The Horsey House has been listed for about two weeks now, and while we’ve gotten some qualified potential buyers through the house, we haven’t gotten a tremendous amount of interest. I attribute this to several things:
- We listed the property a good bit higher than we realistically expect to receive, as we wanted to see if we could get interest at a higher price point;
- The house is located on a relatively busy road, which no-doubt turns many buyers away;
- The house sits about 200 yards over the border from a town that is more desirable into a town that is probably less desirable for many buyers. The cities are actually very similar (neither is better or worse demographically), but the town where this house resides is known to be further from downtown Atlanta, so geographically it probably gets fewer search hits on the MLS.
Anyway, none of this was surprising, and we were fairly certain that someone who didn’t mind the area or the location on a main road would happily pay the price for this house, especially given it’s large lot (nearly an acre) and the fact the house is only 8 years old.
Well, yesterday, we got a call from an agent who had a client who was sitting in front of the house and wanted to see it. Apparently, he had just come from an inspection on a HUD house he had under contract right around the corner. The inspection didn’t go well — all the copper was stolen from the house, the electrical wires were cut, etc. I don’t know if this was a recent occurrence, or if he just didn’t realize it prior to the inspection, but he was backing out of the deal.
We walked him through our house and he loved it. He said his wife would be back in the morning with the realtor to check it out, and if she liked it, they’d likely make an offer. We left some blank contracts at the house and waited for them to see it this morning.
Well, we got a call while they were at the house, asking us to come over to negotiate an offer in person. My wife headed over the house, and an hour later, we had an agreement. Ultimately, they are asking for a lot — much of the furniture, long due diligence period to accommodate their upcoming vacation, lots of seller-paid closing costs, etc — but the rest of their offer is very strong, so we were happy to give in on these things.
There are still a few contingencies that could derail the deal — like HUD refusing to give them their earnest money back on the other deal or our discussion with their mortgage broker not giving us confidence they’ll be able to get this closed — but barring that, we’re hoping for a relatively quick transaction and a closing in about a month.
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