Our Own Money Pit

Posted by Jim on Apr 18th, 2008
2008
Apr 18

Two days ago, Nissa and I put in an offer on a house we really liked.  Yesterday, after a few stressful hours, our offer was accepted.  Come May 16, the house at 301 Lincoln Street, South Portland will be in our name!  It was a close call on our bid though.  We weren’t the only bidder, or even the highest bidder.  We made an offer for the asking price and placed no conditions on the offer that weren’t first suggested by the seller (a seller’s contribution to closing costs and the seller handling the dismantling and removal of an old pool in the back yard), plus a quick closing time of five and one half weeks.  The next morning, we find out through our Realtor that another party placed an offer on the house with an earlier closing date and with a price tag above the asking price.  As Nissa put it, we were sniped!  Luckily, the seller gave us one chance to revise our offer.  The listing agent could not disclose how much the other party was willing to pay, but she did admit that it was an amount greater than our pre-approval loan would let us bid.  Basically, she had all but written us off.  After a stressful discussion of how much we liked the house and how much we were willing to pay, we figured we could still afford a price that was $10,000 over our current pre-approval.  I made a quick call to our helpful representative with Navy Federal and got the increase to our loan in under five minutes.  I guess the snipers and the listing agents didn’t count on the ability of two people with impeccable credit who are determined to buy a particular house.  Our generous offer certainly surprised the listing agent (at least according to our Realtor’s account of his conversation with her), and it definitely pleased the seller.  She accepted it on the spot, without giving the snipers a chance to counter our offer.  I feel a little bad for them, but since this was the third house (out of 20+) we’ve been willing to put an offer on only to have it bought out from under us, we were due for some good luck.  Perhaps we’re paying a lot for the house, but others in this condition usually go for what we’re paying, so I’m not too concerned.  Plus, since the offer got us the house we wanted, I can’t call this amount anything but money well spent.  Now comes the inspections and title research and the like.  It’s going to be a busy month, but come June 1, when everything is signed and paid and Nissa and I are on our back deck, grilling some hamburgers, listening to the Sox, with our dirty dishes in our dishwasher and our clothes in our dryer, I know we’ll both think it was worth it.