May 2020 compared to May 2019: Sales Price up 8%, Days on Market down 33%. Inventory down 51%. Hot sellers market

http://marketminute.longandfoster.com/Market-Minute/MD/Prince-Georges-County.htm

Make your offer on day one of it hitting the market. Offer as much as you can, as clean as an offer as possible. Remember that the appraisal contingency will keep you from paying more than it is worth. Good luck... it can be very frustrating for you and the agent.

It might be interesting to have your agent find out if the winning offers were cash bids with no contingencies. If you are up against investors or foreign buyers, this can be a big hurdle. (Could it be the democrats buying in expectation of a change in administration in the District?

Thanks for all the feedback. It has been frustrating, im constantly looking online for updates and usually spot the properties as soon as they're listed. With the exception of one property I've gone to see them the same day they're listed and submitted an offer. I'm not sure what the winning offers have been as when I've asked my agent didn't have any details. With the stats you posted it makes me wonder if I should wait as I'm already in a race up against my soon to be ending lease. With a smiley that big you must be on to something.

Cozying up to the sellers agent has nothing to do with if a seller is going to accept your offer or another offer. The sellers could care less.

Does your agent have you set up on a listing search that sends you new listings directly from the MLS, the day they come Active... most of these third party sites take a day or two to feed new listings into their database.

I bought a house through a pocket listing that an agent shared with my agent. The seller was very happy to have a fast, secure, reliable offer without having ML people calling and going through their house. This happened because my agent was networking. Call it networking instead of "cozying up" if you prefer. Networking helps in all lines of business.

NC she doesn't have me set up for daily listings. She'll send them to me sporadically, but all properties I put offers on were listings I saw as soon as they popped on Zillow.

I disagree that making an offer through the listing agent will not result in your bid winning the house in a multi-bid situation. I've done it several times, but I know what I'm doing. If you need agent assistance, this is unlikely to be helpful to you. But when the listing agent can get both sides of the commission - assuming the offer is at least equal to the other offers and/or you are a strong buyer - yes, your offer can absolutely come out on top.

And any decent agent will send you listings meeting your parameters immediately when they hit the MLS. It's an automatic process - the agent doesn't even need to do anything but sign you up. I'm getting listings on two zip codes, just because I asked.

This agent is doing you no favors. Get someone who wants to get the job done.

Thanks Midcentury. I wish I would've come to this site before I started the process. The process with me finding an agent went no easier than the house hunt. I went through three agents. The first one was over controlling and admitted people had told him that before, but the last straw was when he suggested that I change mortgage companies to one in which he knew the workers. This was all before we even discussed some of the things I wanted in a home.

Second agent sent me a listing with only detached homes and made it seem like a big deal to "alter her search criteria" when I told her I was also looking for townhouses as well, something I initially stated. In addition, she asked when I was free to start looking at places but then never responded until over a week later when I was already out looking for homes with the agent I have now.

The good news is that you clearly have an eye for desirable properties. I guess the bad news is that some things are not within your control... Sellers may go with an offer with a larger downpayment (e.g. >20%) over a smaller down payment, just because the lower likelihood of the financing problems cropping up.. Other things that could be a factor cold be other buyers with cash offers, or waiving inspection contingencies (or putting a high dollar amount on those - so you know you won't get nickeled and dime'd to death), or, the bank you're financing through (if it's the wrong one - which surprisingly are some of the "big name" banks) can be a real deterrent to someone accepting your offer. I also agree with the previous suggestion that the better networked Into the local area your realtor is the stronger your chances of your offer being presented positively to the sellers if they're looking at multiple offers.