The Severed Cortex

When last I left (yes it was a week ago) we had received an offer on our house. In the worst part of the year to sell a home and at the absolute worst time in U.S. history for selling a home since the Great Depression, we had an offer in eight (ish) weeks.

Let me start off by saying that I don't want to walk away from a deal where I feel I got screwed. I don't want to walk away from a deal where I feel all parties came away equally, although I will settle for this on occasion. I want to walk away from a deal where I feel like I got the best of the other party. I realize that this is a character flaw and a particularly not nice thing to do, but it is the way I am wired. It doesn't matter if I'm dealing for a car or slightly used pork chops. I deal to win. I was out-dealed by the master, one David Gubin, when I was a kid and I swore it wouldn't happen again.
So, given that this was a really crappy time to sell a house, I don't blame someone for low-balling. However, one should not low-ball without knowing as much as possible about the other party in the deal. Knowledge is power and information is king. I wouldn't be in the business I'm in if I didn't believe that. Let's look at the facts. For one, the house had been on the market a mere 75 days or so, which wasn't exactly a real long time given the economy. Second, as I pointed out before, was the simple fact that we didn't HAVE to move. We wanted to move but we weren't moving and scoop shoveling cash into the basement for the new owners. Our buyers neglected to take both these things into account and instead chose to low-ball us because every news story in America said it's a great time for buyers to find deals. That's true if you find someone in pre-foreclosure or you don't mind taking a REO. But our buyers were different. Not only did they low-ball us, they asked for all kinds of things including the refrigerator. I think they wanted us to cook a meal for them and babysit their kids too.

As soon as I received the faxed offer, I picked up the phone and called my realtor. The first question I asked was, "did they ask you any questions about our situation before shooting us the offer?" The answer, sadly, was no. I knew from that point that I had the upper hand in the deal. If you aren't willing to do your homework, your odds of coming out ahead in a deal are slim. I, on the other hand, asked lots of questions about my buyers, and not just the obvious 'do they have financing already'. Yes, I asked that one too. I found out that their house had already been sold and they needed to be out on a certain date. I also knew the deal on the first house they put a contract on fell through, so they were in a bind. They needed a house and they needed someone to work with them on rushing the close date.
Knowing these things, my first instinct was to just say no thanks and neglect to counter at all. Our realtor talked us into at least giving them a counter offer. We countered only slightly off the list price and without all the stuff they were asking for, a sizable difference from their original offer. They countered back only slightly above their original price and asked for the refrigerator again. We said no thanks. They called the next day and asked again if we would reconsider their second offer, giving us the sob story that they didn't have financing to go any higher. We, again, said no thanks. We told them what we would take for it without the refrigerator included and what we would take for it with it included. (Keep in mind that we still have not moved off our original counter price which was near list)

The Thanksgiving holidays passed. Nancy wondered if we had made a mistake by not taking the offer, dreading the possibility that it might be months before we saw another one. I just kept thinking that if they truly were at the absolute top end of their financing, I did them a favor by not putting them in a precarious position. On the Friday morning after Thanksgiving I woke up, looked at Nancy, and said, "They're going to call us today".

I had just picked up Robert in Alton later that morning and was heading across the river to meet up with the family at the Art Museum when the phone call came. We had a deal with the refrigerator included. When most houses were going for 90% of list price, we sold ours for 97% of list price.

And then the fun really began.