Building Our House

Yep, it’s dead.

Apparently the owner and his wife both have cancer, so they’re in a hurry for the money, so a cash deal closing in a week is worth it to them, despite pain caused to innocent bystanders.  I don’t know if they need to pay bills or pay for their grand round-the-world cruise.  Whatever.

Jeff talked briefly to the owner but the owner was not very interested in talking, said it was a done deal and that it would “cost him money” to sell to us.  Cynically (or is cynicism actually being realistic, when applied to real estate?) this suggests: 1) he knows there would be problems found during inspection that would cost money and/or time, and/or 2) he knows it might not appraise for the offered amount, which would make the mortgage company anxious about lending to us for it.  Our agent did more research today and said for whatever reason prices right in that area have been lower than you might expect, and he wouldn’t be surprised if it appraised at $15k below asking price.  He might just be helping us with our sour grapes, but who knows.

Anyway, one more dream location scratched off the list - the third really promising option scuttled (original land that fell through twice, land that was lovely but 45 minutes away, now this house).  It’s quite draining.  Sure, we can stay here another year or two and the value of our house will probably continue to skyrocket - but in the meantime, what are we going to do about a studio for Jeff?

Once again it seems, a verbal agreement is not worth the paper it’s printed on.  Some investors showed up with an all-cash, no-inspection offer, so the seller is going with them.  Do people have no sense of decency in the face of money?  Does the seller actually know of some hidden problem that the inspection will turn up?

ARGH.

Our realtor is trying to see if the seller is willing to let Jeff plead our case via phone call - we’re not investors, we want to live there and raise our family, etc.  I doubt it will work, but you’ve gotta try.  Or cry.  Or possibly both.

Guess I need to get to work on the sour grapes list of things that weren’t so good about it after all.  Unfortunately I had a hard time coming up with anything earlier when looking at the house.  I may be stuck with “there must be a hellmouth in the crawl space that they won’t know about because there’s no inspection”.

Saturday morning Jeff stopped in a local real estate office and got us an agent - buyer’s agent for the buying, and listing agent assuming the buying goes forward.

Saturday afternoon we looked at the house again with the agent, and he helped us put together an offer - $5k below the listing price, promise of quick closing, not contingent on selling our current house (which our agent thinks will be no problem).  There were two other offers as well, but our agent said he thought we had a 90% chance of success, based on the tips and tidbits he could get out of the seller’s agent.

This afternoon they called to counteroffer at $2k below the listing price - we said yes, and have signed the updated papers.  The seller lives an hour plus away so probably won’t get to sign the papers until tomorrow.  Assuming he doesn’t have a wild change of heart, we should be under contract by dinnertime tomorrow.  Inspection, the next likely hurdle, is scheduled for Friday.  We’re waiting for a call back from a mortgage broker to get pre-approved (even though it’s Sunday).  Closing on or about 8/8!

We’ve also signed the papers to put our current house on the market, probably next weekend if the inspection on the new house goes well.  Our agent suggested a listing price that is almost 50% more than what I paid for the place four years ago!  He thinks at that price it will take a few weeks or a month to sell, which would work with our goal of having some time to get the windows replaced in the new place before moving in.  If we are ready to move and still haven’t sold, we can drop the price.  This agency works a lot in our small town (they handled my purchase of the house) so we’re assuming they know what they’re talking about!  Apparently the last few weeks have been very hot and he thinks we can take advantage of that.

Yikes!