It only took a couple days, but we have yet another contract on The Mini House…
I’m not too surprised…we’ve had a ton of interest on this property since we put it on the market last summer, and if it weren’t for stupid mortgage brokers, idiot buyers, and bad appraisers, we would have had it sold a long time ago. Not that I’m assigning blame…if we would have demanded larger deposits from our buyers, we would have made a good bit of money from everyone who couldn’t get their loans closed. So, in the end, it was our fault for not profiting on the previous contracts.
Anyway, back to my point — we have our fifth offer (and our fourth contract) on this house, and hopefully the fifth/fourth time is a charm. The offer is very similar to the third offer in terms of price and terms, with a one week inspection period, and a two week appraisal period.
The buyer will be putting down $1000 deposit, and will need to put down another $1000 by the time the inspection and appraisal periods are complete. The $2000 deposit will comprise nearly their entire down-payment, so hopefully that will be enough incentive for them to stay on top of things and get this purchased closed.
I’ll have more to say next week after the buyer has a chance to complete inspections and get rolling on their financing…
Hey JScott,
I have been surprised at the amount of work (crap) you have had to go through selling the houses. I am referring to agents and banks getting their act together and not having houses that won’t sell. I assumed that most of the headache would be working with contractors getting the properties ready, but that doesn’t seem to be the case from your posts.
Hey Sean –
Contractors were certainly an issue at first, but after about a year, we were able to put together a great crew that is honest, hard-working, skilled, and motivated. So, we were able to get on top of that problem and solve it.
The problem with selling houses is that it’s often difficult to demand that buyers use your preferred mortgage broker, your preferred closing attorney, etc. And every buyer has their own agent, most of whom are horrible. Therefore, when you’re dealing with a different group of people on each transaction, it can be difficult to get on top of things and force them to go smoothly.
The key moving forward will be to make it extra painful for buyers and their teams to slack off (by demanding large deposits). And even if they do, we’ll be happy to keep the big deposits.