Monday, August 11, 2008

Oh what the heck, House #3

"Back in the saddle again"...that's gotta be a country song, right? Why did that pop into my head? Well, anyway, we are jumping back into the process of making offers that get ignored. Tomorrow (after I call the realtor) we will be making offer #3. This time its on the house around the corner. This was the house that has been waiting in the wings, and we kinda considered it a sure thing, until today. We were under the impression that the bank had already approved the listed price (its a short sale). That impression came from, oh, I don't know---THE OTHER REALTOR. Then today she told our realtor that wasn't exactly true, but that she is in close contact with the bank, blah blah blah. They have one very low offer that they are not even considering. And we are so over it at this point I basically had our realtor tell the other realtor what our offer would be to see if they would even "consider" it...sounds like they "most likely" would...BUT...the comps in the area show it to be priced low. Therein lies the problem, realtors pricing it low to get interest, then creating a bidding war, except there has been virtually no bidding on this house. You would think they would take our full price offer w/ a good portion of cash down and run run run away. They are losing money on this house every single freakin day, and will continue to dump money into it once they fully take posession and start a foreclosure process. The point of a short sale is accepting to lose money, but getting it sold before having to foreclose. Do I need to explain this to the banks?

So, the positives of this house:
1) pergo flooring all downstairs (i know its not real wood but its a darn good fake and w/ a husband with allergies/asthma, 2 dogs and a 33 month old WE HATE CARPET)
2) stainless appliances
3) corian counters (i hate grout)
4) upgraded cabinets throughout
5) slate entry and fireplace surround
6) wrought iron bannister
7) gigantic master bedroom (though the closet/bathroom are pretty standard)
8) tile floors in bathrooms upstairs w/ double sink in the hall bath
9) laundry upstairs w/ cabinets and a sink (the sink is now a plus since my child refuses to poop in the potty and I've been cleaning lots of underwear)
10) large loft that takes the place of a 4th bedroom to be used as an office (and since there is no door we can spy on Ryan later when he is older and trying to look at bad things on the computer)
11) in our current neighborhood so we keep the lake/pool/tennis courts/parks we love
12) formal living room that we can still use as a play room and hopefully a game room when Ryan gets older (we so need an air hockey table)
13) immaculate! basically move in ready, but we will replace the carpeting upstairs in the bedrooms for Ethan

Negatives

1) only about 200 sq/ft more than we have now. i'm a bit worried we could outgrow it. there are no plans for more than 2 kids so everyone would have a room, plus the loft office which is big
2) lost a true guest room since the futon will have to go in the loft (technically we don't have lots of guests since our family all lives here)
3) gonna need to plant some trees in the backyard for shade and build some type of patio overhang

Obviously the positives outweigh the negatives, so we'll be making a full price offer tomorrow. I don't want to get my hopes up, but this was our back up house. We've been keeping our eye on this house for a few months. After this, we got nothing. I know the market is supposed to slow down at the end of summer, so there should be less competition.

And Ryan starts preschool in 10 hrs...

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