Difficult Decisions

This week I had to make a difficult decision to cancel my contract on my new house. The Sales Manager was putting the pressure on now that the house is pretty much done. I could sell my house quicker if I lower the price a bit but if I did that, I couldnt afford the down-payment on my new house. So after much thought and review of my options I decided to cancel my contract now while I could still get my earnest money back. Unfortunately that is only 1/3 of the money that I put into the new house.

I could have continued with an addendum to the contract where they would be able to put the house on the market and I would have right of first refusal. This is where I would have 3 days to either walk away or buy the new house without the contingency on selling my house.

The Sales Manager had already been rude to both of my agents when I first switched over to them. Which is unfortunate since they could have worked very well together not just with me but with other opportunities.

Anyway he was pretty rude with me when he called me to tell me about putting the house up and at one point laughed at me when I asked a question. I told him I didnt appreciate it and that it is unprofessional of him to do that. He also was totally denying that he had told me I would have until July to sell my house. Unfortunately I didnt have that in writing as I thought I did. So I after I drive by the house I saw that the sold sign was gone and that an 'available' sign was now up in the yard. So the next day I called and spoke to his boss and filled him in on everything and after discussing with him and my agents I decided it was best to cancel the contract.

So now I am pondering my next steps on what to do when my house does sell. We thought about lowering the price, but after reviewing the comps in the area; it really is priced right so I will hold off a little longer. There are some different options I am considering for what I will do when my house does sell. I will share those at a later time. :)

As we all know everything happens for a reason!

OMG! Why I dont like cats...

So the day before I was supposed to leave for my cruise. I was in the garage looking thru boxes for a few things and out from behind some boxes runs a cat. Apparently a cat has been hiding in my garage for some time now. My guess is that it had been there for about 4-6 weeks. I am thinking it got in when my agents 'staged' my house and stored stuff in my garage; which had been about 6 weeks prior. About 4 weeks before I had found poop in my garage and assumed it was Gizmo's but wasnt quite sure when he would have done it. Now thinking back I am pretty sure it was this cats. I immediately went over to my neighbors because they had been missing a cat for a few weeks now. Turned out not to be theirs but they have since sorta adopted it. We had a heck of a time getting it out of my garage. It was very scrawny and scared. I have no idea how it survived for that long in my garage.

I will post about my cruise soon. I still have to download pics.

Bummed

I am still bummed from last weekends news on the offer on my house...I was supposed to have a showing yesterday (Fri) from 2-4pm so I came home from work early to get Gizmo and we went to visit a friend of mine. She and her family just moved into one of the communities off the main road to my house. While I was there the showing service called to say that they rescheduled for 3-4pm and it was already 3pm. So basically I had wasted an hour. So I came home after 4pm but it didnt look like anyone had been by. Then at 530pm they called again to tell me that they had cancelled. Bummer!

UGH!

Just when you think you can breath a sigh of relief...

My agent called with bad news today. The people that had the offer on my house had to back out. They are also pulling their house off the market. Apparently there was some sort of medical emergency that was pretty bad which is all he knew.

So I am basically back to square one.

House Selling the Sequel

Four weeks, five showings, and 2 offers later....

Yes I said 2 offers, meaning I got my 2nd offer on my house. Yippee. Of course these things happen when you least expect it. This past Monday as I was leaving for work I contemplated, 'did I really need to put my bathroom items away under the cabinet? do I really need to clean up my dirty dishes from breakfast' Seeing how it was cold and rainy out and no one ever comes to see a house during the week. I decided why bother and off to work I went. Wrong answer!

So late morning I got a message that someone was coming to see my house in the afternoon. I later found out (since my neighbor across the street was home) that they came and stayed for over an hour...AND came back a little later and stayed a long time. Sooooooo by Tues morning there was feedback from their agent on the showing database indicating they would be submitting an offer tomorrow morning. So of course I am on pins and needles all day Tues trying to figure out if that meant the offer was coming Tues or Wed. Turned out it was Wed. :)

So by Wed I am very hopeful at this point...only to be let down by the offer. They offered $10K less and also had a contingency to sell their house. UGH!!! So of course this not good for me. We countered at $151K and no contingency. Well apparently their agent didnt want to go back to her clients with that and was talking to my agent about it. My agent called me late Thurs afternoon and had a new plan that is totally win-win for me. Counter-offer for full asking price ($154,900) and keep the contingency. Worst scenario, I continue to show my house, I can potentially get another offer and when that happens we have to go back to my first offer and they have 2 days to decide if they want to drop the contingency or let my house go to the new offer. So basically I loose 2 days while they decide. :) So of course I am all for this option.

So later that night I am standing out front with a couple other neighbors and notice that some people are looking at the house a couple doors down that is my exact same model even the same brick but the front is a different elevation. I jokingly say I wonder if that is the people that came to see my house on Monday. The next thing I know the agent starts walking towards us and asks if any of us are the homeowner of my house, so of course I say its mine and she introduces herself and asks if her clients can take another look at my house and of course my house is not as neat and cleaned up as it could be but I say yes and they went in and stayed for at least 20 min. I also wasnt sure if they had received my counter offer yet that I just signed off on a couple hours before so I didnt mention it.

I didnt want to get my hopes up since it wouldnt make sense to me that they would want to pay full price when there was another house down the street that is the exact same house. (apparently there are a few upgrades I have that the other house doesnt; as well as it is sitting empty. The house is also listed $100 more at $155K) Oh and the worst part was that when they were back in my house on Thurs night, the punks next door were practicing for their band with the drums playing full force. I thought for sure this would be a deal killer.

Anyway, as this blog gets longer and longer by the minute (word). My agent called yesterday and they accepted my counter offer the only thing they changed was that they wanted my appliances (washer, dryer, and fridge). Totally fine with me since I am getting full price and will have a little bit of money due to that. So Yippee, I am very excited and am hoping they can sell their house soon. They just put it on the market this week, but it is a lot less than mine and has a good chance of selling pretty quick. Oh and they seem to think they can sell by April 30th. What a great date! Oh and one more freaky thing. My agent has a client coming to town next week and is looking for something in the same area and price range as the folks wanting to buy my house. How crazy would that be if that all works out???

PS: My agent had an open house last Sat and only 1 person showed up and they said she barely spoke english...so I guess the Open House was a bust.

I will post more about the new house.

Deal or No Deal?

Answer: No Deal

Last Sunday I had another showing and on Monday that person made an offer. Unfortunately the offer was 10K less than my asking price with a closing/settlement date of 3/10. 3/10 being 2 weeks. So of course I counter-offered. Then they countered again and I had to talk to my loan officer and sales manager for the new house to see if their offer was do-able. So by Wed we were really looking at less than 2 weeks and my loan officer suggested we try for 3/14 since we were less than 2 weeks by then.

So I was able to make one last counter offer (which basically met them in the middle of their original offer) including the date change. We also asked for proof of funds as well as $1000 in earnest money. They originally only had $500 in their offer for earnest money. Their agent is very 'old school' and doesnt believe in the internet so he faxes everything. He also wasnt filling out the paper work correctly.

So by Thurs afternoon, I still hadnt heard anything and was going to call my agent and tell him to pull the offer. I was tired of playing games and needed to know if I was moving in 2 weeks or not since I had a lot of planning to do in order to make that happen.

At any rate my agent called me before I had the chance to call him and said that they responded back (by fax of course) saying they are tired of playing our games and were taking their money elsewhere. So I am totally fine with that; I was tired of dealing with them anyway. Plus I didnt have that warm fuzzy feeling about it.

I am sure the right offer will come and it is supposed to be nice this weekend. Plus we are planning an open house for next weekend. Wish me luck!

House Selling

Wow what a difference a new agent makes! Today I had 2 showings on my house and I have to give credit to my new agent. He created the new MLS (Multiple Listing Service) yesterday and added the one picture of the front of my house with the new price to get it out there and already I had 2 showings. This was an issue that I had with my old agent, she added to the MLS but no pictures were showing. She had taken several pictures but they were not showing up. Unfortunately I was the one that found this at the begining of Feb. It was pretty upsetting to find this out after having it on the market for 6 weeks and to top it off, I had to find it.

My new agent Tommy, also came by today to take new pictures of the outside of the house since it was such a nice day out. He also helped me move the boxes I have packed already to the garage. Tomorrow (Mon) he and his partner are coming back to stage the house.

Here is his website if you want to check him out:
http://www.tommycirtaus.com/

Stay tuned!