It Started with a Christmas Album
I ain’t e’em WANT to sell my house…
Four weeks before
this was all in motion, we took the girls to the Tanglewood Festival of
Lights. If you don’t know, going there
usually means you will be in your car for 3-5 hours, and this time was more on
the five side of things. With children
in the car, my phone was not to be
the one that sourced the music for the ride.
Instead, we listened to a Christmas album.
I HATE Christmas albums, but this one was jazzy and the singer had--… this
VOICE. I asked the wife person “who is
this?” at least 621 times. She explained
who and then how she knew/knew of her each time I asked, since we were in
traffic with the car in park. The jazzy
sounds and buttery voice had me hooked.
In November, my
last previous neighbors had moved and after prepping the house, the company
that owned it opted to SELL instead of seeking a new tenant. To the surprise of ALL involved parties, the
house snared about $20k more than I thought it should in February. As a homeowner in the neighborhood, I had an
eye on what nearby houses were going for.
When the now-but-not-then wife person moved into my house, we made a
plan that we would jettison the demon of my ex wife a woman I had
a wedding with once by agreeing to sell in five years (my now-wife is obsessed
with fives). With the budding explosion
of a seller’s market, we went to the task of trending OUT of Covid survival
mode and INTO “sell the house” mode.
Flashback to the
Christmas album…
Wife person noticed the singer from said album has been posting on The Bookface
about clients closing on houses. We have
this thing where we BOTH know people who do damn near anything, and rather than
have either of our respective acquaintances feel played, we will choose a
neutral third party. We had a real
estate agent, and wife person reached out at the end of May.
Following Saturday, I come home from the barber shop to a visitor and we’re
discussing options for selling my house and looking into others for purchase.
Problem…
My credit, in the
moment, was not as good as assumed. We
met and conferred with a “specialist.” (quotations for effect, lack of names
for not involving lawyers)
One $700+ lesson later, we learned that we’d be better served to go it on our
own over continued payment to this “specialist.”
Six weeks after
meeting, we were pleased enough with what we knew to go ahead with putting the
house up on a “coming soon,” and we did so on a Friday. The following TUESDAY (yes, 4 days later),
the pretty singing lady has an offer for us.
It is considerably more than asking, and still more than the “we’ll wait
for better offers” level. Part of me
wants to be greedy and wait a week for even better, but the “buyer’s agent
WOULD have been ours if not for neutrality” was overriding and we accepted.
Oh shit, we ain’t
got nowhere to live yet!
Luckily, we had some time…
This market is
BUILT for sellers and is BRUTAL to buyers.
We made offers that I know now were better than what was eventually accepted,
but something under the hood put us behind.
We made some offers that weren’t even LISTENED to, despite the pending
offer that made us cash-enriched coming in.
So what’d we get?
We first viewed it ON my birthday. Seller had moved nothing and it was a
godawful showing. Our agent sang happy
birthday to me and I cried in my glass of bourbon when I got home.
We came back around last month and seller had replaced the flooring upstairs
and painted some. It was better, but
still not for what she asked. We offered
under and she took it, then didn’t complain when it appraised for 12 under
THAT.
The wife person
would say the whole time that “when it is for us, it will be easy,” and the
lack of resistance following the second showing made this so. For the most part, barring some last minute nonsense on the part of the seller it WAS easy.
We get an extra bedroom, to be employed as a “shared” – but really her – office
and I get a garage with which to bring the coupe home to, WITH enough space for
mancave living. Factor in a big enough
back yard for a 19mo old puppy to go out and run in with the kids? Winwinwin!
… and it LITERALLY all started from a Christmas
album… Now it has me on my very first clear-headed night in six weeks on my deck with a healthy pour of Uncle Nearest.
Through the months, I have had to preface messages with “I don’t expect a
response til the morning” or end them with “… but go enjoy your family,” and
this wonderful woman would STILL respond at 11pm on a school night(!!!)
It seems foreign that a business transaction that nets you more cash in one transaction than you have ever seen at once, to turn and spend more than you ever have – while attending to an 85+ increase in your credit score – remains anything BUT “just business,” and that rings true. We don’t just have a real estate agent. We have a new family member. She gon’ have to SUE to get rid of us now.
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