OK I only skimmed the first line of my last post in March ... and I am just all over the work stress ... ya know it is just a job ... it is how I made money to do the things I love in life ... for as much as I actually care all the sales reps can hate me ... makes no difference to me ...
What has really been going on is we have been looking for a house for-ev-er ... it is such a draining task I can hardly believe it ... and anyone who tells you it is fun is either A) lying or B) crazy ... there is nothing fun about it ...
My time throughout the week is spent looking at listings online ... Saturday morning I got to Starbucks ... get a huge coffee and the Sunday Washington Post ... then I read the open house section ... after I circle the ones that sound promising I try and look them up online see if there are any pictures or descriptions and price ... then I look up the addresses online ... if the picture /description/price looks good I map out our route ... usually sometime on Saturday we try and drive by the ones we plan to see during the open house on Sunday cause the street the house is on can knock it out of the running ... sometimes we meet our agent at the empty ones so we can go ahead and look at them ... then I come home and change up our route according to how we liked them or didn't like them on the drive-by ...
Then Sunday we go and get coffee and are sitting in front of the first open house by 1 PM when they open ... and spend the next 4 hours driving around looking at houses ... if we are lucky enough to find one we think we can fix up we then start talking to the agent about writing the contract ... on the hot sellers the contracts go in sometime during the week and on the day they decide which one they will accept we are a nervous wreck waiting to find out if finally ours was the best bid ...
so far we haven't been the best bid ... we've had the best contract ... but never the most money ...
The first house we bid on we were actually pretty disappointed when we didn't get it ... I think we both thought somehow it would happen ... turns out we were 4th out of 12 ... the house was in a shambles ... but it followed our rule ... the crappiest house in the best neighborhood we can hardly afford ...
This weekend we found another house we like ... it again is in a neighborhood we can't really afford but the house needs a ton of work so the selling price is lower than those in good condition ... we have to submit our contract by Tuesday at 5:00 PM ... they are meeting on Wednesday at 8:00 AM to decide ... I am learning to not get my hopes up too high ...
We saw this one on Saturday with our agent and my dad ... the house is empty so we could really hang out and check everything out ... then today while David was golfing I went around and saw 5 houses and finished the day with seeing this one again and to get a look at how many people had signed in to check this one out ... there weren't as many people looking at the house as the first one we bid on but that doesn't mean anything ... contracts could come out of the woodwork ...
see in the DC area there is an asking price but it is rare the seller gets that ... they usually get more than they are asking ... the open house is the first weekend it is on the market ... then the selling agent usually takes contracts (if there is a lot of interest) on the Tuesday after the open house ... when you write your contract you put in your starting bid and then how far up you will escalate that bid to against other contracts ... the seller checks out the terms of each contract and then escalates the bids till they reach the highest price for each of the contracts they are interested in and then they decide which bid they will accept ... the seller can make one counter offer to one bidder and if the bidder accepts the counter the house is theirs ...
having the least amount of contingencies is the best way to go ... our contract has none ... we don't have to sell our current place to buy this one ... we don't need an inspector to come out ... we'll take the place "as-is" ... we don't care what it appraises for ... we'll close in 14 days ... and we are offering cash ... you would think with all that someone would pick us even if we weren't offering as much money ... but alas that hasn't been so ...
So again ... this Wednesday ... I'll be a wreck waiting to hear what happens ... and how many people bid ... we never know what the highest offer is until the sale of the house is complete
I'm going to keep my fingers crossed again cause this house has tremendous potential ... but I am not going to start planning what I'll do to it until they accept my bid ... :)
