Thursday, March 30, 2006

OK, I had to freak out and celebrate last night and talk to the family first. Now, the details!

Let me tell you the story...

On our final visit to the place we put in an offer on, our agent took me on a drive-by of another barn-style house around the corner that was just coming on the market. Seemed OK, but thought nothing of it.

Lost the stupid house on Sammon. Good. Too expensive. It went for about $35,000 over asking. Pretty house, but totally not worth it. No parking, unfinished basement.

We get the listing for the "drive-by place" at 117 Marlow Ave (find it on google maps here). It's listed at more than the place we lost around the corner. And it's cute, so I'm thinking: no chance.

But Alex went to the open house on Saturday while I was out skiing. He loved it and wanted to put in an offer anyway, even though he knew we wouldn't get it. I thought it was a waste of time.

But I went to the open house on Sunday with my mom and thought: the house is OK, but it's totally NOT worth what people are going to over-pay for it. So I just forgot about it.

Well, on offer day, our real estate agent calls to let us know that there were NO offers on the house. Did we want to make an offer? Of course we did! So we offered what we actually could afford and wanted to pay for the place. Under asking.

Yesterday, they made a counter-offer that changed the closing date to June 23rd (90 days) instead of May and asked for an extra $2000 (which is still under asking). Alex and I talked about it and decided it was fair and so... voila! House!

The house purchase is totally conditional on financing (no prob) and a house inspection. To be honest, I'm really glad we've kept the inspection in our offer - many people routinely leave that out to make their offer more competitive. But I'm kind of wary of how easy this was. Why didn't any other offers come in?

There doesn't SEEM to be much wrong with the place, but that could be deceptive.

You used to be able to find out more about the place by searching MLS number E862653 in mls.ca. But it's no longer listed.

House inspection is on Saturday and I'm firming up my financing now.

Holy crap. Alex and I are so excited and amazed that we didn't compromise on what we wanted and got it so easily (of course, I'm ignoring all the hours spent looking at houses and postings).

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

we are verry happy for you and Alex. Finally the big moment has arrived.
So congratulations from Oene and Hennie

Kat said...

Sweet house/great location! Congrats!! It was all your hard work/research/time spent looking that got you what you were looking for. Moving in the summer is ideal and also it's good that you are not closing on the last day of the month. That gives you a week to go in and paint/get carpets cleaned if you need to and you can take some time to move all your stuff in. Can't wait to see it all set up :-)

Anonymous said...

Awesome! Congrats. Nice lookin' house. Good location. Welcome to the club.

Post photos, stat!

Scott

Stephanie said...

Congrats! Looks fantastic! Can't wait till the housewarming :)

Anonymous said...

Congratulations!!!!!!!!!!!!! That's awesome! I was reading the email you sent to me earlier and it totally went over my head that you got a house. I guess that's what happens when you have a baby - your head becomes mush for a while. Anyhow - CONGRATS!!!! It looks perfect in every way. It's funny because when you were buying that house, Josh, Ilana and I were in the neighbourhood having dinner at Astoria and then coffee at this great Greek bakery. Well, Ilana actually had milk. But you probably figured that :)
Anyhow, congrats! I was saying to Josh at the time how cool the neighbourhood is. Y'all done good.
Tree

Anonymous said...

Congrats! The house looks great...and apparently you've got green grass already. Can't wait to see it close up. Great neighbourhood too -- I miss it. Shh -don't tell (my) Alex.

Unknown said...

Oh thank you everyone, for your nice wishes! It means a lot to me!

I'm so excited I could just pop!