There are times when I’ve found myself using my writing to sort out some complex issues…and yes, this is one of those times. In advance of our August 1st wedding, Erin and I have decided to buy a house together…because we evidently don’t have NEARLY enough stress in our lives as it is. It seems as if it should be a fairly straightforward transaction, but if you’ve ever bought a house, you know it can be anything but.
Our house is ready to go on the market today. The pictures were taken yesterday, and it should be all over da Interwebs later today. Our realtor feels that, since our neighborhood is currently pretty “hot,” that we should be aggressive in our asking price, and so she suggested a number well above what we’d imagined. She feels certain the house will sell quickly. So all we need to do is just sit back and let the offers roll in…right?
Beyond that, and equally as important, there’s the issue of our search for a new house. We’ve actually found a house in north Portland that we love, and after looking at several others, we’ve decided that’s the house we want. It’s been on the market for six months because of some issues that scare off some buyers but that we frankly don’t care about. After meeting with our realtor yesterday, we put down an offer last night contingent on the sale of our house…only to find out from the seller’s realtor that he’s expecting an offer imminently.
And now the fun begins….
In the Portland real estate market, six months is an eternity, and the house we’re interested in is an investor property. That being the case, now we have to wonder if the realtor is bluffing us in an effort to induce panic and perhaps get a better offer for his client on a property that hasn’t generated a lot of interest. We had to decide if we wanted to take that into account and perhaps make a higher offer than we might otherwise…which is what we ended up doing.
Have I mentioned that I hate poker??
All I want is to be able to sell our current house and buy the one we want. If only it was that simple.
There are two ways this can go: We can get lucky, everything breaks our way, we sell our house AND get the one we want. Or it can all take longer than we’d like and all Hell breaks loose on either end of the equation…and who knows what happens at that point? Anyone have a spare room for two quiet adults and their cat??
The worst part, of course, is that we have no way of knowing what to expect. It seems everyone, including our realtor has told us that OF COURSE our house will sell quickly. This neighborhood has some of the city’s best schools. Not having children, that means nothing to me, but evidently that’s a thing. I hope the conjecture’s correct, we’ll sell quickly, and the house we want- which we’ve taken to calling “our house”- will fall to us in the end.
For now we wait and hope for the best. The offer’s been made, and now we wait to see what happens.
I hate this part of the game. It IS a game, but this is what needs to happen…and it’s driving me nuts.
Stay tuned….
