December 18, 2008
Dear Everyone:
On the home front…
Last Friday, which I had as another Vacation day,
my Realtor (the one who helped me find my current townhouse) and I took
another look at the three-bedroom, single-level end unit that’s for
sale. And I took more
pictures. She offered to
fill out a blank contract form on the spot, but I said that I wanted to
think about it, and talk it over with “Jeannie”, before making up my
mind.
On Saturday, “Jeannie” and I met at the hairdresser
(it was time for our every-four-weeks haircut) and I showed her all the
"comps" that the Realtor had found that were similar in size and age to
my building. “Jeannie” said
that "everyone" she'd spoken with had said not to pay a dime over
$260,000. When I asked who
"everyone" was, it turns out they were
litigators or
mortgage companies
that have been dealing with
foreclosures.
On Sunday the Realtor called to ask if I'd made up
my mind. I said that I had
and that I would offer $330,000.
She came right over to my house (scuttling my plans to clean the
upstairs bathroom) and began filling out a contract.
After several "Oops’s”, I suggested we do it in her office
instead of trying to do it by hand.
We made an appointment for Monday morning as I had no meetings
scheduled then. I still
didn't have enough time left in the day to clean the upstairs bathroom.
By the time I got to her office, and having spoken
with several people, I had changed my mind and decided to offer
$310,000. (This is exactly how
much my current place was appraised for when I refinanced four years
ago.) We filled out the
paperwork and I signed and initialed lots of pages.
We gave them two days to accept the offer or make a counter
offer. And I finally did get
the upstairs bathroom cleaned.
When I got home last night, there was a message
from the Realtor that she had heard from them and wanted to talk with
me. I went to the post
office to mail some packages before calling her back.
When she offered to come right over, I stopped her as I had a
Homeowners Association Board meeting in less than an hour.
We agreed to meet at her office this morning.
The counter offer:
They can't go any lower than $340,000 (the seller's Realtor had a
song-and-dance about the seller borrowing against the house and needing
to recover enough to pay off the loan; not my problem), the washer and
drier were no longer part of the deal, they wanted me to pay all title
and escrow fees. We politely
declined the counter offer and have tabled the discussion until after
the holidays. If someone
else swoops in and snaps it up, it just wasn't meant to be.
In other (holiday) news...
All of my shopping (so far) is done.
Ditto wrapping. See
above about mailing all the packages out.
The Season's Greeting cards are sneering at me from across the
room, but I have hopes of completing the highest priority ones tonight.
The other night, I was looking into reserving parking near the
We (“Marshall”, “Jeannie” and I) are flying to
Love, as always,
Pete
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