Maybe it’s fate…
We’ve made some progress on finding a new home for my Tempe sellers. Their house is holding strong in escrow and we’ve visited about 15 properties in our search for their next residence.
Last weekend during our quest, we visited two very similar homes on the same street. The first one was a tri-level with five bedrooms and a three-car garage(perfect for a family with four teenagers like the Bennetts) and a not so fabulous backyard:
The second had the exact same square footage as the previous house, but a much larger downstairs rec-room instead of a fifth bedroom. It still had a three-car garage, though, and nicer, updated bathroom and light fixtures, as well as a backyard with a lovely covered patio:
The Bennetts decided that because the houses were exactly the same list price and they are handy enough to construct the fifth bedroom out of part of the rec room, they preferred the second house.
However, they weren’t quite ready to make an offer (it was the beginning of our search and they hadn’t really seen what else was out there yet) and both houses sold too quickly for us to get a foot in the door.
We continued to look and they began to realize just how perfect one of those houses would have been for the family. Saturday when I pulled up listings for us to go see, another property on that same street popped up, same square footage and everything. It had a little hitch, however. This property is currently owned by a Public Trustee because the previous owners defaulted on the loan. It is being sold without any seller warranties or a seller’s property disclosure statement. The MLS report also mentioned that the earnest money would become nonrefundable as soon as the offer was accepted. On the positive side, the house was listed at $25K lower than the other two houses we had seen. So we decided to at least give it a look.
It turned out to be pretty perfect. It has the five bedrooms and a slightly better backyard than the first (though not quite as nice as the second). They felt really good about the lower price, too (of course). They feel like they could use the money they’d save to really make the house what they want. It looks, from the front, more like the first house, but with a little exterior paint, they hope to make it more like the second.
We looked at three more houses yesterday, but it came down to the bankruptcy house. They decided to make an offer. I’m happy to say that I’m feeling pretty optimistic about this house. I thought that there would be bunches of offers in competing with ours, but when I spoke with the Realtor this evening, he said that ours was the only one so far. He has to fax all offers to the Bankruptcy court in Las Vegas tomorrow morning and they will make the final decision. So cross your fingers that they get to the offers before any others come in and that ours is accepted. I think my clients would be very happy with this home.