Just a quick update after my post from the other day, where I complained about all the issues with our closings this week (thanks for all the feedback, btw!)…
As for the two houses we’re scheduled to buy — The Pine House and The Neighbor House — there is no new information. Neither closing has yet been scheduled, but given the holiday weekend coming up, we’re okay with that. We’ll dig in on these next week.
As for The Poor House, the elderly buyer who appeared to be a lost cause is now just probably a lost cause. The buyer’s agent is still working hard to make the deal work, and the latest request we have is that the buyer wants us to install hardwoods in parts of the house (apparently, he’s wanted this the whole time, but the agent convinced him not to ask us for it).
The concession we made was that we’d get a hardwood quote for what the buyer wants, and would provide an allowance to him at closing so that he can install the hardwoods himself after the house is purchased. In return, we’ve told the buyer that the house needs to close by mid-next-week, or the deal is off. If he decides to go through with the purchase, we’ll lose about $3K in profit for the hardwood allowance, but the house will be sold next week (and we’ll still make a very nice profit). Otherwise, we’ll be able to put the house back on the market next week, and know that we did everything we could to try to make the deal work.
I’m giving it a 20% chance of actually closing with this buyer, but that’s better than what we were looking at last week (and the house is back on the MLS in anticipation of it not closing).
As for The Mini House, it appears that we got the buyer’s agent and the mortgage broker in a frenzy by telling them we refused to extend the contract past next week’s expiration date. They know they screwed up by dragging their feet, and they know that if they don’t get it closed by next week, the buyer will lose her deposit, inspection and appraisal fees because of their laziness; so, things are starting to move on this one.
The appraisal was completed within 24 hours of my discussion with the broker, and the buyer’s agent is convinced we’ll have a closing scheduled by mid-next-week. Again, I’m not confident it’s going to happen, but it appears slightly more likely than it did earlier this week.
That’s all I’ve got…HAPPY NEW YEAR TO ALL MY READERS!
Wishing you and your family the best in 2010, Jason.
Keep up the great work! 🙂
Thanks for the update, it’s always good to see how you come up with work-arounds. Very informative!