So we’ve been counter-offered. We haven’t seen the final document yet, but we understand that what we are going to see we won’t like.
Annoying!
The agent-to-agent talk is that the owner is going to counter-offer us by full asking price AND she has decided to add a weeks occupancy for her tenant/squatter. The first part doesn’t surprise me while the second part is just annoying and maybe illegal. We’re hoping that since there was universal displeasure about that part between me and my agent and her agent that she’ll come up with a better option. She could avoid this by simply moving the closing date to the day her tenant can move.
I’m annoyed because it seems very unusual that when negotiating that a party would not try to compromise and meet you half way but would instead up the ante. My guess is that this is a stall technique and she’s hoping I won’t accept the counter so she will be free to listen to other offers while we re-think our price.
Um… I’m no dummy
This is where a bit of reality sets in for us. We don’t need to buy this house as bad as she needs to sell it. She has her taxes due, she has a mortgage due… And she doesn’t live there. (And pays higher taxes for the privledge.) We also see that she bought the house only a year ago and paid a lot more than the market value for it… So we’re going to need to be extra careful about the inspection.
Long story short
She’s either going to negotiate with us or lose out on the opportunity to sell at this time. Our area is in a bigtime “buyers market” and the average house sits on the market for over 100 days. This one has now been on 14 days total. With my mission trip now 7 days away, I can’t afford to play too many games.
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