And up the the last hill of the roller-coaster...

[jducoeur]

Well, that was gratifyingly quick. After a month or two of cleanup on the old house (fixing the most egregious problems with the wood, repainting and recarpeting the interior), we finally formally put it on the market last week, and got two offers today. Neither for quite as much as I would like, but both within the range I was expecting -- I think we hit the correct price point for a quick sale, as we were hoping.

Fingers crossed that this goes smoothly. One of the offers seems appropriate: motivated and experienced buyers who are looking for a fast and easy process themselves, and don't seem any more into haggling details than we are. (Among other things, they're explicitly okay with junk left behind in the attic, which saves us a minor hassle.) If that goes well, we may be done with that last big step of the move in under six weeks...

Comments

[elizabear.livejournal.com]

I'm not too surprised - townhouse condos around here are going for more than your asking price, and starter-price homes in this city are few and far between.

Hope everything goes smoothly!

[cellio]

That's good news. Congrats!

[pamelina.livejournal.com]

Congratulations. Are the experienced buyers offering the higher price? Did you counter-offer? Or do you just want to be done with the hassle?

[jducoeur]

Actually, the experienced buyers offered a slightly lower price, but were more straightforward about it. The others offered $8k more, but demanded that $5k be returned to help with closing costs -- that does nothing at all to make me confident about their ability to finance the house.

The listing agents actually did a sotto voce round of counter-offer before we got involved, I gather. It appears that the initial offer was simply too low, and the listing agents made noises to the effect of, "I'm sorry, but we *know* they won't accept that". So the buyers upped their offer by ten grand, which brought it up to the bottom end of our target range.

The claim is that that's the most they can afford; I don't know whether that's true or not, but they've offered a number of minor concessions to make the process smoother (like explicitly not making us clear out the final junk), which makes me considerably more sympathetic to their offer. Given that the net of the two offers is only $3k difference, I'd rather go with the better-smelling one...

[pamelina.livejournal.com]

Ah, I understand. Have you told the perfumed offer people that you've got a higher one (by 3 grand), and ask them to meet it to get the deal?

[cvirtue.livejournal.com]

The claim is that that's the most they can afford

Hmpf. Suuuure.

Follow your instincts.

[hungrytiger]

Any sense as to whether they actually want the house as a house, or if they're planning on improving/gutting/demolishing it and flipping the property?

The way things are going in Stoneham these days, it wouldn't suprise me at all for someone to want to do that with our place when we finally put it on the market.

[jducoeur]

We're not certain, but if it's the people I think it is, they are actually looking to live in the place, at least for a while. There was a couple that seems to meet the description of the buyers, who stopped by for a few minutes while we were packing stuff. They are apparently former Waltham residents in their 50's, who have moved back to town to tend to his mother. They're currently living *with* the mother, and seemed pretty desperate to get a place of their own.

But yes -- we've been giving it even odds that the house might be bought by a flipper. It's a good candidate for that: my guess is that someone could put $50k of work into it and gain $75-100k of equity. If someone wants to take on that particular hassle and risk, they're welcome to it -- msmemory and I are pretty clear by now that it's not our cup of tea...

[hungrytiger]

M & I briefly discussed remodeling vs. moving and decided that it's not our cup of tea either.

I noticed in the new Newsweek that there's an article about a therapist who specializes in helping couples deal with the stress of remodeling. I thought that was a telling sign.

[jducoeur]

Yaas. We might do that someday (we are vaguely contemplating the idea of extending the bedroom, similar to the way the living was added on), but probably only for a well-defined project like that. And that's starting from a base that works for us, in a house we care about. We stopped caring so much about the old one years ago, and I'm afraid that shows...

[msmemory.livejournal.com]

Have you started looking at moving, again? There are other places up near ours, not as pricey, and we'd be happy to have neighbors we know.

(Push button for commentary on Burlington realtors and real estate attorneys :)

[hungrytiger]

We're in the idle discussion phase. We think about it but aren't really trying to get any traction going.

One of our concerns though is that we'd probably want to move closer in, not farther. Our commute into Cambridge is long enough already (remember that little M takes that daily ride with us as we drop her off at day care). Any time we could shave off the commute is more time we could spend with her at home and that would be a big plus.

OTOH, moving closer into town is also hard because, if we want to go anywhere with acceptable schools, it gets very expensive, very quickly. And so we end up thinking in circles.

[(Anonymous)]

Is it:
"Pass the sotto voce on the left hand side"
or
"Pass the Dutchie on the left hand side" ?

-(Musical Youth)

:)
(oh, Eric)

[goldsquare.livejournal.com]

Good news!