If you won’t join ‘em, beat ‘em
By Shari Kulha – National Post
Last week I wrote a blog item about my househunting experience and how every place my husband and I wanted to see sold before we could get to it. Having experienced the frustration of one quick sale after another for a number of weeks, and being under a time constraint to buy, we rejigged our strategy and got aggressive.
We didn’t want to get involved in a bidding war, so when we found a house on mls.ca that we wanted, we made a viewing appointment for the Friday before the first open house weekend, and that evening put in an offer the seller couldn’t refuse: Full asking price, a 27-day closing and no conditions (*). He accepted, and we are now the proud owners of an awesome, completely renovated house in a very hot ‘hood, and we’re not feeling at all bad for having pulled the rug out from under a weekend’s worth of househunters.
Lesson learned? Ignore the usual niceties of keeping to scheduled open houses and such, prepare to leave the office during work hours when a new listing appears, and put the rest of your life on hold. Tell your agent to be aggressive, and learn as much as you can about the seller’s situation and use it to your advantage (for example, our seller was a professional renovator who, I figured, needed to get his cash pronto so he could move on to the next flip. I credit watching a lot of HGTV for that little tip).
(*) A small caveat re “no conditions” — I would never recommend buying without conditions. We did include a clause that allowed us to confirm that our pre-approved mortgage would indeed be granted (they’re not always). The house had an extensive inspection report on view, and as all its infrastructure was brand new, we were comfortable not including an inspection clause, though in other cases I would include such a clause as well. And now that the paperwork’s done and dusted, who’s got boxes?
————————————————————————————————————
Contact the Jeffrey Team for more information - 416-388-1960
————————————————————————————————————
Incoming search terms