Tales From The Front: Sometimes It's Not All About The Money

Most sales usually come down to one thing: money. Is the buyer offering enough of it to make the seller happy? 99% of the time, that's all that's involved. It's purely a business transaction, plain and simple. However, every so often, there are other criteria that factor into the sale. Such is the case with this particular homebuying tale. And, believe it or not, it actually has a happy ending! My wife and I are about to close on a house in East Hampton.

We’d been following the house on line at Corcoran.com for 3-4 months. It was out of our price range. We emailed back and forth with the broker every so often to see if the sellers had some price flexibility. They did not. In fact, some months earlier they had rejected an offer that was 50k higher than what it was listed at when we started following it. About one month ago, the broker emailed and said sellers were dropping the price 250k and that the house would sell the next day. We had to get out to EH the next day if we wanted the house. the next day it was the one and only snow storm of the year so we couldn’t make it out. So, I thought we were out of the game. Broker said don’t worry because everyone cancelled due to weather but they were all rescheduled to the next day. We rent a car, drive out, walk through and really love the house. We make a full price offer. Broker tells us that’s great but there are already 4 other full price offers on the table?some all cash. We were not all cash so I figured we were out of the running especially due to the fact that it’s tough to get a mortgage these days. So my wife, my 2 year old daughter and I drive home. Crushed.

Broker calls us in the car and says due to the fact that the sellers also own the place next door, they are more concerned with who their new neighbors will be than getting the highest price possible. So, sellers ask all the bidders to submit a personal statement explaining who they are, why they love the house and why they deserve to be the winning bidder. Sort of like a co-op board application. So, now we are back in the game. My wife and I prepare the personal statement with photos and the requested financial disclosure. We also have to agree to close within 30 days and to sign a contract without a financing contingency (yikes). Despite the obvious fears we hit send.

We get picked and beat out the all cash bidders. Success. Then the broker tells us one of the all cash bidders raised the bid 50k and offered to buy all the furniture for 75k. So, I thought we were out of the game bc we couldn’t match the higher offer. Broker tells us sellers are willing to accept our bid if we agree to buy all furniture for 60k. having no other options, we agree. We’re back in the game. The next 30 days were consumed with getting a mortgage which proved difficult despite a 40% down payment!

Long story short, we did the final walk through last weekend and we love the house. We are closing this Friday.

At this point, the buyers have closed on the home. They did have to fight off the advances of a few more bidders on the way to signing on the dotted line, though: One offered them $50K to buy the contract. Also of note: The home is already available for rent.