I mentioned the other day that the first person to visit The Yellow Stain House was very interested in putting in an offer. She is still working through her financing, and as of yet, we haven’t received a formal offer; but her agent says that if the financing comes through, we will be getting one. This would put us in a somewhat awkward situation, as it would be an FHA loan, and therefore we wouldn’t be able to close until early February.
To add to this weird situation, my wife got another call today from a person driving by The Yellow Stain House, who was very interested in seeing it. Luckily, my wife was right around the corner at The Second Chance House, so she was able to run right over and meet the potential buyer. The woman loved the house, and was very excited about finding it. But, it turns out she is also an FHA buyer (pre-approved) and is not willing to wait until February to close. When she found out that there was no other alternative, she left the house very dejected.
After talking to my wife about this at length, we decided that we’d do what we could to work with one of these potential buyers (if they want to put in an offer). For example, perhaps offer the ability to lease back the property while waiting for closing. Or work with the buyer to do some upgrades that get rolled into the purchase price (so they don’t have to pay cash for these). I very much like to be conservative when selling houses, and if a potential buyer comes along, I’ll do whatever it takes to facilitate the transaction. I’d rather sell for a little bit lower price or for a bit worse terms if it means selling quickly.
Now, my wife is a little more aggressive and would prefer to hold out for a better offer than to jump on the first one that comes along. So, if these buyers fall through, I very much agree with her that we should do minor rehab and raise the asking price. We should probably follow that strategy anyway (my wife is usually right, and it would likely be more lucrative), but I’m glad she’s willing to indulge me on my effort to make it work with one of these first two buyers.
We’ll see what happens…
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