bjornolf wrote:ArkieDukie wrote:It's been a whirlwind few weeks. First off, as of a week and a half ago, I no longer own my old condo (yay!). On the day that deal went through, I found out that the appraisal for the property I was trying to buy here came in $20k low. The buyers wouldn't budge on their price, and I couldn't/wouldn't make up the difference, so the deal fell thru. Not a bad thing, since the other property is out of the way, so I started looking again. Didn't take me long to find this gem:
http://www.har.com/37-lebrun-ct/sale_35042750. Based on my realtor's homework on comps, it is overpriced. I negotiated them down a bit and am now officially under contract! Hopefully the appraisal will be good this time, since I'm supposed to be out of my apartment by Aug 1. I love this house. It has a grapefruit tree in the yard!

The other big selling point is that there is room for company! It is huge for just me, but it will be nice to have the space.
Great house! Congrats! I love Galveston! The truck makes it, though. Now you need to get one.

As of yesterday, house go bye-bye. There were some good reasons. On Monday, just before meeting with a contractor to get an estimate on repairs, I got a call from my realtor. Apparently the owners had gotten a cash offer for the house that they really liked, so they were not going to be receptive to any requests for repairs.

When I showed up at the house, the contractor was already there. Apparently the owner was there when he arrived. He got pretty snotty with the contractor, once he said why he was there. Told him to find a long list of repairs because they really wanted out of the deal with me.

Jerk. Contractor's estimate wasn't too bad, so I was thinking I might have 2 letters for the owner and his cash buyer. Then comes the estimate for the broken windows, and it is NOT cheap. Couple that with an active termite infestation and the fact that the AC has been out in the house for 2 weeks, and I decided to bow out. A big part of me hopes that the cash buyer gets an inspection and estimates and also backs out. It would be great karmic justice.
Since I must be out of my apartment by the first of August, I'm going to look for a place to lease. I'm done with the local real estate market. When you have people knowingly listing at well above appraised value, and crazy people willing to pay - and getting into bidding wars, the market is just too crazy for me. I'll wait for the prices to crash like they did the last time this happened.
Most people say that is it is the intellect which makes a great scientist. They are wrong: it is character.
-- Albert Einstein