A twisted, eye-opening novel scheduled for publication this month offers a glimpse into the modern housing market around Washington, D.C., including the difficulties that come with securing personal property, often considered the ultimate American dream.
The thriller book “Best Offer Wins,” slated for official publication by Celadon Books on Nov. 25, delves into the symbolism of homeownership in America and the psychological toll of house hunting in the immediate post-pandemic environment.
Both dark and witty, the story follows desperate public relations professional Margo Miyake as she seeks to escape her cramped apartment and get her life on track by buying what she considers her perfect home before it gets publicly listed.
The protagonist’s increasingly morally questionable decisions leave readers asking themselves how far they, too, would go to purchase their own home, as the book parodies how expensive and cutthroat buying a home can be around the nation’s capital, given a supply shortage.
The District’s housing market is still somewhat sluggish, according to a Bright Multiple Listing Service report from earlier this month. The greater metropolitan area has seen a median list price of $560,000 for the week ending Nov. 9, up 3.9% from a year ago.
Ahead of its release, the book already has a 4.11 rating on review platform Goodreads. An upcoming television adaptation for streaming giant Hulu starring actress Greta Lee is in early development.
Written by Marisa Kashino, the author’s debut novel draws on her experience as a journalist for 17 years, most recently at The Washington Post. She spent the bulk of her career at Washingtonian magazine after growing up near Seattle, graduating from the University of Washington. She now lives in the D.C. area with her husband, two dogs and two cats.
Homes.com spoke with Kashino about her inspiration for the book and the commentary it presents on the ongoing housing crisis facing the nation’s capital.
The following conversation with the author has been edited for length and clarity.
What was your inspiration for this book?
I didn't realize I was going to use this as inspiration for a novel in the moment, but I did cover the housing market and real estate as a journalist for many years, mostly for Washingtonian magazine.
I did a lot of reporting on the housing crisis in D.C. and talked to many, many, many home buyers and real estate agents about the desperate measures that people were having to go to, to compete for houses.
To me, the housing shortage and the housing crisis is such a defining problem — I am a millennial — so I would say the housing crisis is one of, if not the defining problem of my generation. And it is something that my peers talk about constantly.
What real-life stories did you draw upon that laid the foundation for this book or that you brought into it?
I wrote one story in particular that I thought a lot about while I was drafting the manuscript of “Best Offer Wins” and that was a cover story for the April 2021 issue of Washingtonian about the pandemic-real estate boom.
The reporting for that story involved dozens of interviews with homebuyers who were trying to get out of cramped or small spaces because all of sudden we were living very differently, needing to use our houses as our offices and our home gyms and our classrooms if you have kids.
I heard a number of wild stories in the course of reporting that feature about open house lines that wrapped around the block multiple times, about homes that were getting 50 to 60 offers, about people who had lost a dozen or more bidding wars.
Nobody took it quite as far as Margo does in the book, but one of the most memorable anecdotes that I heard in the course of reporting that story was about a house somewhere in upper Northwest. And it was in such high demand, and so popular, that all of the normal time slots to come see it during the day were booking up so fast that they decided to open it up overnight. So, there were people booking time slots to come see this house at like 2 in the morning. I don’t believe the homeowners were living there anymore, so the house was empty and available for that kind of thing.
The market has cooled off considerably, but the fact remains that in the D.C. area, and in many places around the country, we are still in the middle of a severe housing shortage and that’s why home prices remain so high.
Affording a home still remains really out of reach for a lot of people, in particular millennials. At the heart of the American dream is homeownership, and I think it’s really frustrating to a lot of people that, that remains such an unattainable goal or a goal that is attainable but only with extreme sacrifice and extreme effort.
Were there any specific themes you were looking to get to from a seller’s perspective?
The story is really about Margo’s quest and about the plight of the house hunter. In this particular market, the sellers had it really good because they had an embarrassment of options.
I will say that something that was very common during the real-life pandemic housing market, and I can only imagine remains something that probably still happens now, is home buyers writing letters to sellers — trying to appeal with a more personal argument for why they should be the winning bid.
The home buying process is emotional, period, but particularly when you’re having to compete and it’s this really heightened market, it all feels even more emotional, even more psychologically taxing, probably for both sides.
Anything from your personal homebuying experience that has lent itself to this book?
I do own my home. I bought it during this market, so I do have firsthand experience in house hunting myself in the pandemic era. Luckily, my house hunt was not anywhere near as fraught as Margo’s or the many people I talked to. We made one offer on this house and we bought it. We didn’t go through the whole losing a million offers and bidding wars. We were fortunate in that way.
Regardless of those details, when you’re in the middle of a house hunt, it really does become an all-consuming thing. The stakes feel incredibly high because, unless you are extremely wealthy, it is probably the most money you have ever spent on anything and will ever spend on anything. For that piece of it, certainly, I could draw somewhat from my own experience.