Reality Estate

[garnigal]

The past week and a half has been a blur, and the next few months aren't looking much better.

We seem to have purchased a house.

Okay, so it wasn't that big a surprise - we put in three offers on the place before we finally got it. And with three offers, I can't even say it moved that quickly.

But I'm surprised, and it feels quick.

We'd been watching this cute little brick Cape Cod for 4 months. It's dropped in price every month, getting more and more feasible. It finally got under 300K, so I called the realtor to do a go-see.

The walkthrough went pretty well - the house is move-in condition, but could stand some TLC and updating. You can see why a lot of people would keep looking instead of taking it on, but a lot of it is pure cosmetics. It also has a pool, which a lot of people see as a liability, but having grown up with a pool, it's an asset to me. It was also in power of sale (the previous owners had been foreclosed on) and, as D put it "all I can hear is Sale! Sale! Sale!"

I went back the next day with my parents and looked at a few other places as well, just to see what else was in the price range. My folks didn't see anything untoward, so we started talking money.

We really lowballed on the first offer, and were summarily rejected, as were the other people who made an offer at the same time. The bank lowered the price another 10K.

We slightly lowballed the second offer and left the conditions in place, and the bank let the offer expire. There was a second offer this time as well, but as far as we know, the bank didn't respond to either.

We raised the price a little (2K) and removed the conditions. And waited. And waited. Finally they accepted our offer yesterday afternoon. We've been in a state of shock and banking ever since.

Closing date is July 2nd (yes, I know that's soon), but we wanted to get the pool open sooner rather than later, and we aren't listing the townhouse until after closing. It'll be tight to carry both, but it's doable, and will make both the move and the selling process so much easier.

If you are interested, here's the mls listing for the new place.
Link

Comments

[married-n-mich.livejournal.com]

Squee!! You have a house!!! How exciting! Pictures are a must. Good luck and congrats my dear!

*Hugs*

[garnigal.livejournal.com]

Thanks. I'm really excited about the back yard. It's probably the same size as yours, except the pool takes up quite a bit of space. Not a lot we can do with it this summer, since we don't get possession until July, but there are big plans afoot for next spring.

[married-n-mich.livejournal.com]

I went to the website! Beautiful house!!

But I think some interior painting might be in order *g*

[garnigal.livejournal.com]

Definitely. My uncle works for a hardware store chain as the head of sales for the paint division, so hopefully he'll be able to get us a deal, since we're basically painting 2 houses - one to sell and one to move into.

We're also going to put in a doorway between the front room which is currently only accessable from the hall and the back sitting room with the fireplace. That'll give us a circular traffic pattern and make it much easier to use both rooms for entertaining. And we are hoping to put laminate or hardwood in the bedrooms since we've got allergies and have the three cats.

[married-n-mich.livejournal.com]

The Hubby noticed the hardwood floors right away!

[garnigal.livejournal.com]

They were definitely a selling feature. One annoying thing - the flooring in the front room and the sitting room run perpendicular to each other! So when we put in the doorway, it's going to be a bit odd-looking. We'll put in a wide wooden strip to cover the area of wall we ripped out since we can't try to blend them together.

[married-n-mich.livejournal.com]

I have no doubt that it'll look wonderful when you're finished.