Before there was ever the mystery un-blogged under contract house, there were three houses that we tried to buy. Of course, I looked at hundreds of other houses online and we visited several without actually submitting contracts, but there were only three (well, four including our house-to-be) that were worth putting in offers on. Now that all three of these have sold, I thought it would be fun to share slightly disguised MLS photos of them and their final sales prices compared to what we offered. And, of course, I'll give you a little insight as to why we went for these particular homes. The funny thing is that they're almost nothing like the house we ended up with!
House #1
A 2,325 sqft foreclosure (rare for the neighborhoods we looked in)
Pros: Good location, great view, wood floors downstairs (stained carpet up), lots of space
Cons: It is partially down a steep hill (bad for our cycling and running, future kids), not really part of the neighborhood because of the hill, larger than we wanted and McMansion-like, history of water damage because of the sloped driveway, the yard was tiny and not fenced in
List price: $334,900
Our offer: $300,000 The day we made our first offer, two other people came in and created a bidding war. We still weren't sure about the location and didn't want to overbid because of "the war" so went in at a price we wanted to pay. Obviously, it didn't work out for us and we're happy we don't have to deal with that hill!
Sold for: $330,199
House #2
A 1,584 sqft ranch home in great neighborhood
Pros: Location, lot size, great layout including formal entryway, a ton of potential
Cons: we would not be able to move in without doing a ton of structural updates including foundation and electrical work, almost every square inch of the house would need work
List price: $299,000
Our offer: $250,000
This was a solid offer based on the neighborhood comps, but the seller only came down to $290,000. We came back with $265,000 and pointed out the work that needed to be done. He came back at $274,000 and would not budge so we walked.
Sold for: $260,000 Yep. Our realtor said that we probably did all of the work convincing him that he was priced too high and let the next buyer get all of the rewards. It's okay in the end because it was the farthest north that I wanted to live and it needed a TON of upfront work that Nate wasn't especially excited about doing.
House #3
A 2,080 sqft mid-century home on a quiet street
Pros: curb appeal, mature trees, school district and neighborhood (several $500k+ homes), lot size, a ton of potential, newish roof, obviously cared for
Cons: bottom of a hill, not walkable at all, needed a lot of immediate work, parts of the layout were strange- no windows in dining room and small master bathroom
List price: $339,000
Our offer: $305,000 and no counter offer. We then came up to $320k, but didn't feel comfortable going any higher based on the location and the amount of work we would need to put into the home.
Sold for: $330,000
Again, the house we ended up with is almost nothing like the three above! The one common factor among all of the homes is that they're all the worst (read: cheapest) homes in the best neighborhoods. I will say that house #4 tops them all as far as location goes- and it's all about location-location-location!
How many offers did it take before yours was accepted?
Read more...
Posts
