Comments | wolfcaroling: Back to the Drawing Board

wolfcaroling

Back to the Drawing Board

Jun 27, 2009 16:45

So, apparently after 60 days of silence, someone else also decided to make an offer on our house today. We countered by upping our offer to the maximum we can afford, just to be sure, but they went with the other offer.

So... now maybe we look at a highly conditional purchase of the ratty place? I don't know.

I'm not overly upset. It could be because ( Read more... )

Comments 15

bromache June 28 2009, 00:19:02 UTC

Boo! :( But glad it's not hitting you too hard.

This place looks nice! http://www.mls.ca/propertyDetails.aspx?propertyId=8226376 (Again, only a deck, I think. But it looks great and is in the exact same area... Beautiful bathroom and kitchen, updated floors.)

This one looks okay, but is only on one level and is smaller... http://www.mls.ca/propertyDetails.aspx?propertyId=8343383

(You've probably already looked at these, but I'm throwing them out there. Would you be willing to look a bit farther away in Port Moody, or is that the prime location?)

wolfcaroling June 28 2009, 00:33:00 UTC

That first one is sold - they just haven't finished removing the subjects, yet :-) We were going to look at it. I liked the kitchen.

The second we viewed. It was a basement apartment, one level, and very narrow and claustrophobic feeling.

Thanks though.

Port Moody is not prime, but it is cheap. It is as far out as we can go without Benn's commute going over the hour and a half mark.

bromache June 28 2009, 00:49:09 UTC

Figures! That first one looked too good. :P

An hour and a half, eh? Man! I guess that's what it's like in big cities. If we wanted a detached house we could afford, Chris's commute would be about an hour, but I'm also "looking" (just for fun for now -- it'll be about two years before we actually CAN buy) at townhouses, so that makes it much closer. Benefits of Ottawa. I found one I LOVE tonight, but it's just a pipe dream for now. *le sigh* Two more raises, two more raises...

wolfcaroling June 28 2009, 03:08:45 UTC

Yeah, the joy of the city. Of course, by CAR it would only be half an hour. But we're talking transit, and this location is quite far removed from the skytrain, so...

jeanniecee June 28 2009, 12:56:50 UTC

Is your realtor the one who's selling the house? We had this thing happen when we went to buy our house. We had a realtor working with us who was our friend's sister-in-law. Wonderful and very helpful. The realtor who was selling our house was different. She was known as a bit of a shark. Anyway, when we put in our offer, suddenly someone else had also put in a bid and that scared us into upping our bid. Now, it is possible that this is what really happen but for some reason we couldn't get any information about this other bid so we ended up bidding more than their asking price and we didn't get to keep the appliances (after lots of phone calls back and forth, our realtor chipping in some money herself which was lovely and my parents and aunt buying us a fridge and stove). Anyway, I'm not sure if you should let other bidders scare you too much. I have my doubts about whether or not there were other bidders in our case and just how high their bid was. I hope it all works out.

wolfcaroling June 28 2009, 17:26:29 UTC

No, our realtor is not the selling realtor. But we didn't know anything about the bid either - the selling realtor doesn't have to disclose that, so our own realtor had no idea.

poldarren June 28 2009, 14:14:15 UTC

wolfcaroling June 28 2009, 17:30:57 UTC

OOH, you're right - I'd forgotten about the railing! We might add that in as a condition as well. So far, (and we have to check all of these with our realtor) we're thinking:

10,000 dollars back after payment (which we can use for renovations)
New stackable washer dryer or money off of the payment with which to buy it
Damaged walls fixed
professional cleaning

poldarren June 28 2009, 18:31:27 UTC

wolfcaroling June 28 2009, 19:42:24 UTC

Oh, yeah. We know that the post cashback offer is the real offer. We figure we can afford a 215 mortgage comfortably, and their place is ratty and has been on the market for a year, so we'll probably offer 205 plus then minus 10.

And I agree about the bedrooms. Even the linoleum in the upstairs bathroom is tolerable. I'll probably do downstairs laminate/new lino in the kitchen, and possibly laminate in the upstairs hallway, too.

And any extra we can put on Benn's student line of credit. Use debt to pay debt!

orenda June 29 2009, 04:48:39 UTC

Good luck! It looks like it could be pretty great by the time you're through, and a good investment as well. Fingers crossed.

orenda June 29 2009, 06:07:33 UTC

Do you have any interest in looking at low-rise apartment-type condos if they're large and have yards or walkouts? I've been saving links, but don't want to bombard you with them if you've seen everything out there a million times over already or it's just not what you're looking for.

This is my current method of procrastination.

wolfcaroling June 29 2009, 06:54:52 UTC

We want private entry if we can POSSIBLY find it. I hate strangers in my hallways. It wouldn't feel like we OWNED, then, you know?

orenda June 29 2009, 16:54:26 UTC

Yeah, that makes sense. I was thinking that if you had a private entrance from the yard you could avoid using the halls, but I can see not wanting to avoid part of your own home.

wolfcaroling June 29 2009, 19:43:56 UTC

If this last deal falls through, I'll take the links you have to the entrance-from yard places, for sure.