A buyer reached out to me by email some months ago with the subject line, “Help! I need a real estate agent!” I met the buyer, Edward, instantly decided he was lovely, and we both signed a buyer broker agreement, committing to work together to find Edward a house to buy. Edward is a lawyer so he applied and he received a 3 month loan commitment from Citi Private Bank for 5.5% interest 30 year fixed 10% down.
About 3 weeks after we met, Edward and I found a house we thought it might be interesting to buy. The house was on the market for some time and it was clearly priced too high. We asked the agent what price would make the seller accept an offer. We followed the agent’s advice to the tee and we wrote the agent’s suggested number, getting reassurance that the seller had countered a different offer with this price so offering the seller a price she already countered another buyer was a slam dunk to getting an accepted offer. To our surprise, the seller countered back asking for 30,000 more than our offer price. We decided to pass on the house, and the listing was withdrawn because the seller decided she didn’t want to sell her house after all.
About 3 weeks after that experience, we found another house that would be awesome to buy. This house seemed to be priced too low, and so we decided to offer 300,000 over the asking price, in the hopes that we’d win the inevitable bidding war to buy it. We lost that house to a higher and better offer. As we went back to the drawing board, we decided to up our target purchase price to match the offer we made on this house that we lost, and we got an updated pre approval letter from Citi Private for the higher purchase price amount.
We expanded the boundaries of our search area, and last week we came across another house that would be awesome to buy. The house has been on the market for over 30 days with not a single offer. The agent said that there was no offer when we toured the property at the Sunday open house. Sunday night we submitted an offer. On Wednesday we got an aggressive counteroffer that said: the seller would deliver seller disclosures 5 days after acceptance and the buyer would have a total of 7 days to remove most contingencies, including reviewing and accepting seller disclosures, doing all inspections and reviewing all reports, approving the preliminary title report, and securing homeowners insurance. It also said that the buyer agrees to accept the property condition “as is” and agrees that the seller will not credit the buyer for any repairs. Last, the seller asked to stay in possession, at no cost to the seller, for an extended period of time after the close of escrow. Edward (generously) mostly accepted those terms and immediately countered back with a price very close to the asking price. The seller had us wait while he considered and countered a different offer that happened to come in at the same time as our counteroffer, and ultimately our counteroffer was signed and accepted! Citi Private locked in a rate of 6% 30 years fixed (rates went up from the time of the preapproval letter and so the rate adjusted from 5.5 to 6%). And we are set for inspections this week Tuesday! (To Be Continued Next Week….)
Our local community is devastated and grieving a very young and very special woman, Sarah Chana Fasman, who left us this weekend. Sarah Chana was Esti’s kindergarten teacher and she was an incredible educator. There was a perpetual calm, patient, and yet hyper excited enthusiastic and upbeat curious energy about Sarah Chana. Sarah Chana always looked at you with shining eyes, fully engaged, and entirely ready to laugh and marvel at the clever perspective that you’d present. Sarah Chana was artistic, creative, and immaculate, and the projects her students brought home from her classroom were smart and impeccably executed. Every parent wanted their child to be in Sarah Chana’s class because she genuinely loved and cared for each little student, and the kids thrived in her classroom. When my daughters, Miriam and Raizy, were in high school, there was an assembly at the end of every school year where students received the peer-selected “Eishet Chayil Woman of Valor Award”; Sarah Chana’s daughter won the award multiple times. On Purim, Sarah Chana consistently did the holiday best; her family had flawlessly executed coordinating creative costumes and their matching themed food gift packages were clever, tasty, and neatly packaged just right. Sarah Chana was hard working, efficient, and capable, but the way I remember her is as a person who was passionate about living life with energy, enthusiasm, and an eager appreciation for every precious moment of every day.
Sarah Chana was 49 and she had so much life left to live. She’s obviously so needed by her family, friends, community, and all the people in her life. My thoughts today are sadness for her beautiful life cut short, admiration for her short life well lived as a sincerely good person, and aspiration for all of us to live with the eager anticipation, appreciation, and respect for each day and for each person we engage in our day. Life is precious and short. Each day and each one of us matters.
Xoxoxoxo,
Sheri
