This beautiful exchange

We have officially received two different offers on the house. The first one was a couple of months ago. After an hour of negotiations, standing in the hot Carolina sun, we finally reached an agreement with a family of four. However, after weeks of trying to get them to return our calls, we decided to move on and figure that they couldn’t get the financing for the house.

Our second offer came earlier this week. A guy stopped by, on his own, to look at the house. He seemed very interested, having just moved down here from Washington D.C. four days ago, and eagerly looking for a house for his family. He was a nice guy and all, but he felt the need to keep reminding us that “it’s a buyers market” while asking us to pay for his closing costs. Since he didn’t come with an agent whose commission we would have to pay, we said that we would pay up to a certain percent of the closing costs. He shook our hands before he left and told us he would be in touch.

Well, not two hours later, he calls the house and talks to Tony. Having been advised by his financial person, he tried to get us to cut out our realtor. Tony, being the man that he his, quickly told the other guy that we would not do business that way. The rest of the conversation was still a bit irritating, but by the end of the night, we thought we might have a serious buyer.

The next day, the guy calls again. He starts off by telling us that he has bad news. He only pre-qualified for X amount. Now, X amount is about $25,000 less than the price of the house. Okay, that’s fine, sorry it won’t work out. But, he doesn’t seem too bothered by that, being a “buyers market”and all. He goes on to tell us that he would like to buy our house for “said amount” and would still like for us to cover all of the closing costs.!<Cough> <Cough> Tony quickly told him that we would not sell the house for that amount, which is $12,000 less than what we paid for it. To which he replies, “Well, if you change your mind…” Not gonna happen. The market ain’t THAT bad.

So, we have someone looking at the house today, and with the weekend upon us, hopefully we’ll get another bite. Maybe, just maybe, that third offer will be the one we’ve been waiting and praying for!