House Is Sold!

My counter offer to the previous offer was rejected. The buyer did not want to come up with the extra cash or to make the earnest money non-refundable. His agent said she's been trying to get him a house for a couple months, so I guess he's pretty picky. Could be a good thing he backed out.

Yesterday afternoon, my agent received a rather strange offer: it was from a family-run real estate agency here in the Valley which is rather large and whose members are all Realtors. The offer was for $175,000 but the buyer's name was "name and/or nominee." Of course, anyone who has read anything about birddogging recognizes that phrase and what it means - that the person making the offer likely won't be the buyer and will be looking for someone else to buy it. The offer also wanted a 45 day escrow (30 is normal) and they wanted their earnest money to be refundable anytime during the first 2 weeks after contract acceptance. The cover letter to the fax stated that this agent had lots of investors willing to buy properties. It also stated they would beat any other offers by $500 up to a maximum price of $184,000.

I rejected this offer. Or rather, we were going to sit on it until Wednesday, 9 PM, which was when it expired. I felt this offer was obviously a mass-market type thing by an agent who puts out tons of offers in the hopes of getting one accepted and then finding a buyer for it. The way it was written, I wouldn't have been able to entertain any other offers for two weeks and, if the guy changed his mind or couldn't find a buyer, he could walk away for free, wasting two weeks of my time. We decided to sit on the offer for as long as possible before rejecting it because this would give us a competing offer if another offer came in. A little ammunition for a bidding war, if you will.

Late last night, my agent got another offer. This one was from the agent of the guy above who rejected my counter offer. She decided the property would be great for her father, so she put in an offer for $181,000 with a $2,000 earnest money deposit and a $7,000 down payment. The deposit is non-refundable after the inspection period. They are paying for the appraisal and home warranty. Her father is pre-approved from his bank. This offer was for $1,000 over list price and I can't find anything else wrong with it. I accepted it and escrow will be opened today!