Tampa Bay's Housing Market Sees Intense Bidding Wars
TAMPA, Fla. (CW44 News At 10) - A new report shows Tampa's housing market is getting more and more competitive, while other areas in the country are showing the opposite.
"I've gotten to the point where I'm not as shocked, I'm just like 'this is the market," said Kelly Parks, a Tampa Bay Real Estate agent.
Parks is talking about the housing market and says bidding wars are getting serious.
"I've seen vacations offered, I've seen golf carts, especially in certain communities, we will leave this, we will leave the boat, we will do these things just to entice," said Parks.
Shadd Boucher, another real estate agent, is seeing similar situations of buyers offering odd things.
"I've seen everything from cruise packages, to Disney passes, anything they can think of…we actually had one of our agents negotiate a deal yesterday in which the buyer wanted the sellers chickens and chicken coup," said Boucher.
It's getting to the point where people are paying way more for homes than they were two years ago.
"They are just trying to get super creative, buyers are willing to pay for all the sellers closing costs. They are even offering to buy them a mover," said Boucher.
"My seller thought I was crazy when I said 1.1 and we sold it for 1.3," said Parks.
That's $200,000 over asking price and even more odd situations are coming up.
"They're selling their houses and they are actually getting the buyer to allow them to live there for 60 days while they figure out where they are going to go," said Boucher.
According to a new report by Redfin, cities across the united states showed less competition in the housing market from March to April, but Tampa competition actually increased by about 5%.
But despite the competition, Parks says it's still a good idea to buy a house to have a fixed payment in a great location.
"We have the Bucs, the Lightning, let's go, hopefully we win. I mean the more we have, all the positive things going on in our community, the more people want to come here," said Parks.
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