I mentioned in a previous post that we are back on the house hunt. Our first offer went in this morning and, whaddaya know, by noon we had a response.
A little backstory here…
We went to view one house, noticed another was under reno, and due to a curious encroachment of a fence between the two, discovered both had the same owner. A quick call to inquire and lo! The reno house was available and they were interested in entertaining an offer on a pre-sale contract.
We were scheduled to meet the agent and the contractor at the house last Sunday, but instead, the owner and seller was there. It was a curious event; she talked too fast (think: Joe Isuzu), made outlandish statements that had my agent and I arching brows at one another (e.g., “Oh, don’t worry about the fence; I own both properties and I can put the boundary for the plots where I want them.”), and generally spilling entirely too much information.
Like, for example, that she wasn’t willing to take under X for the place. Given, of course, in a somewhat conspiratorial whisper as if this should Mean Something to me. She then went on to regale me about how much the renovation was costing her and, of course, that she would only make Y on it, intimating a loss or near it (which, as I’m sure you know, only told me about where I should start my offer if I intended to do so).
Mind you, the first house was nice, but not amazing. The second house has potential, but it wouldn’t set the world on fire. I was looking at it more as a “place to make my own over time” kind of deal and I offered accordingly. I know the area, I know the comps, and I know what a fair offer/bargaining position looks like.
The offer went in at about 10am and as mentioned, my agent called me at noon. He was laughing as he relayed to me that the agent was annoyed, the seller was “offended” and apparently, they thought that what they hoped for the house was something I had to pay attention to or was obligated to attend.
I didn’t lowball the offer; the comps in the area are equally split above and below it. I didn’t even go as low as I likely should have, given the last five years of tax assessments, the fact that the seller bought the property for 90k (flipping the house) and thus, obviously, was lying her tail off to me from the “get go”.
Still, she “is offended” and my agent asked what I wanted to do. My answer? Simple enough, if you know me at all.
I told him to let the ticker run out on the offer and, in the meanwhile, I would send over the other houses on my list for going to see this weekend; let the seller and her agent discover on their own that dreams don’t mean that much in a buyer’s market.
And so it goes… 🙂