House Hunting Blues
In the past week, I’ve been out with my real estate agent three times and have visited about a dozen homes. Add to that the home listings that I’ve waded through online to come up with just those twelve, and I’ve considered a shit load of houses this week.
There was one home that I could definitely see myself living in, so I decided to make an offer. My agent called the seller’s agent who said they had an offer on the property already. Her reply was to keep us in mind if the current offer didn’t work out. This is how civilized real estate negotiations are handled, but the seller’s agent wasn’t too keen on playing by the rules. He immediately said he would refuse the current offer if we could beat it by X amount. I said I could and my agent had a verbal acceptance of my offer within minutes. We began discussing the offer contract but the seller’s agent called back and said I needed to add another several thousand dollars to the price in order to get the house.
Wait a minute! He had just accepted my offer, and moments later wanted more money. Sorry, I’m not going to have my chain yanked. Either honor the offer you accepted a few minutes ago or go away. So, he went away.
First thing the next morning, the seller’s agent called and said the original offer I made was good enough, so I got together with my agent and put the offer in writing. We only gave the seller 24 hours to respond, thinking that the shorter the time-frame was the less time he and his agent had to try to find a higher bidder.
Twenty-four hours came and went and I still hadn’t heard from my agent. After 30 hours I broke down and called her. She had heard from the seller’s agent who said he needed until the next morning to finish his end of the paperwork, so we should expect an acceptance by morning. That turned out to be almost 48 hours, which was too long. This morning my agent called and said the seller had a higher offer on the table and it was almost 10 percent higher than my offer. Consider my chain yanked once again.
I know exactly how far I can stretch our budget to afford a home; my husband and I are not wealthy people but we live a nice, upper-middle class existence. To have some stranger tempt me with a home in my price range only to try to get me involved in a bidding war is infuriating! I steamed for a few minutes, brooded for an hour and then hit the MLS search again.
Better luck next week.
There was one home that I could definitely see myself living in, so I decided to make an offer. My agent called the seller’s agent who said they had an offer on the property already. Her reply was to keep us in mind if the current offer didn’t work out. This is how civilized real estate negotiations are handled, but the seller’s agent wasn’t too keen on playing by the rules. He immediately said he would refuse the current offer if we could beat it by X amount. I said I could and my agent had a verbal acceptance of my offer within minutes. We began discussing the offer contract but the seller’s agent called back and said I needed to add another several thousand dollars to the price in order to get the house.
Wait a minute! He had just accepted my offer, and moments later wanted more money. Sorry, I’m not going to have my chain yanked. Either honor the offer you accepted a few minutes ago or go away. So, he went away.
First thing the next morning, the seller’s agent called and said the original offer I made was good enough, so I got together with my agent and put the offer in writing. We only gave the seller 24 hours to respond, thinking that the shorter the time-frame was the less time he and his agent had to try to find a higher bidder.
Twenty-four hours came and went and I still hadn’t heard from my agent. After 30 hours I broke down and called her. She had heard from the seller’s agent who said he needed until the next morning to finish his end of the paperwork, so we should expect an acceptance by morning. That turned out to be almost 48 hours, which was too long. This morning my agent called and said the seller had a higher offer on the table and it was almost 10 percent higher than my offer. Consider my chain yanked once again.
I know exactly how far I can stretch our budget to afford a home; my husband and I are not wealthy people but we live a nice, upper-middle class existence. To have some stranger tempt me with a home in my price range only to try to get me involved in a bidding war is infuriating! I steamed for a few minutes, brooded for an hour and then hit the MLS search again.
Better luck next week.
posted by Patricia at
Friday, March 23, 2007
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