**NIQ**

[Deleted]

Did I miss it in the morning post? What's the story with the houses? Did you like the counteroffer on Ballard house 1 or move on to make an offer on backup house 2 in Greenwood?

[niq]

I mentioned it a little in the GM post, but here's the short version of the full drama at this point.

The crazy seller of the Roosevelt House actually came crawling back to us at a price we could do, because -- SHOCKER -- no one is willing to entertain his highball list price and we were actually the best offer he could find, plus, also: crazy. But then we went and saw this cute house in Ballard that W really liked. I sort of liked it. We both like the Roosevelt neighborhood more but neither of us wanted to deal with the crazy seller. But when we went to look at comps it really looked like the Ballard seller was waaaay overpriced. like, possibly 20% overpriced but definitely at least 10. So we put in an offer at like 12% below list and they countered at about 3% below list.

At the same time, the builders of the greenwood house dropped their price again. This time it went from "X+$10000" to "X-$1000", where X is a multiple of 50,000. This meant that it would show up in a lot more buyers' searches. So rather than continuing to negotiate on the Ballard house, and at best end up with a price where we would feel like we're overpaying, we are just going to go offer list on the Greenwood house. It's dropped over 10% since its original list, which is way more than average for that market. At this point it seems to be priced fairly. We asked them to cover are closing costs and install the remaining appliances, but overall we're within 2% here and they don't have any emotional attachment to the house or a particular price, so I suspect the deal will get done.

The crazy seller's agent was telling him that he needed to lower the price on his house in order to sell, which is why he came crawling back to us. He told us he's going to move his family into new house, then take his old house off the market and rent it. GLWT!

[Deleted]

SFGal + 1 on the Roosevelt guy as landlord. OMG those poor unsuspecting souls!

Wow you've been on a rollercoaster!!

[niq]

May 23, 2012 14:29:07 GMT -5 @sfgal530 said:

Also, good luck with the Greenwood house! Reading about your experience has made me realize how much I will hate buying a house in the future...

Haha yeah, I sort of thought that RE agents were a ripoff and wanted to go with Redfin. I think that still works if everyone wants to get the deal done more than they want the best price (you can still want a good price and do Redfin, but it can't be your first goal). But if either the buyer or the seller is being a real stick in the mud, then the Redfin model just doesn't work. You need someone there to hold your hand and help you negotiate with sticks in the mud.

We found our agent through Estately and she's great. She'll end up getting full price and I feel like she's earned every penny!

[niq]

May 23, 2012 14:28:29 GMT -5 @sfgal530 said:

May 23, 2012 14:26:04 GMT -5 niq said:

The crazy seller's agent was telling him that he needed to lower the price on his house in order to sell, which is why he came crawling back to us. He told us he's going to move his family into new house, then take his old house off the market and rent it. GLWT!

Everything you have said about this guy leads me to believe he will be an *awesome* landlord... I pity those poor souls who move in and rent from him (if he finds someone - I bet he prices his rent the same way he priced his house)...

You know, it is tough with these sellers who bought during the bubble era :/. This guy bought in '04, so he was selling at a small profit -- he'd probably come out even after closing costs, agents' fees, etc. The woman in the Ballard house bought in '06, if she really tries to sell now she'd almost have to sell at a loss, though Ballard is doing pretty well right now. At some level I feel for them, but on another it's hard not to look at the numbers involved and think it's just business. Sorry you got taken for a ride, bro, but maybe you should have looked a little more closely at the data rather than assumed houses would go up in value forever.