Monday, May 31, 2004
SOLD!! The housing market is simply mad in New England. A two-hour open house on Sunday brought in seven offers on our house -- two of which were not only wildly over our asking price but also had no financial contingency attached i.e. 'tell me when you want to close and I will hand you a gob of cash no strings attached.' This buyer even struck an inspection contingency i.e. 'I don't care what problems your house might have. I am going to buy it as is.'
Who buys a house in such a reckless manner? Try an attractive, recently divorced, smart, thirty-something broker who is determined to marry again and raise a family (so the scoop from my broker who knows her). As an FYI, you are simply doomed to not getting the home of your dreams if you happen to be bidding on a house a broker decides she wants. She has all sorts of advantages the average desperate home buyer doesn't: 1) she can present her own offer personally and so the seller inevitably forms a bond with her 2) she has been on so many home inspections in her life that if she is smart and has done a little homework, she will feel perfectly comfortable striking the inspection contingency (this is huge when you're sitting on a 1920's house with a shaky fuse box). Alas the young family with the one-month-old baby won't be getting our house even so they bid higher. The deal breaker was the inspection contingency which is as far as I'm concerned well worth the couple of thousand extra we might have gotten from the cute little family. Sorry little family.
I am however afraid this very nice broker may have just bought what she perceives as my 'life' as opposed to my 'house'... . Her cover letter to her offer conveyed that she fell in love with our house and all that we had done to it. She wants to raise a family here. She loves our art work. She loves our red dining room. She just loves the whole thing. She reminds me of a customer I had years back when I worked in a clothing boutique. Every month this woman would come in the store and buy two or three outfits in sizes much smaller than what she actually wore. This in anticipation of what she was determined to become. I went off to Europe before I could find out if she ever achieved her goal.
I'm sure the attractive divorcee broker loved the crown moldings, the high ceilings and the period solid-glass door knobs. But I think she loved more the black and white photo of the son and daughter when they were just four and two that hangs in the hallway; a spur-of-the-moment impromptu shot, it looks like a photo original to the Depression Era. The curly-blonde daughter is scowling pouty-lipped with her hand thrust into the front of her pocket. The son smiles ingenuously. Both of their too-big jeans are rolled up at the ankles. You just couldn't pay a professional to recreate such a candid photo. The broker also loved how on the inside of the door going down to the basement are pencil lines that mark the son and daughter's inching-to-adulthood. She loves the hand-drawn smiley face that marks when the son finally surpassed the father in height. She loves that their teenage rooms emanate two teenagers who turned out all right in spite of Anna Bloviation's complaints. The daughter's apricot-painted room is a cacophony of art work, cards, pictures, sea shells, stones, make-up, clothes, and awards. The son is a minimilistic testosterone square of trophies, pendants, books, and a growing collection of beer bottles. The refridgerator is covered full of graduation invitations.
Honey, you are paying an awful lot of money for my life. Our house is beautiful but sits on a busy road. We still have an old fuse box. The front retaining wall is crumbling and the back patio is severely cracked. The beautiful pink dogwood tree in the backyard is dying. But it's yours. Excluded in the purchase price are the hard work, tears, laughs, fights, dysfunctionality, joy and sacrifice that you feel when you walk through our house. Once we leave, this wraithlike essence will fade just as the scent of the son does when he goes off to college in the autumn. If you want all that you must create it yourself. It's not for sale at Home Depot I'm afraid.
Meanwhile instead of everyone in the my family being thrilled with this dream offer on our house, I have to deal with a hubby arbitrarily FREAKING OUT at any given moment of the day ("Our furniture won't fit -- it's going to be awful...-- help me measure this couch") and a daughter overwhelmed by all the changes hitting her right now ("I don't want to move -- I'm not excited about this at all -- I don't like the new house"). The son is quite enthusiastic provided our first priorities include an outdoor bar, an outdoor Jacuzzi, and a deck off of his room. So I need allies. Hence am I flying in via hubby's frequent flyer miles "Paul from San Francisco." Paul is contractor/handyman/interior designer and specializes in mid-century houses. The New Englanders are thinking mid-17th century no doubt but I am referring to the mid-1950's. Paul's job is to create a punch list for each and every room so that I may instill some substance into the innate flimsiness of a 50's-built house which in this case is in need of a hefty dose of Viagra to replace hollow doors, cottage cheese ceilings, and the like.. Then I will say: "Here Mr. New England Contractor. I want you to buy these materials and do EXACTLY this. No not that. This." Additionally a Polish architect who lives in Sweden will be in town visiting this summer. He is in charge of suggestions to upgrading the kitchen and will help with the landscaping. He is thinking an all white and green garden to complement the simple lines of the house. The interior of our house will be explosion enough of color.
Both relish the thought of showing the Talbot's-land neighborhood to which we will be moving what a house should look like. Oh boy. I AM on a strict budget guys...
Who buys a house in such a reckless manner? Try an attractive, recently divorced, smart, thirty-something broker who is determined to marry again and raise a family (so the scoop from my broker who knows her). As an FYI, you are simply doomed to not getting the home of your dreams if you happen to be bidding on a house a broker decides she wants. She has all sorts of advantages the average desperate home buyer doesn't: 1) she can present her own offer personally and so the seller inevitably forms a bond with her 2) she has been on so many home inspections in her life that if she is smart and has done a little homework, she will feel perfectly comfortable striking the inspection contingency (this is huge when you're sitting on a 1920's house with a shaky fuse box). Alas the young family with the one-month-old baby won't be getting our house even so they bid higher. The deal breaker was the inspection contingency which is as far as I'm concerned well worth the couple of thousand extra we might have gotten from the cute little family. Sorry little family.
I am however afraid this very nice broker may have just bought what she perceives as my 'life' as opposed to my 'house'... . Her cover letter to her offer conveyed that she fell in love with our house and all that we had done to it. She wants to raise a family here. She loves our art work. She loves our red dining room. She just loves the whole thing. She reminds me of a customer I had years back when I worked in a clothing boutique. Every month this woman would come in the store and buy two or three outfits in sizes much smaller than what she actually wore. This in anticipation of what she was determined to become. I went off to Europe before I could find out if she ever achieved her goal.
I'm sure the attractive divorcee broker loved the crown moldings, the high ceilings and the period solid-glass door knobs. But I think she loved more the black and white photo of the son and daughter when they were just four and two that hangs in the hallway; a spur-of-the-moment impromptu shot, it looks like a photo original to the Depression Era. The curly-blonde daughter is scowling pouty-lipped with her hand thrust into the front of her pocket. The son smiles ingenuously. Both of their too-big jeans are rolled up at the ankles. You just couldn't pay a professional to recreate such a candid photo. The broker also loved how on the inside of the door going down to the basement are pencil lines that mark the son and daughter's inching-to-adulthood. She loves the hand-drawn smiley face that marks when the son finally surpassed the father in height. She loves that their teenage rooms emanate two teenagers who turned out all right in spite of Anna Bloviation's complaints. The daughter's apricot-painted room is a cacophony of art work, cards, pictures, sea shells, stones, make-up, clothes, and awards. The son is a minimilistic testosterone square of trophies, pendants, books, and a growing collection of beer bottles. The refridgerator is covered full of graduation invitations.
Honey, you are paying an awful lot of money for my life. Our house is beautiful but sits on a busy road. We still have an old fuse box. The front retaining wall is crumbling and the back patio is severely cracked. The beautiful pink dogwood tree in the backyard is dying. But it's yours. Excluded in the purchase price are the hard work, tears, laughs, fights, dysfunctionality, joy and sacrifice that you feel when you walk through our house. Once we leave, this wraithlike essence will fade just as the scent of the son does when he goes off to college in the autumn. If you want all that you must create it yourself. It's not for sale at Home Depot I'm afraid.
Meanwhile instead of everyone in the my family being thrilled with this dream offer on our house, I have to deal with a hubby arbitrarily FREAKING OUT at any given moment of the day ("Our furniture won't fit -- it's going to be awful...-- help me measure this couch") and a daughter overwhelmed by all the changes hitting her right now ("I don't want to move -- I'm not excited about this at all -- I don't like the new house"). The son is quite enthusiastic provided our first priorities include an outdoor bar, an outdoor Jacuzzi, and a deck off of his room. So I need allies. Hence am I flying in via hubby's frequent flyer miles "Paul from San Francisco." Paul is contractor/handyman/interior designer and specializes in mid-century houses. The New Englanders are thinking mid-17th century no doubt but I am referring to the mid-1950's. Paul's job is to create a punch list for each and every room so that I may instill some substance into the innate flimsiness of a 50's-built house which in this case is in need of a hefty dose of Viagra to replace hollow doors, cottage cheese ceilings, and the like.. Then I will say: "Here Mr. New England Contractor. I want you to buy these materials and do EXACTLY this. No not that. This." Additionally a Polish architect who lives in Sweden will be in town visiting this summer. He is in charge of suggestions to upgrading the kitchen and will help with the landscaping. He is thinking an all white and green garden to complement the simple lines of the house. The interior of our house will be explosion enough of color.
Both relish the thought of showing the Talbot's-land neighborhood to which we will be moving what a house should look like. Oh boy. I AM on a strict budget guys...
Comments:
Post a Comment
