How many homes did you bid on before your offer was accepted?

Sadly, $1.2M seems like it should be reasonable for a 3/2 with extra living space and a view, but in Berkeley it is not, at least not in today's market. It's in range (but not a given) for East Richmond Heights and El Cerrito, so I'd focus the search there and just be persistent. I don't think most sellers care (or necessarily even know) if both buyers have seen the house, but they do care about contingencies. You say your offers have been non-contingent, but do you mean that they were not contingent on the sale of your current house, or that you waived the inspection and appraisal contingencies? The former is expected in the Bay Area, and the latter has become depressingly common and will sometimes trump higher dollar offers. Find out what the houses you lost out on ultimately closed for, and have your realtor follow up with the seller's agent--this will give you some insight into why your offer didn't make the cut and might help guide your next steps. Good luck, and welcome to the East Bay!

1 in 10 is the chance of the bid being accepted. Things to consider, Berkeley-has better school district, Richmond and El Cerrito has more affordable houses. Once I realized the bidding chances, I convinced our agent to bid on multiple houses simultaneously (That took a lot of convincing!) because I had a deadline to move from my old housing. Even if your bid is accepted you have 7 or 10 days to walk away with no questions or losses. During THAT time I look at the houses more closely and read all the disclosures. I know my approach to house-buying is against the rules and norms and unheard of, but I was satisfied with the outcome-I got the house in Berkeley hills and it was 1987 built (brand new by local standards).

Don't have recent experience bidding on houses, but wanted to recommend an area close to the areas you specify that have hills and the size house you describe for 1.2 million or less.
Check out Painted Pony Road, Morningside. Drive and Amend Road areas of Richmond.

I can't speak to Richmond Heights or El Cerrito, but in Berkeley you're very unlikely to find a 3/2 in reasonable condition for 1.2. Alas :(

This was back in 2000 and we were here physically looking.  We bid on 6 houses in Berkeley, Kensington, El Cerrito. It felt like they were playing baseball and we were playing football.  We weren't even in the league.  We finally looked at a house that "pet-rich."  Our realtor called us after the Open House and said there was zero interest due to condition.  We got it $10 over asking.   We then needed to redo all of the floors and the roof immediately.  Over time, we redid the windows, furnace, some drainage, painting, deck, etc. 

Maybe you want to move here and rent for a short time. That will give you some time to make a more considered decision.  Also, it is widely reported that the market is softening, so perhaps things will cool down. 

Good luck and welcome!

Similar budget, similar locations, similar requirements.  It took us 13 offers and over a year and we got lucky only because it was a flip with an out-of-state seller who reviewed offers as they came in rather than waiting to review them all after 2 weeks. That was 5 years ago when market was still crazy but maybe not as crazy in El Cerrito where we ended up. You should have better luck in Richmond Heights and El Cerrito than Berkeley. Most sellers do not care if you have seen the house - they generally pick the highest bid with fewest contingencies. All cash offers are also common and hard to beat. Also make sure your realtor is being honest with you on what the listed price is vs what typically is offered. Some homes are significantly under-priced and sell way over the listing price so realistically you're looking at home listed in the 900K-1M range with a 1.2M budget. Good luck! 

Offers on 4 houses before we realized everyone we were competing with were writing no-contingency, 200k over asking, all-cash offers. We down-sized what we had been looking for so we could offer more over asking and were able to purchase on our 5th try.  

This was near the middle of the housing market recovery and prices got much more crazy as the months went by. Things seem to have cooled off a bit since then but if you think you’re offering the right price it might be that you’re going up against the all-cash people. 

We've lost count on number of houses we'd bid before our offer got accepted (it was way over 4) so don't be discouraged - you'll get a great place soon, I'm sure

It is tough.  Our house was our 9th offer after a 3 year search.  We were 2nd place to offers $100k+ over ours, all cash, at least 4 times.  "No contingencies" is needed, but still not as strong as "no contingencies all cash" (which a lot of people can offer here, unfortunately for the rest of us).  

Check Redfin on each house you are bidding on to make sure you are at or above the "Redfin estimate" for each listing.  If your budget is $1.2M you should be bidding on homes listing for mid $800ks - high $900ks.  Get pre-approved by First Republic Bank (unless they've fallen out of favor for some reason - agents like them because their appraisers are local so they know there will be no hiccups - this matters even without appraisal contingencies).  Make sure you write a "love letter".  They really do help.  Also make sure your agent can help source off market listings - I'm seeing more and more of those in our neighborhood in the East Bay.  

Personally I don't think being out-of-state or only having one of the buyers tour the house is a deterrent. There are a lot of buyers from out-of-state or even out-of-country that buy here. Unfortunately this is a seller's market and it's not uncommon for people to spend 1+ years trying to land the perfect house. A lot of people end up compromising a bit on their must-have list or they over-bid to land a house sooner.

We bought a house in North Berkeley in November 2018. We had been renting in the area for the past two years and had dabbled in buying a home about a year prior.  We learned a few things pretty quickly. 1) houses in desirable neighborhoods (esp close to Bart) almost always go for over asking price 2) non-contingent and all-cash offers help 3) even with those two things, it can still be extremely difficult. The only way we got the house we're in was putting in an initial offer over asking and even then we had to do some outbidding. I think the first time we tried to go through the process we weren't aware of all of this and it was very discouraging. Going into it with the above things in mind the second time was helpful. Best of luck to you and your family- you'll find something perfect, no doubt! 

I am an agent in the are you are looking to buy. Your budget of $1.2m is a little low for the berkeley hills with a view, yes for Richmond Heights and El Cerrito. Besides working with a knowledgeable agent, it also matters which lender you are working with. If your offers were all coming in close to sold prices, then you know you just need to push up your offer price a little higher next time. If you are consistently coming in a lot lower then you know those houses you like are out of your budget. My suggestion to you is to move here first and stay in a short-term rental, then go look at all the houses to get a better feel for the neighborhoods before making any offers. But I know moving twice is a huge pain. 

Hi, there. I hate to be a "Debbie Downer", but I think that something in your desired home profile has to drop to a lower priority to meet your budget; our 2/1 home in the Berkeley flats (i.e. - no view) is currently "zestimated" at $1.2MM. Because it is a seller's market, homes are typically priced far lower than they expect to get, with the intention of attracting interest and then causing a bidding war. El Cerrito and Richmond Heights will cost less than Berkeley, but be please look carefully at the public schools and be prepared for what you find: California public schools have been deeply damaged by the freeze on property taxes passed in the 1970's, so unless a school district has a parcel tax to make up for it (Berkeley has one, Albany has one - and it's still very hard) things can be very difficult indeed. Personally, I can deal with not having the view; I can walk to BART and the grocery store. 

I don’t know what the average number of offers is but suspect it’s north of 4.

We spent a year visiting close to 200 houses, requesting and seriously reviewing 30+ disclosure packets and making 9 offers. At a minimum there were 3 competing offers and at the high end, we made an offer on a lovely home in North Berkeley along with 15 others!  It was an ugly time but we finally bought a home after losing the previous house despite having the high bid because the sellers asked the second highest bidder, who was all cash, to match our bid.  

Another option might be to rent a house for a year and look to buy while you are here.  This way you could also get to know the different towns. 

We bid on 4 places in 8 months before we lucked out, getting a 2 bedroom, 2 bath. Our realtor told us that 3/2 was the most competitive so we didn't even bother. We had our agent and a family member in the area look at the house. We did not see it before we bought. That said, we learned to read every chart, line item and every word of the disclosures very, very carefully and to research the property with care. Good luck. 

The Bay Area is pretty nuts but California housing is starting to slow down so you may have more luck over the next few months. The problem is a lack of inventory of homes for sale here. 

Bought a house last summer after searching for 6 months solid. Bid on 8 homes and the 9th was the one that was accepted. There were different reasons why our bids weren't accepted on the others--some bid higher, of course, but also some buyers came with all cash. 

Don't get discouraged. You seem to have a decent budget. Extra living space/guest rooms in those areas can drive up the price, as does a view, but you should be able to find something. 

I live in El Cerrito. We moved here 3 years ago, and this was the seventh house we bid on. I think you might need to just keep trying. All it takes is one! Good luck. 

You may like your realtor, but I question whether s/he is giving you good advice. Your budget seems low to me. There are many websites to check to see what homes sell for. Take advantage of that info. You do not say how much those four homes sold for. I assume you are aware that most homes sell over asking, sometimes far over. Some buyers try to convince homeowners to sell to them by writing a letter about how much they like the house and how it is perfect for their family. You may want to get a summer rental in the area to really get familiar with the market. About number of offers: https://www.trulia.com/voices/Home_Buying/On_average_how_many_offers_wi…;   How to make your offer stand out: https://www.sfchronicle.com/business/networth/article/8-ways-home-buyer…

Although I can't speak to your question regarding out-of-state buyers, my husband I have recently purchased a home in El Cerrito and were very lucky in having our first offer accepted. This was similar to what you describe you're looking for - though not in the hills. I think what made us so successful so quickly was our realtor (Sheri Madden). The areas you're looking in are her specialty and she is very familiar with the market, knows many other realtors that represent sellers and was able to efficiently identify a house we liked, what we should bid for it and sell our offer to the seller's agent. I'm assuming you've also been working with a local realtor but if not I think this is really important. In our case, we made only one offer and it was accepted, so at least from one example we did not need to bid on lots of homes. Good luck!

No real advice, only empathy. We're also planning to move this summer and have made two offers, in both cases ending up as second choice. In one case we lost out because we hadn't yet seen the house and didn't waive the three-day inspection contingency (in retrospect, our loss); in the other, it was because the other buyer was prepared to go very high in a bidding war and we weren't up for it. So yes, it can be a factor. But price is usually the big one. Ask your agent how much the winning offer was - that info can be helpful.

OP here--thank you so much for all your insight!  I appreciate it very much.  Just a few answers to your questions: (1) We have waived all contingencies on our offers; (2) For three out of our four offers, we've lost out by $50K (painful, I know!), but majority of which were all-cash; (3) and we're only looking at Berkeley houses that are somewhat run-down--all our offers have been at East Richmond Heights and El Cerrito.  I appreciate all your words of encouragement and commiseration--it helps to know that other people have been through this before and have come out with a house.  Please keep the advice/sympathy coming, and thanks again!

From previous experience in the past year and having two people I’m close to move to the same areas, your budget is quite low. Crazy, I know. For the same area and set up (we wanted 4bd/3bath) but settled on 3 bed, 1.5 bath), it was close to $1.9. Then, taxes, don’t forget. For the people I know moving here, it’s a little higher for a little more space. We were rejected 18 times with our $1.5 million budget. I love our house and the location has little view but we do have some headaches and paying the taxes we pay have made us wonder if this is worth it. I will tell you, as anti ‘burbs as we are, we might be heading inland a little bit and rent out our place. Just a heads up. It can be a nightmare (we are living on two physician salaries). 

We are just in the early stages of searching,So I can't answer your main question about number of bids, but to your implied question about whether your budget is reasonable: $1.2M seems really low to me for a 3/2. I want to make sure your realtor has explained to you that houses are often going for at least 10-20% over list price (in the area of Oakland I have been watching, in the last 6 months it has ranged from 16-30%). If you are bidding 1.2M on houses priced above $950k, you are likely under-bidding, and that may be true even at $900k houses. SF wealth is just pouring into Berkeley and surrounding areas right now.

My realtor says all-cash isn't strictly necessary, that pre-approval (not simply pre-qualification) by a local lender is competitive with all-cash. She says to go with a local lender, not a national bank (or even local-to-elsewhere. Most houses are closing in 21 days, which the local lenders can do but the nationals can't. Also, local lenders work with a stable of appraisers who they trust, making it more likely the sale won't fall through. Local agents recognize which lenders are most "reliable" and able to make it through closing, and will advise their clients to go with those offers over, say someone getting money from Wells Fargo. Now, Berkeley may be different and privilege all-cash offers more than the areas of Oakland we've been considering, but if all-cash isn't possible, you should strive to be as competitive as possible within the loan structure.

Oh, one more thing. If you want to research how far above asking homes have been going, you can look at Redfin.com and navigate to the Property History section. That will tell you list price and sale price, whether there was a price change, how long homes were on the market and in contract, etc.