First Visit

At first, I could not get hold of the seller’s agent (we weren’t working with a buyer’s agent). It’s just across the bridge from where I work, maybe 10-12 minutes away, so after work, the day after Mark had discovered the property, I did a drive-by of it. I parked, got out of my car, stared up at it, and without even walking around the back I immediately pulled out my phone and called Mark. I believe I said something like, “It’s awesome, dude. It’s huge. And awesome.” Somewhere in that conversation I also mentioned that the van parked across the street had an Obama sticker on the bumper.





It is a lovely block. There are some modest homes and some gorgeous ones, and all are well-kept. Later, when we went for our inspection, the nextdoor neighbor (whose newer, brick-with-white-trim house is beautiful and pristine) smiled and waved at us; a little while later, the lady across the street (of the Obama van) was out in her yard with her dog, and she did the same. It’s on 4th Street, which puts it on the “right side” of 5th Street for our taste; 5th Street is a very busy, 4-lane thoroughfare, so if we were going to move to downtown St. Charles we did not want 5th Street to be between us and the historic heart of the town, Main Street, because we wanted to be able to easily walk there. (We love leaving the car behind.) At one end of the block (and directly at the end of “our” alley) is a big, beautiful, stone church, whose (real) bells are heard loud and clear at the house…



The house is a 5-minute walk to the north end of Main Street; a 5-minute walk to the Foundry Art Centre; a 10-minute walk to Frontier Park (which runs along the Missouri River); a 10-minute walk (or 2-min bike ride) to the Katy Trail cycling path; and a 20-minute walk to the Trailhead Brewery on the southern part of Main Street.



When I finally got hold of the extremely harried selling agent, I really expected to be told that the house was under contract. In fact, from the moment I had seen the listing, I expected that the house was already under contract. This one had only been on the market for 2-3 weeks (the interval during which I’d stopped my daily trawling of Zillow and Realtor.com), and we had been watching houses that had been on the market for several months to a year or longer, waiting for the seller to get just desperate enough to take a low-ball offer. (As an aside, Zillow.com rules for such purposes, usually giving the entire selling and pricing history of a house, so you know what the seller paid and how much/how often they’ve lowered their price since they’ve been on the market.) However, for a brick house of that size, at that price, mentioned as being a “possible short sale,” even at just 3 weeks on the market I thought we would be too late. Instead, I was told, “You’ve really come in at the eleventh hour.” He then told me there were several offers on the house, and that they were “negotiating a contract.” But… he told me that we could go see it, and he advised me that if we liked it, we should come back to him ASAP with our best offer.

We arranged to see it that very night. He would have the neighbor leave the key under the mat.