Tuesday, July 14, 2009

We got the house!

This morning our real estate agent called to tell us we now own our first house! It was the seventh house we put an offer on so we're so relieved!

Our new house! 3 bedrooms, 2.5 bathrooms, 1,600 sq. feet for $215,000.

It seemed like every house we put an offer in on, somebody out bid us. It was so frustrating because we only looked at foreclosures and banks tend to price the houses very low knowing that they're worth much more. This creates a huge bidding war and drives the price up. For example, my fiance went out to go look at houses and found one he liked (I told him if he was looking without me and found something he thought was a good deal to just put an offer in on it.) He put an offer in on the house slightly above the asking price of $250,000. The house ended up selling (to somebody else) for more than $500,000 in less than a week.

The reason we got the house that we did was because our agent works in the same office as the agent selling the house for the bank. It had just been listed on MLS (Multiple Listing Service) that day. Our agent called up his coworker and told him we wanted to put in an offer. Because they knew each other and had a good working relationship, we didn't have to offer anything above the asking price. (Ok, we offered $100 more, just to give an even number.) She also promised us she wouldn't accept any other offers beside ours to submit to the bank. To top that off, we got our closing costs paid for by the bank, home insurance for a year, pest control and inspection all paid for as well as.

We got really lucky. My fiance's sister and her husband recently purchased their first house. They had also put in offers on multiple homes. Their agent knew the agent (not in the same firm) selling the house and knew that my fiance's sister and husband were offering the highest bid. Unfortunately, the other agent submitted another offer to the bank that was much lower. Their agent said he couldn't believe that the lower offer got accepted but apparently, it's more about who the agent has a better professional relationship with.

My advice for buying a house without going through the hassles we did was to straight up ask your agent if anybody in their office has any homes for sale with your conditions. You're much more likely to get a better deal this way then going with a home listed through another firm due to the fact your agent works with the other agent on a daily basis. Honestly, it's more about connections than how much you can offer.

More to come,
Ciao,
Bella

4 comments:

  1. We have been thinking of buying a house. There are some great deals right now where we are in terms of paying for closing, insurance, etc. Where did you look for a list of foreclosures? I tried googling it once and gave up because of all the junk sites...

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  2. Check out the new post, I answered your question in it! :)

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  3. congrats! What a pretty house!

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  4. Congrats! It's a really beautiful house!

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