Real Estate Tales: Part One
Gather around everyone. Today I am going to tell everyone the story of a house. A single house that we have had the pleasure of selling in the past year. I think it is a pretty good showing of how everything is going in this crazy world we have now.
Once upon a time, our house became available for sale. This home was very happy and excited to be part of this crazy new world. Someone fell in love with it almost immediately. The problem at the time was that our home had an additional $20,000 premium since it did not have walls just yet. The premium was done to dissuade people from buying before a certain stage. With pricing going the way it was, our buyer simply did not want to wait. We recommended multiple times that he should wait until it had walls. This way he would not have to pay the additional $20,000 premium. We recommended this since our lovely home would 100% not appraise with this premium, and we would not pay the difference. This man decided that love would conquer all, said that he had the funds to cover the difference, and insisted upon buying it. So, now, our house was under contract. The house had a beautiful time with this person and they went through all the fun of building together. After eight months, the home was nearly ready to close.
Tragedy struck. The appraisal did indeed come in low. Our house was not worried. The buyer said he would cover the difference after all. What did it have to be concerned about? Alas, this was a lie. He now looked upon our poor home with contempt and refused to pay the difference. He was buying with a VA loan so he was able to cancel the contract and get his deposit back. Our house was heartbroken, but we knew it wouldn’t be alone for long.
Along came another buyer who fell in love with our house almost immediately. Now, our house was weary. It had just gone through eight months being promised to one person only to have it all fall apart. Plus, now our home had a low VA appraisal on its hands and those stay with the home for six months. This new buyer, knowing where the price was exactly was, more than happy to cover the difference of the appraisal. You see, despite everything our home was still very affordable for our area. With this new promise of happiness, our house was under contract yet again. Since the home was nearly completed at this point, it would not take anywhere near as long to close. Our home was nervous when the appraisal was brought up again (this was another VA loan you see), but our buyer had absolutely no issues and all was well. We waited patiently for the closing letter, which lets us know the closing date.
It was finally sent and there were cheers all around. Yet, just two days later, our buyer let us know that she was denied her loan and needed to cancel. Up until this point, our home had only heard good things. Our home was surprised & confused and demanded an explanation. Turns out that you should really be able to verify your income when you are buying a home. How this lender did not catch it, we will never know as they were completely new to us. So, yet again, our home was back on the market. All dressed up and nowhere to go. We did our best to cheer our home up, but it had reason to be concerned. You see, since the last time she was sold the community had been doing very well. Very well. Pricing had gone up over $70,000 since the last time this home was last on the market. That combined with its past appraisal issues made it scared. Our home was so worried that no one would love it.
With its new price, our home was brought back into the world. There were plenty who liked it, but many were VA. All VA buyers would have a definite appraisal issue (since they stay with the home for six months and now there were two). So, while they all liked our home, none could come up with $75,000 for an appraisal shortage. Who could blame them honestly? Our house was distraught, but we knew it would not end this way for this home. We were selling other houses left and right so it was only a matter of time. Due to those sales, we got another $10,000 increase which, of course, was added to our home’s price. Our home freaked out and thought, “How can they think I will sell for $10,000 more than last week??? I didn’t even sell last week!!” I admit that even we were concerned about this, but we couldn’t let our home down. We put on a brave face and made sure our home knew it was worth every penny.
Not even three days later, another buyer emerged. She loved our home. It worked so well for her family. We told her the story of our home and she empathized. (Note: She actually walked into the model, marched right up to us, and said she was buying this home. She was a little scary at first honestly. 😂 But, I digress). Our house was trying desperately not to get its hopes up. We explained the appraisal situation and qualifying to our new buyer. Our buyer merely laughed. She said, “$85,000 is not a concern when you are putting $250,000 down on a home.” We had no counter-argument to this. Not a single one. She bought our home, and they are truly happy together. This was the buyer our home had waiting for all along.
The End. 🙂
The time from the cancellation of the second buyer to the third buyer buying was 1.5 weeks. Considering the issues that our home had, this was an incredibly short time.
So yeah. This market is still crazy, and I see no signs of it slowing down right now.
What did you think of Real Estate Tales?
Feature Photo by Mitchel Lensink on Unsplash