I'm here to buy a house...and I've brought my own Vaseline!
OK, I can tell you now that the exclusive neighborhood was in Winter Park. I can tell you because Jo and I didn't get the house.
This was actually our first official offer on a property. We had one aborted attempt before this, but this was the first one that had a number figure on it with our name at the bottom.
I don't know what housing is like where you are, so I'll set the scene for you. Jodi and I are standing in a well-manicured yard of a charming 3/2. It's a shade under 1550 square feet. It has a two-car garage, which we want. It has a large kitchen, which we also want. It does not have a dining room...but we'll live with that. The neighborhood seems quiet. The house backs up to a tract of planned greenway that will never be developed.
The asking price is $236,500.
When the people in rural North Carolina get done laughing, I'll continue. I know you folks can buy a two-story, brick 4/3 for that price with true dens and foyers included...but it snows in Carolina, so you've got some built in suppression of the demand. I may be renting, but "winter" here is the week-and-a-half in January when the temperature drops down to the 50s.
Ahh...no more laughter, I see. Back to the story, then.
You may remember another couple was at the house as well. Jodi and I had to separate ourselves from the two sellers and the competition so we could talk. Pretending to look at the back yard, we slyly turned to each other and mouthed the words "$250."
"Wait a minute," you are probably saying. "Fourteen-and-a-half ABOVE the asking price? You people are confused. The goal is to start LOWER than the asking price and work your way up." Yeah, well...welcome to Orlando, bub.
Still, that is a hefty sum of money above what the owners said they wanted. This wound up being our downfall. Naturally, no one wants to spend more than they have to. No one wants to get taken for a sucker. In the day or so that followed, we talked ourselves down. We stopped listening to our gut and listened to our realtor, looked at the comps, forgot that we knew what we were talking about. We offered $240,500 and made sure our realtor told the sellers that if there was going to be a bidding war, we wanted in. That may seem like a stupid thing for a buyer to do, telling the seller "Hey, I'd LIKE to pay this, but really I'll pay a LOT more." What can I say? The rules stopped applying here months ago.
There was no bidding war. The sellers, for whatever reason...probably something as simple as not being mercenary, took an offer for $245K and stopped the madness.
What we take away from this experience:
-We've been doing this for at least 2 years now. We know what houses are worth, regardless of what a realtor or computer tells us.
-We're never going to hit the number right on the head. Sure, our offer of $250 would have been $5K more than the next highest offer, but really, how close can we hope to come to the ideal number? If I could predict human nature well enough to have offered $245,500...I'd already be making a killing in the stock market and could buy whatever flippin' house I wanted.
-We may have to start thinking even further outside the box than we currently are. Like finding a way to create a massive drop in demand for houses in Florida. Like creating sinkholes...no, wait. That's been done. A water shortage! No, currently being done...it has no effect.
Hmmm.....perhaps if I could find a way to make it snow.
This was actually our first official offer on a property. We had one aborted attempt before this, but this was the first one that had a number figure on it with our name at the bottom.
I don't know what housing is like where you are, so I'll set the scene for you. Jodi and I are standing in a well-manicured yard of a charming 3/2. It's a shade under 1550 square feet. It has a two-car garage, which we want. It has a large kitchen, which we also want. It does not have a dining room...but we'll live with that. The neighborhood seems quiet. The house backs up to a tract of planned greenway that will never be developed.
The asking price is $236,500.
When the people in rural North Carolina get done laughing, I'll continue. I know you folks can buy a two-story, brick 4/3 for that price with true dens and foyers included...but it snows in Carolina, so you've got some built in suppression of the demand. I may be renting, but "winter" here is the week-and-a-half in January when the temperature drops down to the 50s.
Ahh...no more laughter, I see. Back to the story, then.
You may remember another couple was at the house as well. Jodi and I had to separate ourselves from the two sellers and the competition so we could talk. Pretending to look at the back yard, we slyly turned to each other and mouthed the words "$250."
"Wait a minute," you are probably saying. "Fourteen-and-a-half ABOVE the asking price? You people are confused. The goal is to start LOWER than the asking price and work your way up." Yeah, well...welcome to Orlando, bub.
Still, that is a hefty sum of money above what the owners said they wanted. This wound up being our downfall. Naturally, no one wants to spend more than they have to. No one wants to get taken for a sucker. In the day or so that followed, we talked ourselves down. We stopped listening to our gut and listened to our realtor, looked at the comps, forgot that we knew what we were talking about. We offered $240,500 and made sure our realtor told the sellers that if there was going to be a bidding war, we wanted in. That may seem like a stupid thing for a buyer to do, telling the seller "Hey, I'd LIKE to pay this, but really I'll pay a LOT more." What can I say? The rules stopped applying here months ago.
There was no bidding war. The sellers, for whatever reason...probably something as simple as not being mercenary, took an offer for $245K and stopped the madness.
What we take away from this experience:
-We've been doing this for at least 2 years now. We know what houses are worth, regardless of what a realtor or computer tells us.
-We're never going to hit the number right on the head. Sure, our offer of $250 would have been $5K more than the next highest offer, but really, how close can we hope to come to the ideal number? If I could predict human nature well enough to have offered $245,500...I'd already be making a killing in the stock market and could buy whatever flippin' house I wanted.
-We may have to start thinking even further outside the box than we currently are. Like finding a way to create a massive drop in demand for houses in Florida. Like creating sinkholes...no, wait. That's been done. A water shortage! No, currently being done...it has no effect.
Hmmm.....perhaps if I could find a way to make it snow.
posted by Bobbie Mac at 4:12 AM
4 Comments:
Aww... sorry you didn't get the house. Snow won't work. Have you seen housing prices in Massachusetts? My very head explodes at the thought.
I know the northeast has been expensive for a long time now. Part of our problem here is that people are selling their 4ooK/500K homes there and buying 200/300K homes here with CASH!
ouch.
Thanks for stopping by. I enjoy your blog.
This post has been removed by a blog administrator.
BTW, thanks for stopping me before I dumped all that research into weather control.
: )
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