Friday, January 14, 2011

We Got an Offer on the House!

Imagine my surprise this morning when I checked my email and found we had a offer on the house!

Oh no…we just reserved a campsite for February!  When will we learn!  Oh no…we don’t want to go back to Georgia until it warms up.  Oh no, we should have sold way more stuff!  Okay Karen, just read the email first and panic later!

After reading the email completely, I don’t think we have a problem.  It’s $40,000 lower than our asking price.  It’s actually insulting, but I know how those things work, so I’m trying not to get my berka in wad (as Al would say).  I’m not even sure they have their financing approved yet and it’s with FHA, which can be a real PITA.   Our Realtor wants us to decide our bottom line walk away price so that  we can make a reasonable counter offer.  They want to close February 24th, if we accept the offer.  We don’t want a contingency based sale.  I don’t want to go back up there, sell everything we have, and then find they can’t get the financing approved.  I guess we’re not desperate enough, but we want a sure thing before we go through all the effort.

So in the meantime…I plan to do some cabinet cleaning/organizing today.  I have a big pantry that holds tons of stuff, but it’s not organized right and I can never find anything.  Al is working all day, so I’ll be stuck here without a car.  I walked to the Laundromat yesterday and did two loads of laundry.  I’ll probably do more today.  It’s not too far of a walk.

It was sunny and cool yesterday, but since we’re in a sunny spot, it was nice and warm inside the motor home.  The cats found themselves a nice warm sunny window and spend the day snoozing, as usual.  Al said he about froze all day long because of the wind, but we were nice and warm.  I think the worst of our cold front is over and it’s going to be a nice week-end.

We haven’t done anything fun lately to take pictures of, so I thought I’d post a few older pictures.

This is a day trip down to the Boca Grande area (west coast of Florida, south of Tampa).  The water was very pretty and clear that day.

 

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lighted pier

The next few were taken at SeaWorld a few years ago.

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I guess we need to get out and do something fun so I’ll have some current pictures!

12 comments:

  1. We hope the people are not jerking your chain on buying your house.

    Travel Safe
    Dawn & Denise

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  2. I hope your house sale goes well.
    With this economy we gave up trying to sell our house in Michigan, for a while anyway.
    We can't afford to just give it away, so we'll continue to be part-time snowbirds.

    Love the dolphin and fish pics! (one of my favorite subjects)
    I'm hoping to visit the Texas State Aquarium soon. I hope they allow cameras!
    - Mary Ann :-)

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  3. Hi... saw you on anothers comment and realize you must be close to us since you mentioned the RV show in Tampa... We fulltime and are from the Palm Harbor area north of Clearwater. I am adding you to my favorites and hope you come over to visit my blog too...
    Have fun & Travel SAe
    Donna

    ps... Good luck with the sale of your home

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  4. I guess you have a big decision to make on the sale of your house. I think the Realtor's advice is good though - decide on your sell price and then stick to it, maybe let the Realtor deal with the strategy after that.

    Nice beach pics!

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  5. Well, you can always counteroffer back and see where they stand. Perhaps their lowballing was seeing if you were desperate or just bargain hunting.

    Good luck!

    ~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
    Karen and Steve
    (Our Blog) RVing: Small House... BIG Backyard
    http://kareninthewoods-kareninthewoods.blogspot.com/

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  6. The counter offer should tell you how serious these people are. Many realtors recommend low balling the first offer to see how desperate people are to sell and in this market many are. What they come back with on the counter offer may be a better indicator of their desire.

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  7. whew! at least it sounds like you have all your ducks in a row and are ready for whatever comes of this. Good luck! My house has come down another 40K (the one in Klamath Falls that my kids are living in) in the last year. If they ever buy it they are going to get a pretty good deal!

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  8. We made the decision that when we accepted an offer, we wanted to have one week after closing to move out our stuff that was left. We did not want to empty out the house and go to closing only to find out there was a problem at he buyers end.

    It made for some extra work but eliminated some of the stress about the buyers. We were told that in this market it is not that unusual for the buyer just to be a no show at the closing.

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  9. Thats why we have agents. To run the numbers back and forth. A fair market value is defined by what a willing seller with accept from a willing and qualified buyer.

    Be strong.

    Don't give away the property if you don't have to!

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  10. Good luck with the offer. I hope you can counter with something they like and work out all the details so you can be full-timing and enjoying life.

    Love the pictures. The beach shot is beautiful and I love the one of the dolphin. They always look happy!

    Kevin and Ruth
    www.travelwithkevinandruth.com

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  11. Those were some really great photos.

    I feel your pain with that house offer. We had a couple of those low offers and didn't even respond. Those type offers are insulting. I'll be anxious to hear what you decide to do next.

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