Wednesday, March 04, 2009

Real Estate Timeline

Despite what we were told would be a very very sluggish market, things have been fast and furious for us on the home buying front.

1/21: Agree to list house with realtors
next two weeks: de-clutter, freshen up some paint, obsess about cleanliness, browse MLS listings for the neighborhood we want to move into.
2/10: House goes on market
2/13-16: In addition to the realtors' open house on the 16th, five different people come through the house in the first week.
2/17: We get, and haggle, and finally reject our first offer.
2/21: Despite positive early returns, obsessive HGTV watching leads me to believe that we must do scads of home maintenance (including swapping out all the hardware in the kitchen, repainting the kitchen, cleaning up several lingering projects in the yard, etc.) and invite friends over for brunch and labor.
2/22: Open House. it snows. Two people come through in two hours.
2/23-26: No activity on our house.
2/26: We go house hunting, find a few workable palces, and one place we love, for sale by owner
2/27 2pm: We put an offer on for sale by owner, despite some signs that things might be a little flaky. Still, we send many friends emails asking for good jujus on selling our house.
2/27 6pm: Earlier offer on our house comes back much closer to our acceptable range.
2/28: After a sleepless night and a bit of haggling, we accept offer on our house, after only 18 days on the market. No word yet on home we've bid on.
3/1: Still no word.
3/2: Still no word: contract as written expires. Seller --may be a bit drunk--calls realtor and says he has to talk to family and accountant. says he will be in touch next evening.
3/3: No word.
3/4 10 am: Our realtor calls seller, suspicious of seller's reliability. Seller says, "Pretty sure we can make it work," talking to accountant at 2pm.
3/4 2:17pm: still waiting. Send more good jujus.
Update:!!!
3/4 6:45pm: Sellers agree in principle to slightly reworked offer, and will sign by Friday when we do walk-through to specify work to be finished. Not a complete sigh of relief, but breathing MUCH easier!

3 comments:

Sisyphus said...

:)

crosses fingers...

Horace said...

Thanks! it seems to have worked...we've got a verbal agreement, to be signed upon this week...

Poet said...

Your tthe best