Thursday, May 17, 2012

Sold, Not Sold, Sold, Not Sold

In the adventures of selling a house I call foul. Last week I thought my house was sold, this week ... it's not. The person who put in an offer changed their mind after the inspection which apparently found nothing major wrong (okay, so the bathroom door doesn't shut properly, if you live alone ... who cares??) According to the realtor there was no real reason for the change of heart, the prospective buyer just thought the minor things that needed doing weren't worth moving into. Fair enough but I have learned a few lessons from this.

When an inspection is done I'm going to put a time limit on how long they have to decide to take the house or not. This woman had the inspection done at noon on Monday, asked for a couple days to think about it and didn't make a final decision until Thursday. I spent 4 days in a high state of anxiety and I won't make that mistake again.

And when another offer is made on this house my lowest price is going to be higher. The only reason I accepted lower than I intended was because the quick sale was convenient for me and meant I didn't have to have people in and out of my house on multiple occasions. Packing up the dogs and disappearing for an hour is inconvenient and having that situation removed was worth something to me. My realtor definitely thought I should not have accepted so low an offer and I think is quietly pleased that it will now likely sell for what it's worth.

It also means that if this person who put in an offer ends up coming back and wanting it again, the price is higher for her too. I am not putting up with that kind of bullshit twice and now I know what kind of crazy she is, and trust me, I've dealt with a lot of crazy lately, if she wants the house, she has to pay.

Added to which there is some bullshit waste treatment charge that the town automatically skims off the top of every house sale - $1600 plus tax. That's almost $2000 off the price of my house I have to account for when considering offers. It's a one time charge for every house in the town so it's only applied to the first sale of that home since the implementation of waste treatment plant. It extra sucks because I intend to move out of the town and I will never benefit from the plant's treatment of waste sewage. You know, for a town that is struggling to keep people from leaving you'd think they'd try to avoid this kind of nonsense.

My house has been really good to me, it has a good energy and I don't want someone with bad mojo moving in here. I want someone who will see it as I did, and love it as I do. Maybe not for the same reasons but at least to recognise that it's not just property but a home. I have worked very hard(and so has my Dad!) to make this place something to be proud of and I will not have someone cheapen it. So, onward to house showings and the adventures that come with it!

1 comment:

  1. People are weird when it comes to house buying. We ran into this when we were shopping. There was a particular family that was house hunting and they'd slap offers on things to keep other buyers away while they dithered and then they'd walk away. Its not fair to people with honest intentions of actually pursuing the purchase. Whilst I like my house for the most part, now there are changes coming up that make me regret our hasty purchase. Namely that the boys will be changing schools due to the junior high being torn down to build a new primary to 8 school. We stayed in NG because of school and the kids friends. Now they will be bussed gods know where and we could have bought something we really WANTED rather than something that we thought we were going to need. grrrrrr No homestead in the country for me, thank you school board.

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