House Sale

Lowering the price apparently did the trick. Another realtor called me and said his client really liked the house and wanted to make a full-price offer on it! This morning, my realtor and I waited at my house for the other agent. He appeared, and explained his clients cooled on the offer overnight, and were now prepared to offer $365K instead of $370K. He gave us the offer and went off to leave us alone.

One thing important to me is the closing date, when they would like possession to occur. Their offer gives me until July 4th to clear out, which is perfect - I can have the movers come after IMCdA, which is all I really wanted as far as timing.

My realtor didn't like two other things about the offer. First, they inserted a "neighborhood inspection" clause, which allows them to back out of any offer within 3 days, for any reason. The purpose of this is to allow a potential buyer to scope out the neighborhood, their commute, the neighbors, and change their mind if something doesn't quite add up. Sometimes, this clause makes sense - I had one when I bought the house, because I was moving from Seattle. But in this case, the couple offering on the house lives close by, so my realtor said she didn't think it is necessary and therefore she would ask for that clause to be deleted. Her reasoning was, they live nearby so they should already know the neighborhood. Plus, I wouldn't really know if I sold the home until Monday.

Second, they inserted a "sliding closing day" clause, which said if closing were delayed for reasons out of their control, they wouldn't be penalized, for up to 5 days. My realtor said she had only seen those clauses for new construction, meant to protect against construction delays. In this case, we aren't new construction so she said she would ask for the clause to be deleted as well. Or at the very least, pay me some penalty for each day.

We also split the difference on the price difference. Thus, our counter offer was to sell the home for $367.5K, and have the two above-mentioned clauses deleted. I went off for a run, while my realtor went to meet their realtor at the local Starbucks to hash it out.

After my run, I checked my messages and found that the counter offer was accepted! So, the home selling process is moving right along. They already scheduled the home inspection for tomorrow at 9 am, so I'll clear out by then. The inspection is standard for any real estate transaction - the inspector will compile a list of issues and then I get the chance to address them (fix the issues or offer to compensate).

My timeline now looks like:

• June 13th to June 17th - house hunting trip (exact dates to be scheduled)
  
• June 18th or June 19th - throw myself a going away party :)
  
• June 30th and July 1st - movers come to pack and load my stuff
  
• July 1st or July 2nd - fly out