House #4: Wow!

After having The Corn House sit on the market for the past three weeks without anyone even looking at it, I’m completely amazed at the activity we’ve had at The Yellow Stain House in the past 24 hours. We had to remove it from the MLS for about two days due to some paperwork issues, and finally got it back up last night. In addition to the two potential buyers from the past two days, my wife has been receiving calls from agents and potential buyers almost every hour since it was relisted.

The first formal offer we received was from an investor, who offered cash at about 20% below list price (without even looking at it). With all the interest in this house, and considering he had an agent that would take 3% of the sale price, I wasn’t willing to come off my list price much, but did make a 5% concession because he was a cash buyer who could likely close quickly. I’m guessing he won’t be able to come up that high, but it’s nice to have at least one formal offer within 24 hours of when it was relisted.

Then this evening, my wife got a call from a college student who was interested in looking at the house. He was looking for a place where he and a couple fraternity brothers could live and renovate over the coming few years, and as he had flipped some houses with his mom in previous years, he was no stranger to foreclosures. So, when he saw The Yellow Stain House, and realized how good condition it was in for the price, he was very interested. But, he also wanted to look at some houses before making a decision. In fact, my wife offered to show him other houses (she might as well get a commission representing him if he doesn’t want to buy our house), and seeing as how I was in the area, I tagged along as well.

We visited two other houses, and it was actually quite fun helping this guy and his friend try to find a place they could live and renovate. In the end, they found a house that is probably more suited to what they’re looking for then ours (a bit bigger), and they’ll likely put in a bid for the house this week (it goes to auction starting tomorrow, and therefore they wouldn’t need an agent for that house). If that doesn’t work out for them, I imagine they will come back to us with an offer on The Yellow Stain House, which would be great. But regardless, my wife and I feel good just for helping them out with their search; even if we don’t end up making a dime off them (now I see why she’s enjoying this so much…she loves helping people).

So, in the end, I don’t know if any of today’s showings (or tomorrow’s scheduled showings) will result in an acceptable offer, but regardless, I’m encouraged by all the interest, my wife is enjoying her new side profession, and hopefully will be able to translate the interest we’ve had in this house into some new knowledge about what buyers are looking for these days.