year, too. In "relatively sought after" areas that don't have a lot of homes on the market, buyers can easily end up with competition, she said. Price matters, too.
"If you think it's a good deal, so does somebody else," said Fisher, with Cummings & Co. Realtors in Canton.
Werner, whose real estate offices are in Baltimore and Harford counties, said her agents have similar stories of clients losing out to other buyers. It's not necessarily the highest price that wins. "It's the people with the strongest financing," she said.
Sellers have worried about financing troubles killing deals since lenders began to fail last year. Massive tightening in borrowing guidelines followed, a 180-degree change from the easy-money days of the housing boom. Subprime loans aimed at people with credit problems all but disappeared; down payment requirements increased.
And the reduction in credit is still going on. Three-quarters of U.S. lenders surveyed by the Federal Reserve last month said they had raised the bar on prime mortgages in the previous three months, further shrinking the buyer pool.
