Ok, so last month I went to Houston to check out houses. My company's moving division set me up with a realtor who was way better than the last one I had. There are things about him that irritate me, like his limp handshake and his inability to give straight forward answers. He's the kind of person who uses five sentences to almost say what could be said in one. It also means that after 10 minutes on the phone with him, I consistently feel the need to hang up on him. Barring that, though, he's been pretty great. He's actually doing his job and working for the chunk o' cash I'll be plopping in his lap when this is all over.
Anyway, K and I came up with a list of 3 houses that we really liked, 2 of which were built by the same guy. My top choice (and K's 2nd choice) was the builder's home. It was really cool - almost 2400 square feet, 3 levels, 2 car garage, sunken living room. It was listed at $340k, so we put in an initial bid of $300k just to see what they would say. As expected, the owner didn't even want to counter-offer, but my real estate agent managed to coax the seller's real estate agent into countering at $335k. Recognizing that they were playing hard and that we'd ridiculously low-balled them to begin with, we came back with $320k. Again, the seller didn't want to counter. My agent said I should offer a few thousand more and they might accept. However, one of the first rules of negotiating is not to bid against yourself, so I told him that I would not be offering any more money unless the seller counter offered. Again, my agent went to the seller's agent, and the seller countered with $332k. $332! From $335! I told my agent I was insulted, and to put out feelers on the 2nd house on our list. When he told the seller's agent this, they came down to $328. Still irritated, but hopeful, I told my agent I'd think about it, but in the meantime, to still give me the information on house #2. Two days later, when they still hadn't heard from us, the seller's agent called my agent twice, asking what was going on. Then the owner of the agency the seller was using called my agent and told him that they didn't want to lose our deal, so to let him know what he could do. I didn't feel like dealing with it just then, so we said we were still thinking about it. The next day, my agent called and said that the company's owner had called him again, and that if we could send them a signed contract at $320, the seller would sign it. I was so happy about it, thinking I'd finally gotten my house and could now iron out the final details of my move. Alas, it was not to be.
A week later, we schedule the home inspection. The results were not good. For instance, the listing said that the seller had replaced the air conditioner in 2006. Turns out he'd only replaced the coil. There were other things, too. Things more troublesome than misleading wording. Structural issues. So we terminated the contract. That also meant that house #2 was out of the running. On we were to house #3, which is still in the process of being built.
The community in which it's being built has 1 sales guy. One. For a community of over 100 homes. One. And he decided to go on unreachable vacation this week. WHO THE HELL HAS ONE SALES GUY FOR THEIR COMMUNITY AND ALLOWS HIM TO GO ON UNREACHABLE VACATION?! Seriously! Luckily the hostesses (I know, right? Hostesses!) can place holds on properties, so we've done that. We're hoping for a quick negotiating period (shouldn't be hard) and that they'll actually finish the house on schedule. It's supposed to be finished on August 27th, which is cutting it really close. Almost too close.
But! In happy news, K's transfer from Atlanta to Houston went through today! Yay!
Nice sight. I stumbled into your blog from another Armenia related blog. Enjoyed reading it :)
Tony
Posted by: Tony | 10 August 2007 at 08:49 PM